Scheming in Jade Capital

Beneath the strings of Ye Zhao, a courtesan’s musician, lies a secret code for restoring a fallen dynasty. Ten years ago, Southern Chu was crushed by Great Qi. Still a child, she hid in the pleasure quarter and used her family’s ancestral Crane’s Cry score to build a spy network. The notes of gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu encode secret orders; only when the Chu strings are soaked in blood can they sound the former dynasty’s last wishes, rallying its old followers to overthrow the new regime.

But the rakish Prince of Qi, Xiao Chengyu, is the sharpest blade in this game. Beneath his carefree facade, he investigates “Southern Chu remnants,” though his mother was a Southern Chu princess, and half a jade pendant holds the bloodline of revenge. As he uses music to bait her, he knows she will take the hook for the sake of restoration. Where she hides the sharp edge in secret letters, she sees through his ruthlessness and his plan to kill with borrowed blades.

With the Crown Prince’s frame-up putting a blade to their necks, and the bloodline of the former dynasty unearthed from his mother’s coffin, the two realize they are both survivors of Southern Chu. One wants Great Qi to pay for the fall of her country; the other wants to keep the people safe and the fires of war unlit. Musical codes and secret letters lead to the hidden imperial vein. Old grudges from the former dynasty collide with power struggles in the new one. When bloody schemes scorch their hearts, the contest between the musician and the prince becomes the mournful “Crane’s Cry,” a song that will overturn the dynasty. Will they rekindle the fires of war, or restore the old culture through the written word and protect the people?