Sold by her own family for fifteen taels of silver, An Changle claws her way back from hell into the world of the living. She sheds her bridal finery and takes on the identity of a young man, “An Chen,” stepping into the arena of power one step at a time.
At court, she is a newly minted imperial scholar, serving alongside the brother who sold her for his own advancement. Within the palace, she is a bewitching consort accused of bringing ruin to the realm, caught in a dangerous dance with an emperor who loves her deeply. Everyone wants to use her: her brother wants her to pave his road to success, while the emperor wants to keep her forever in a gilded cage.
But she is no longer a pawn for others to move. She smiles as she accepts each “gift,” then turns them into blades to strike at her enemies. When she finally holds all the power in the realm, she discovers that the truth she has pursued for years leads to the person who has pulled her back from the brink time and again. Every tragedy began with a carefully plotted scheme to collect “irreplaceable suffering.”
This is a blood-soaked road from hell to the throne. Watch as she kills the emperor and her father, and rises as empress to rule beneath the heavens.
