A string of brides mysteriously drop dead in the capital. While performing an autopsy, Lin Qingyue, daughter of the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, discovers a hidden weapon from the Tang clan of Shu embedded in a victim's skull. When the seventh bride's veil is lifted, the face beneath is her own. A blood-red mandarin-duck pendant leads to the secret of the cat-swapping-for-prince plot from eighteen years ago. Forced to join forces to investigate, the mysterious physician Shen Jinghong has a cinnabar mole at the corner of her eye, exactly matching the position of Lin Qingyue's birthmark. When they both fall in love with the same prince, they discover that every night of passion conceals the sound of venomous insects gnawing away. As a thousand ice coffins rise from beneath the moat, they gaze at each other in a bronze mirror. The true antidote to the twin-borne gu poison is to cut open the other's beating heart with their own hands...
