Crossing the Autumn Waters to Jue

As the most talked-about of the princes of Li, he first met her during an assassination attempt on his life.

Dressed in red and wielding a long whip, she was bold and carefree, rescuing him from danger amid the chaos of battle.

As they drank together beneath the moon, she laughed and said she despised the false courtesies of court. He hid the dragon-patterned jade pendant that revealed his identity in his sleeve and claimed to be an ordinary young nobleman.

They met again at a palace banquet. She watched him seated high upon the golden steps as the entire court cried, “Third Highness!”

That night, she left him a farewell letter: “I would rather tread a thousand miles of snow in the jianghu than let a speck of palace dust stain me.”

Later, when the Crown Prince ambushed him and poisoned him with a deadly toxin, she ventured alone into an army’s stronghold and fought her way out with him.

When martial artists from across the land attacked her as she worked to restore her sect, he led his personal guard to form ranks before its mountain gate.

They loved each other for years, yet could only gaze from afar. At last, he gave up the throne within his grasp and placed the imperial jade seal in her sword-calloused palm.

“Without you, this throne is nothing but a cage made of gold.”