The Jade Pear's Soul Shattered by Cawing Crows

At a wartime wedding in Jiangzhou, Huangfu Li presses the muzzle of her gun against Tuoba Hanshan's heart. “Does the young marshal's wife want to murder her husband?” he says with a laugh, gripping the barrel and wiping the rouge tears from the corner of her eye with his fingertips. When her bridal veil falls, she sees the snowy night from ten years ago reflected in his eyes. The young general who once rescued her from a sea of flames has become the warlord she must assassinate. The yellowed engagement photograph in her sleeve makes her fingertips tremble. “Shoot,” he says, tearing open her bloodstained wedding dress, “or stay and be my caged bird.” Outside the window, a black crow suddenly cries out mournfully. Dawn's light cuts across the bridal chamber, strewn with the wreckage of their wedding red.