She is the brightest jewel of the Xie clan of Langya, a woman of peerless talent whose poetic gifts are renowned throughout Jiankang. A marriage contract weds her to Wang Yun, young lord of the Wang clan of Taiyuan, and the world calls it a match made in heaven. But before the wedding candles have burned down, the Wang clan's cavalry tramples the century-old Xie estate. In a pool of blood, she looks up and sees her new husband standing with a sword in hand, his gentle smile steeped in icy light. “A-Xu, tonight I will settle the blood debt your Xie family owes mine.”
For ten years, she nurses her hatred, living as the wife of her enemy and lying in wait beside the pillow of the man who destroyed her clan. She tempers her extraordinary talent into cunning and hones her bone-deep pain into a blade. Beneath her splendid silks, she weaves a secret web; behind her tender smile, she conceals murderous intent. When Wang Yun dons the imperial robes and ascends the throne, she overturns the imperial table amid the ministers' congratulations and points her sword at the emperor. “Does Your Majesty know that the man who shared my bed for ten years is also the one who dug my grave?” A palace coup erupts, and blood stains Weiyang Palace.
When the dust settles, she finds a bloodstained marriage contract beneath the ruins of her old chambers. Wang Yun's final note is scrawled like a sob: “The massacre back then was not my choice... There was another culprit behind the Xie family bloodshed. Protecting you through ten years of hardship was the only sin I could atone for.” The shocking truth tears her heart apart. At the end of the war, she lifts the sword stained with the blood of her loved ones and her husband, and points it at the warlord who once gave her a “new life,” Murong Chui.
“You manipulate heaven and earth as if they were a chessboard, and treat the common people like grass. This boundless debt of blood, these countless bones, are all sacrifices to your ambition!” With her plain robes stained red, Xie Xu stands before a shattered realm and cries out, her voice ringing through the heavens. “Today, with the last drop of blood of the Xie clan of Langya, I will demand justice for this ravaged world!” The once-celebrated poetess ultimately becomes a raging inferno, consuming conspiracies and illuminating the darkness.
