The God of War Falls, and the Empress Washes the Realm in Blood for Her Child

Historical romance | Political intrigue | Tragic love | Pei Zhao died at the very moment the empress turned away.

He was Great Zhou’s sharpest sword, fighting for her for half his life. In the end, he used his own body to take the poisoned arrow meant for her. His soul lingered after death, trapped in the imperial palace, where he finally realized that beneath her icy gaze lay a love she had kept secret for twenty years.

She was Ji Yao, an iron-willed empress who had murdered her father to seize the throne and ruled with ruthless resolve. The court officials called her cruel and heartless, never knowing that every night she sat alone in the mourning hall, running her fingers over the armor he had worn in life as bloody tears soaked her memorials.

The court was rife with intrigue. The chancellor joined forces with the feudal lords, using Pei Zhao’s death to spark a rebellion. But she moved her pieces across the board: faking the deaths of his former followers, setting up an array of soul-locking arrows, and hiding the skeletons of seven feudal lords beneath a dry well in the Cold Palace... Every move was a killing blow in her quest for revenge on his behalf.

Then the truth tore everything apart: his death had been a scheme carefully orchestrated by the late emperor and the King of Chu. Defying fate, she used a blood-forbidden art to keep him by her side for twelve hours, just to say one thing:

“Pei Zhao, in our next life, let me be the one to love you first.”