Qing Ci, Not Too Late

[A heroine unrivaled in both medicine and poison × a prince who is cold on the outside and dangerously obsessive within] [The growth of a healer + political intrigue and revenge + two powerful leads who flirt with each other] She wields medicine as a blade, while he uses power as a shield. Their story blends sweetness and heartbreak with political intrigue and a triumphant comeback. From Jiangnan to the capital, he protects her as she grows. The day her family was destroyed, Shen Qingci clutched the oilcloth bundle her father had pressed into her hands and stood in the rain with her younger brother in her arms. They claimed her father had hidden forbidden medicine from the previous dynasty and was a traitor plotting rebellion. But all she remembered was what her father had told her while teaching her to identify herbs: “Medicine can save others, and it can protect you, too.” To clear her family’s name, she took her younger brother to seek help from distant relatives in the capital, only to be driven away like a stray dog. She opened a clinic among the common folk and made incense for the nobility. With her medical skills and talent for perfumery, she established herself in the capital, only to stumble upon an even greater conspiracy. The mysterious man who had barged into her clinic on that rainy night turned out to be Prince Jing, Xiao Jue, rumored to live a carefree life in seclusion. Clutching his bleeding wound, he stared at her with eyes cold as ice. “Save me, and I will keep the Shen family safe.” She didn’t know then that one day this man would clear the thorns from her path at court, stand against the entire court for her, and roar amid the bloodshed of a palace coup, “Whoever dares touch her, I’ll wipe out their entire clan!” From the rainy lanes of Jiangnan to the palace walls of the capital, she tended his wounds while he cleared her family’s name. But no one had told her that the half-map inside the oilcloth bundle held more than proof of her father’s innocence. It also concealed a secret capable of toppling a dynasty. “Xiao Jue, did you approach me for the map, or for me?” He held her beneath a sky full of peach blossoms, his voice low and hoarse. “You silly girl, from the first moment I saw you, you were my life.”