A century-old military family falls in a single day. Xiao Lingyi, the exceptionally gifted legitimate daughter of the Xiao family, is skinned and dismembered by her own kin, then left to die in a dungeon. Her lingering soul refuses to fade, and she is reborn as Shen Qingge, a concubine in Prince Ning's household who is bullied at every turn: a country girl her family has cast aside like a pawn.
Wearing Shen Qingge's face and burdened by her disgrace, Xiao Lingyi treads carefully in Prince Ning's residence. She conceals her sharpness and pretends to be timid, but cannot hide the military family's steel in her bones or the mysterious abilities inherited from a sacred maiden of the Southern Frontier. The cold and astute Prince Ning, Chu Ye, has already noticed something unusual about her. He tests her at every turn, drawing her into the heart of a maelstrom of power. An assassination attempt against her becomes the moment when everything is laid bare. Xiao Lingyi casts off her disguise and, revealing herself as the last surviving member of the Xiao family, makes a cold pact with Chu Ye: she will help him bring down the Crown Prince and the Duke of An, and he will help her clear her family's name and take revenge on her enemies!
Murderous schemes lurk throughout the prince's residence, where witchcraft, poisons, and hidden arrows are hard to guard against. The court is in turmoil, and thunderous accusations of treason ring out. Xiao Lingyi makes herself a pawn and wields her hatred as a blade. The revenge curse ignited by her sacred maiden blood is both a weapon to wound her enemies and a poison that devours her soul. Together with Chu Ye, she follows the clues and exposes the shocking plot behind the Heart-Eating Life-Substitution Talisman, leading to the former dynasty's hidden treasure, the Mountains and Rivers Pendant, and the dark witch cult lurking in the Southern Frontier.
From a dilapidated courtyard to a palace awash in blood, from secret feuds in the prince's residence to the ruthless infighting of the court, Xiao Lingyi presses forward over mountains of corpses and seas of blood. When the Mountains and Rivers Pendant emerges and the cult's leader steps out of the shadows, she offers her broken body as a sacrifice and unleashes the blood curse. Before the secret vault of Longyuan, she faces the dark source that orchestrated the tragedy of her life in a final battle to the death. This is an epic tale of revenge, as a lonely soul faces death and is reborn, with schemes for power intertwined with witchcraft
Worth reading! But the ending. . . . . .