The Healing Hand That Shrouds the Heavens: The Blind Consort of the Crippled Prince

The day Shen Zhiwei returned to the capital, she was a “blind woman” in every sense of the word. Her legitimate elder sister wanted her to take her place in a marriage, so Shen Zhiwei promptly blinded herself with poison and moved into the most dilapidated courtyard in the manor. By day, she was a frail, helpless, useless daughter born to a concubine, listening to her sisters' taunts and sleeping away the hours.

No one knew that, each nightfall, she became the “Ghost Hand” of the jianghu's foremost assassin organization, a master of both medicine and poison who held life and death in her hands. A single golden needle could revive the dead or take a life in an instant.

She was focused on her career, with the occasional bit of gossip as she watched her legitimate elder sister scramble for the position of Crown Princess. Then one night, while out on a mission, she met a pair of fathomless eyes. Her immediate superior, the leader of the assassin organization, looked exactly like the supposedly frail and sickly Prince Xian who used a wheelchair!

Xiao Jue had noticed something interesting too. Why did the blind, timid Shen family's concubine-born daughter sent to his manor to fulfill a marriage contract have such a similar build to the cool, striking chief physician in his organization, the one who could kill with needles?

So, in the prince's manor, he took her hand and coughed up blood “weakly.” “My dear consort, is there any hope of curing this illness of mine?” In the assassins' tower, he wrapped an arm around her waist and threatened her in a low voice. “Ghost Hand, how should I punish you for failing your mission?”

Both of them were born actors, putting on a show and trying to outdo each other, each waiting for the other to blow their secret identity first. Then, during a palace banquet, assassins swarmed in. The blind daughter of a concubine took down a whole group with a single golden needle, while the ailing prince leaped into the air, his sword flashing like flowing water.

Their eyes met. Silence fell.

Shen Zhiwei, putting away her golden needle: “Your Highness, you lost a shoe.”

Xiao Jue, flourishing his sword: “My dear consort, your eyes are better?”

In the end, this secret identity couldn't be kept under wraps.