[Cool, independent healer × obsessive black-lotus heart|Fated entanglement / rivalry for her affection / bonds forged in illusions / Miaojiang poison arts / blood pact, twists within twists reveal the truth behind the massacre]
In a revenge plot fueled by blood, who is really pulling the strings? As the bloody truth comes to light, was the massacre that wiped out her family truly set in motion by the one she loved most?
Jiang Nanxing offers up her bloodline of medicinal spirits as a sacrifice, vowing to tear away every false face stained with the blood of her loved ones.
But four men charge into her destiny, each trailing blood:
Xiao Jinye, a wild young wolf from Miaojiang, spends twenty years with her in an illusion and transfers his life-bound Gu into her body. His white hair tangles around her poisoned fingertips, yet he laughs softly, teeth leaving a bloody mark on her wrist: “Dear sister, will you come with me to the underworld?”
Xie Yunzhi, master of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, rolls his prayer beads as he pins her before a bronze divination chart, the bitterness of a Dust-Forgetting Pill still clinging to his throat. “A tribulation? Then I’ll defy heaven and change my fate!” But the instrument he holds, the Star Chart of Heaven’s Mandate, was what he used to condemn her parents to death.
And Wen Jibai, the imperial physician who coughs blood yet still insists on dressing her in a bridal gown, burns the lost life-prolonging incense of the City of Medicinal Spirits in his brazier. Red candles blaze, but neither of them knows that the life-and-death pact in their marriage contract has been inked with the blood of her heart.
When the last of the Ember-Scent Incense burns away and the Imperial Jade Seal summons the ghosts of the Nine Provinces, Gu Wenxi insists on taking her hand. “Our blood binds us, and we share one fate. Whatever lies ahead, I’ll be there.”
