What? The Crown Prince Is Reading Minds Again Today

In a battered carriage bound for exile in Longxi, Li Chengqian hears the guards silently cursing him, wishing his “lame leg would kill him soon.” Even the spoiled steamed bun handed over by a maid comes with a mocking smile. Only Cui Mingyue, the court lady assigned to watch him, stands primly outside the curtain. In her mind, though, she's wildly imagining The Deposed Crown Prince and the Assassin's Night: “When the blade parts his robes, the old scar at his waist is even more enticing than the hero in a romance...” This female spy, who is supposed to keep an eye on his treasonous schemes, hides behind the jingle of her silver bells while secretly sketching steamy scenes on a handkerchief. An order recalling him to Chang'an and a secret letter from Tibet arrive at the same time. Li Chengqian notices that the silver bell at Cui Mingyue's waist is engraved with a Miao borderlands scorpion motif, similar to the prophetic totem he remembers from Wu Meiniang's secret chamber. At court, he uses mind-reading to expose the scheming behind Li Tai's fake “brotherly affection”: “Just beg me to save you.” Meanwhile, she brandishes the Book of Songs and cries, “That's a carriage-sex trope!” From “Guan Guan cry the ospreys,” she somehow deciphers the Tibetan invasion route. Her silver bell rings, and poisonous insects swarm like black mist to butcher the hidden agents. The underground palace beneath Qinglong Temple opens. On a mural surrounded by a thousand skeletons, Wu Meiniang's hand-drawn prophecy of the “Kaiyuan Calamity” resonates with the scorpion mark over Cui Mingyue's heart. When his mind-reading fails before the complicated emotions in her eyes, Li Chengqian suddenly understands: this court lady, who is always devising forced-romance plots at the brink of death, is the key to unraveling the prophecy. With Tibetan curved swords closing in and deadly schemes lurking throughout the court, are this “mind-reading, useless deposed crown prince” and this “fujoshi spy” the ones moving the pieces, or the sacrificial offerings foretold by prophecy?