At seventeen, she should have married a good man. But because of a feud from years ago, on her wedding day, General Ye Zhao of the Northern Frontier abducted her and turned her into a camp prostitute, at everyone's mercy.
To save herself, she threw herself at the man's side. “General, I was wrong! Please, don't leave me behind!”
“Weren't you so eager to run away? Why have you stopped now? Are you content to be my slave?”
She stayed by his side, pretending to be docile and obedient, until he gradually became so captivated by her that he could no longer pull himself away.
But when she married him and seized the chance to flee, she discovered that the entire Liu family had vanished.
With nowhere else to turn, she sought refuge in Prince Huai's residence and became his favored concubine overnight.
She trusted him and loved him, even risking her life to enter the palace and become his pawn within its walls.
She helped him rise to power, but all he wanted was to bring back the woman he had always cherished.
Her wholehearted courage had been nothing more than a stepping stone on his path to power.
Their love of old vanished in the blink of an eye. An edict of dismissal condemned her to the cold palace.
Only after she had completely lost the man who once treasured her above all else did she finally understand that she had given her heart to the wrong person for all those years.
From then on, she put away her naivety and became cool-headed and ruthless, stirring up storms in the imperial harem.
Years later, his eyes red, he asked her, “Did you ever have even the slightest bit of genuine affection for me?”
She smiled softly as she stepped across the bloodstained palace stairs. “Your Majesty, do you know that my heart was buried long ago in the heavy snow that fell over the cold palace?”
