Glory in the Register of the Condemned

[Strong heroine + no brainless sweetness + power struggles and tragic romance + rise from a convict's status + happy ending]

She is an insignificant creature marked with the brand of a convict, a plaything for anyone to trample.

Yet she turns her zither into a blade and her heart into a chess piece, carving a path through the bloody battlefield of political intrigue!

When an amnesty decree shatters ten years of shackles, she stands in the sunlight and smiles.

“This glorious age, shining so brightly, will finally bloom for a convict slave!”

To fight for a chance to live, Xie Zhuo [tears away her disguise of her own accord], performing “Ember Phoenix,” a song that shakes the heavens. It catches the attention of Xiao Zhi, the living King of Hell and commandant of the Prison Office. He admires the ruthless resolve in her music, and sees in her eyes a sharpness blazing with enough force to burn away every obstacle.

With a single transfer order, she leaves the pleasure quarter and enters the Purgatory Office. From then on, the grim imperial prison becomes her chessboard, and the treacherous human heart becomes her blade. Though still a convict slave, she interrogates high-born nobles, solves bizarre cold cases and overturns wrongful convictions. Wherever her music reaches, lies have nowhere to hide. Each brilliant investigation and razor-sharp interrogation earns her a little more room to maneuver, but also draws more furious jealousy and schemes.

Xiao Zhi is the one who pulls her strings, and also her cage. He grants her authority and protects her, yet he also pushes her into even more dangerous whirlpools, wielding her sharp edge to cleave through the court and stir up a storm. Love and exploitation intertwine; salvation and harm coexist.

Her sharpness is her only path to survival, and the curse that could doom her to eternal torment. At the heart of the maelstrom of power, she makes herself a chess piece and her bones a blade. When the blood-soaked truth finally comes to light, will she still remember that all she ever wanted was to be recognized as a human being?