The Dark Guard's Art of Winning Hearts

He wagers his life on a carefully plotted romance.

One is a cog in the darkness, the other a poison beneath imperial power.

Ji Xiao, the orphan of a master artisan from the previous dynasty, carries the blood feud of his slaughtered family and becomes the third prince’s secret guard. But after discovering that Lin Ye is a man disguised as a woman, he is drawn into a deadly game that could topple the empire.

He is a beautiful madman, and the hand moving the pieces.

The third prince, Lin Ye, hides behind the guise of a wastrel. Using his identity as a courtesan house’s top attraction, he builds a network of spies, until the secret guard who keeps “bumping into” him in the bathhouse shatters his perfect twenty-year disguise with a rainstorm of pear blossoms needles.

“Your Highness always says a secret guard has no right to fall in love.” Ji Xiao pinned Lin Ye against the heart of the star chart formation. The bloodstained white blindfold covered his eyes. “Then can this mechanism of the Twenty-Eight Mansions, capable of slaying gods and Buddhas, lock away your true feelings?”