Shen Xingjin, the 22-year-old daughter of an imperial physician, and Xie Cangming, the 25-year-old heir to the Prince of Zhenbei, died in the fire at Qianyuan Hall. Both were reborn in the seventeenth year of Yongchang, when Shen was 16 and Xie was 19. Shen Xingjin retained all her memories of her previous life, while Xie Cangming remembered only the moment she protected him as she died. She knew the whole story; he was lost in his feelings for her.
The flames rekindle: On the night Shen Xingjin was reborn, she buried alive the henchmen of her stepmother, who had killed her birth mother. She replaced the poison with a drug that induced a deathlike state and had it served in her stepsister’s meal.
To get close to the crown prince, Xie Cangming deliberately flirted with Shen Xingjin, only for her to throw him over her shoulder into a lotus pond. “If you want to play, Heir, I’ll play along to the very end.” The scene became the talk of the capital.
A game of secret identities: Disguised as the “Barehanded Miracle Healer,” Shen Xingjin cured the Empress Dowager’s migraines and won the privilege of entering and leaving the palace freely. At the same time, she used Snow Listening Tower to buy up the pawnshops belonging to the Third Prince. At the plum-blossom banquet, her stepsister tried to drug her again. Shen Xingjin turned the tables, arranging for her stepsister and the Third Prince to be caught in a compromising situation in front of everyone. Xie Cangming “happened” to lead the emperor past just then.
Stars and moon shine together: The two were ordered to investigate a military funds case. During a night raid in the desert, Shen Xingjin was gravely wounded while taking an arrow meant for Xie Cangming. While she lay unconscious for three days, Xie Cangming massacred the enemy camp. Holding her in his arms, he made his first confession since being reborn: “For making you die once, they’ll repay you a million times over.”
At the brink of death, Xie Cangming dreamed of the scene in Qianyuan Hall in his previous life and realized that Shen Xingjin had died in his place. The final chapter of the Heavenly Dao: The crown prince revealed his identity from a previous dynasty and opened the altar, while the Heavenly Dao Alliance launched its “World Purification Plan.” Shen Xingjin used her medical knowledge to modify the plague virus and turn it against the extraterrestrial creatures, while Xie Cangming led the Torch Dragon Guards in a strike against the enemy leader. After the new emperor ascended the throne, the two refused all rewards. They destroyed the altar and retired from public life.
An epilogue reveals that the two used the power of their jade pendants to build a hospital. The inscription beneath their portrait reads: “We once burned among the stars; now we shine forever.”
