The Actor Who Ruled the Realm

Chu Yunxiao, the lead male-role performer of the Ink and Powder Society, never imagined that his target would be the reigning emperor when he inherited his father's "stage mission." As a performance of The Jade Returned to Zhao reaches its climax, he plays Lin Xiangru, holding the Heshi Jade in one hand and driving a dagger toward the emperor on the dragon throne with the other! The assassination succeeds, but he discovers that the emperor is not the real deal at all, but a carefully crafted puppet. The real emperor has been held captive by the Ink and Powder Society for years! Even more shocking, the emperor's secret chamber contains a record of the society's earth-shattering secret: it has controlled the realm for a century and even manipulated the royal bloodline! Chu Yunxiao is consumed by shock and fury. He has been an accomplice all along, and his father's death and the troupe's supposed loyalty were all lies! He wants revenge, but more than that, he wants to overthrow this rotten imperial regime! An assassination becomes the revelation of the royal family's puppet secret, and a path of vengeance turns into a bid for the throne! He is an actor, yet he will enter the game through performance, compete with martial prowess, overturn a century of scheming, and reshape the realm! Could the master he once revered be of royal blood? Could the true leader of the Ink and Powder Society be the Empress Dowager herself? See how Chu Yunxiao uses his superb acting and peerless martial arts to navigate the whirlpool of power between the court and the martial world. With every move carefully planned, he wields performance as a blade and the game as a chessboard, rising from a deceived performer to the emperor who founds an eternal dynasty for actors! Court assassinations, martial-world rivalries, and shifts in imperial power: the plot is tense and thrilling, with twists at every turn and one climax after another!