The wine in the Cold Palace burned its way down her throat, and flames consumed her as hatred rose within. Only at the moment of her death did Shen Qingci, the legitimate daughter of the Duke of Zhenguo's household, learn that her trusted half-sister, Shen Ruowei, was a murderous demon, and that Prince Jing, Xiao Jingyuan, the man who had promised to spend his life with her, was a traitor who would bring the nation to ruin. Her family was destroyed, her loved ones died tragic deaths, and she closed her eyes bearing the blood feud of her entire clan. When she opened them again, she had returned to the eve of her sixteenth birthday ceremony. Her parents were alive, her brothers were safe, and none of the tragedies had yet come to pass.
This time, she put away her naivete and hid her weakness, wielding strategy as a blade and tempering its edge with blood and tears. At her birthday banquet, she kicked her half-sister, who had pushed someone into a pond in a staged
