He is the most notorious treacherous adviser in the Great Liang dynasty, the jade-faced Asura, Liao Wuhen.
People say he is ruthless and helps tyrants do evil, but they don't know he is afflicted with a strange poison and has no more than three years to live. Everything he does is simply to protect his frail younger sister and scrape by amid the powerful.
His only wish is to stay alive, even if he has to live like a dog.
The Seventh Prince, He Mingjiu, is as refined as jade, patient and inscrutable. In this corrupt court, he is the only clear-eyed man who wields a sword.
Seeking to investigate an old case in which a loyal official's entire family was slaughtered, he carefully maneuvers closer to Liao Wuhen. But through their repeated clashes, he glimpses the shattered soul beneath that icy mask.
One is forced to commit evil to survive; the other must root out corruption for the sake of the people.
They should have been natural enemies, yet amid the schemes and flashing blades of the political maelstrom, they develop a forbidden fondness and love for each other.
But when the truth behind the old bloodshed comes to light, Liao Wuhen's hands are stained with the blood of He Mingjiu's closest kin.
And the poison inside him stems from a shocking conspiracy spanning more than twenty years.
A pawn and the player moving the pieces, a sinner and the one who offers redemption, lovers and enemies: in this deadly game played with the realm as the board, how can he go on living? And how can he love the person he should never have loved?
The cruelest punishment in this world has never been death. It is making someone live and watch everything they love fall apart before their eyes.
