Where Yuchen Returns, Shanning Wields Her Sword

The baby girl with a mysterious past, rescued from a coffin, became the treasure Er Yuehong kept in his heart.

Back then, Zhang Qishan led the Nine Gates in raiding a great tomb, and she was lifted from the tomb owner's coffin, her origins a mystery. Unable to bear the thought of her dying, Zhang Qishan sent her away. Er Yuehong thought her features resembled those of his late wife, Yatou, and adopted her, recording her as Yatou's daughter. He told the outside world that she was his and Yatou's biological child. No one knew the truth except the older generation of the Nine Gates. He named her Hong Shanning, hoping she would live a virtuous life, far from turmoil. He raised her to be as gentle and kind as Yatou, while also passing on some of the stubborn decisiveness he had shown in his youth.

By then, Yatou had passed away, Chen Pi had betrayed his master, and Er Yuehong had withdrawn from the world. Her senior brother, Xie Yuchen, became the person closest to her. She learned opera from him, her flowing water sleeves concealing a delicate grace. She also helped him manage the family business, watching as he shouldered the burden of the Xie family at just eight years old and slowly lost the innocence in his eyes amid one storm after another.

Others saw her only as the pampered girl protected by Second Master, but they didn't know she could already draw her sword and was willing to stain her hands with blood to clear every threat from Xie Yuchen's path. She wanted to protect more than the Xie family's peace: she also wanted to preserve the almost-eroded innocence of her senior brother, pure as uncarved jade. Amid the aftershocks of the Old Nine Gates, the deep affection they had forged through years of relying on each other became the most moving kind of protection.