In the middle years of the Dayin dynasty, imperial authority has waned, border troubles are mounting, and the court and the martial world are tangled together. Shen Jinghong, eldest legitimate daughter of the Duke of Zhenguo’s household, grew up training alongside her father, Shen Zhan, a great general who commands a powerful army. She is versed in military strategy and skilled in medicine and poison, and secretly controls the martial world intelligence network known as the Netherworld Pavilion. In the capital, she is the only remarkable young noblewoman who can debate state affairs with princes and cross swords with generals.
In her previous life, she devoted herself to the Seventh Prince, Xiao Che, and poured her family’s strength into helping him seize the throne. But on the eve of his coronation, Xiao Che and her half-sister Shen Rouwei conspired to frame her, accusing the Duke of Zhenguo’s household of treason and collusion with the enemy. Her father died in battle and was posthumously smeared as a coward who had taken his own life. Her entire family was executed, and she died after drinking poisoned wine in the snowy grounds of the cold palace, watching her enemies ascend to the throne as emperor and empress.
Reborn with vengeance in her heart, Shen Jinghong returns to the age of fifteen: her mother has just died, her stepmother and half-sister have yet to gain a firm foothold, Xiao Che is still pretending to be all smiles, and her family’s power remains intact. This time, she casts off her innocence, wielding schemes as her blade and strategy as her shield. She swears to protect her family, make her enemies pay for their blood debt, and take control of this troubled realm.
On her path to revenge, the gentle and patient Third Prince Xiao Jingyuan enters the struggle for power on her behalf; the proud wolf king Helian Zhao falls for her in an enemy camp; Lu Junxie, master of the Netherworld Pavilion, risks his life to protect her; and Yan Zhixuan, a senior physician at the Imperial Medical Academy, helps her break through obstacles with his knowledge of medicine and poison. From mutual suspicion to entrusting their lives to one another, she ultimately becomes the heart of a power network of her own, setting in motion the prelude to a phoenix ruling the realm.
