The Tyrant Is Pretending to Be Good Again

To find her missing older brother, the gifted female Go player Wen Yanqing enters the palace as a court Go master. She has no interest in competing for the emperor's favor and only wants to uncover the truth before quietly leaving. But one game of Go catches the eye of Xiao Yan, the young emperor famed for his cruelty and brutality. The palace is full of hidden currents and treacherous plots. Everyone sees her as an outsider, and danger comes at her from all sides. Wen Yanqing has no time for the jealousy and petty rivalries of conventional palace dramas. Instead, she turns the entire imperial harem into a Go board, using people's hearts as her pieces. With the exceptional strategic skill and insight she honed through playing Go, she responds to every move, repeatedly defuses crises, and one by one “invites” her opponents off the board. The tyrant, ruthless and merciless in the eyes of others, drops every pretense only in front of her, repeatedly acting meek and playing the victim as he lures her step by step into the inescapable net of love he has already laid. As they join forces to unravel shocking conspiracies in the court and harem, they become each other's only salvation and home. In the end, they build a flourishing age together.