The Lone Phoenix of the Ashen Palace

The pampered “future empress” becomes the target of her father, the chancellor, who is out to kill her. Fleeing to the borderlands, she unexpectedly meets Xiao Che, an abandoned prince living under the assumed name “A Che,” on a wasteland strewn with the dead and starving. Though this illegitimate son was demoted by the late emperor over the “witchcraft case,” he is actually the late emperor’s hidden contingency, deliberately concealed at the frontier to protect him from persecution by the three major factions.

From wary strangers to allies who work side by side to break through one crisis after another, Lin Weiwan and Xiao Che gradually uncover the tangled truths behind the “witchcraft case,” the late emperor’s death, and the northern desert’s collusion with the enemy, amid the borderland winds and sands and the undercurrents in the capital. They rally scholars from humble families, border troops whose supplies have been withheld, and former palace servants. Though outnumbered and vulnerable, they stand against powerful ministers entrenched across the realm. In the dark, corrupt game of the dynasty, they become each other’s salvation and the “Lone Phoenix” that stirs the world, ultimately exposing every disguise hiding the maelstrom of power and reshaping the fate of Great Yong.