Embers of a Lost City

(No harem, no clichés, no invincibility, no brainless decisions, no wish fulfillment. Enter at your own risk.)

Li Mubai, the descendant of a renowned scholar from Yangzhou, bears a deep blood feud and is determined to uncover the truth behind the massacre of his family.

Ye Liuxi, princess of the Jin Kingdom, was born with bare feet that could trample schemes beneath them. A cinnabar mark like blood rested between her brows, and in her palm she concealed the Xuanbing Order, capable of stirring up turmoil across the North and South.

The two first met aboard a pleasure boat in Jiangnan. He had been framed and badly wounded, and mistook her for a down-on-her-luck performer. A fleeting trace of murderous intent passed through her eyes. As they spent time together, they gradually fell for each other without realizing it.

Who could have guessed that the thunder of war would shatter the misty rain, and that Ye Liuxi’s true identity would be revealed in a letter of challenge? He held the ancestral Chronicle of Mountains and Rivers, a blood-written record of the Southern Dynasty’s secret military deployments. She bore the ambition to destroy the Song, yet was willing to fall out with her brother for his sake.

Amid the snow on a broken bridge, she pointed her sword at his throat. “We are as incompatible as fire and ice. Why cling to this?”

Years later, someone saw a man in white standing at Yanmen Pass, holding half a bloodstained piece of the Xuanbing Order against his chest as the wind scattered frost and snow from his temples.

#I’ve loved the fighting and vendettas of the martial world since I was a child, but back then all we had was a black-and-white TV. Later, at university, I read Jin Yong, Gu Long, Liang Yusheng, Wolong Sheng, Feng Ge, Sun Xiao, and Zhou Nanmu. After I started working, the great Jin Yong passed away, so I bought all of his novels again. I’ve read almost every one twice and gained a great deal from them.