Qing Dai, the capital’s foremost female coroner, is cool and restrained, carries a strange fragrance, and trusts bones, not people. Liu Qingfeng, a dashing and unconventional martial arts thief, is highly skilled and treats the law as nothing. A bizarre murder involving a “ripped-out heart” makes him her prime suspect, while she becomes the one quarry he cannot stop pursuing through the night.
From clashes at the autopsy table to probing one another in a pleasure den; from being forced to pose as a kept lover to risking their lives spying beneath the imperial bed. He uses investigating the case as an excuse to “teach” her, carefully advancing step by step as he strips away her cool façade and lures her into a chasm of desire. He takes an icy plum blossom and personally tends it until it becomes a bewitching rose, blooming for him alone.
Little do they know that once body and soul have fully entwined, the case leads to a royal family massacre from thirteen years ago and a conspiracy that could topple the dynasty. When the martial arts thief’s mask is torn away and the long-lost prince returns, he must cut into his enemy’s chest, while she must cut through the confusion surrounding the truth.
In this deadly wager with the realm itself at stake, will they ultimately be able to bare their true hearts to each other and embrace beneath a bright, pure moon at the end of a blood-soaked road?
