Jade shattered, palace toppled, embers searing the heart. At the pinnacle of power, this is a deadly dance of love and hate, offered up as a sacrifice.
Shen Hanyu, son of a former imperial physician, was born into a family wrongfully accused of a crime. He carries the secret of being “impure” and is imprisoned deep within the palace as a “medicine human.” His silver hair and gray eyes are seen as ominous signs, but they also make him a “cold jade body,” used by Emperor Xiao Che to treat an old ailment. He clings to life only to wait for his childhood sweetheart, General Lu Chen, to return and fulfill his promise to marry him.
Instead, he receives news that Lu Chen has fallen in battle, along with the cruel truth that a powerful official betrayed him. With his faith shattered, Shen Hanyu descends into madness. He no longer seeks death, but life: he wants to live and watch with his own eyes as this world that devours people collapses.
At first, Emperor Xiao Che sees him only as an antidote and a plaything. But day after day of possession and control gradually draws him into Shen Hanyu's exquisite brokenness and madness. He clips his wings and confines him, yet amid endless torment, he gives him the one thing he has never given anyone before: his true heart.
“You don't have to love me, but please stay by my side.”
“Your Majesty, the snow falls without a sound, just like my heart.”
When obsessive possessiveness meets a desire for all-consuming revenge, when twisted love and bone-deep hatred intertwine and feed on each other... In this palace prison rife with conspiracy and betrayal, what will burn away in the end: the cold dragon throne, or the heart of Cold Jade, already reduced to ashes?
We are both embers, seeking an eternal bond in each other's destruction.
