The Golden Branch's Scheme

[Crown Princess + Northern Garrison General + two powerful leads + both devoted only to each other + doting romance + intense push and pull] [The male lead is devoted to the female lead alone] At nineteen, the legitimate eldest princess Chu Li lowered her eyes and played the gentle, kindhearted daughter before Emperor Qianming. At seven, she had knelt in the snow on a winter’s night and begged her father, to no avail. After her mother’s death, she learned the importance of power and turned her gentle facade into her sharpest blade. At twenty-one, General of the Western Expedition Xiao Yichen had risen from the massacre that wiped out the Dingbei Army, forging a pack of fierce, wolf-like soldiers. He approached Chu Li, hoping to use her status as the legitimate eldest princess to break the deadlock, but found a kindred spirit in someone else who was also a pawn. At first, they both knew they were using each other, yet gradually fell as they schemed. He loved the fire still burning in her eyes; she craved the matching scars in his palm. As candlelight cast their overlapping shadows, the golden thread winding around their broken hairpin: was it a shackle of conspiracy, or a sign of hearts beginning to stir? The vermilion walls crumbled, and the throne toppled. Two people whose childhoods had been crushed by imperial power became each other’s most dangerous pieces in a game of intrigue. She sought to overturn her father’s indifference; he sought to avenge his entire family’s blood debt. Yet amid their twists and turns, they discovered that harder to relinquish than the realm was the reflection of themselves in each other’s eyes.