The Four Seasons Edict: The Foolish Consort Rules the World

She is Chu Mingzhao, the foolish legitimate daughter famous throughout the capital. By imperial decree, she is betrothed to Xiao Che, the Prince Regent known as the “Living Yama,” who has supposedly caused the deaths of three fiancées. Everyone says this is the emperor’s way of humiliating the Chu family and sending the foolish girl to her death. No one knows that behind those seemingly vacant eyes lies an icy mind that sees through the world. By day, she is the Chu family’s cast-off daughter, drooling and doing nothing but grin foolishly. By night, under the candlelight of her shabby room, she spreads out maps of the vast realm. Her four maids, each gifted in a different art and named after a solar term, are her hidden blades and ears: Jingzhe, the fighter; Guyu, the strategist; Bailu, the physician and poison expert; and Hanlu, the spy. Tax fraud involving salt? Missing military funds? Corruption within the Ministry of Personnel? The intricate games unfolding at court are already being subtly set in motion at her fingertips. One stroke of cinnabar is a death warrant for corrupt officials!

Yet before the wedding, the Prince Regent, rumored to radiate murderous energy, crashes into her secret like a ghost. He offers her “snacks” wrapped in honey, along with a silent, deadly threat: “Princess, would you like me to ‘persuade’ him for you?” As the “foolish princess” sheds her disguise and the Prince Regent reveals his inscrutable fangs, a stunning contest begins, with the realm as the board and all its people as pieces! She plots at every turn, stirring up the storm through her maids. He watches coldly, at once hunter and potential ally. Who is moving the bloodstained gold ingots and honey-coated poisoned bait, and who is being played? See how the seemingly foolish “phoenix” hides behind Jingzhe, commands the four seasons, and risks making a deal with a tiger as she takes control of her own astonishing game amid the maelstrom of overwhelming power and ambition!