Reborn, she swears to burn her enemies to ashes and protect her loved ones, only to stumble upon the unfathomable secret of the newly crowned top scholar. It turns out she wasn’t the only one who came back from the river’s depths in her previous life.
Shen Jin, legitimate daughter of the Duke of Jing, once gave her heart to the wrong man. She helped her husband, Gu Shanhe, rise to power, only to see her entire family destroyed and herself pierced by a rain of arrows and thrown into the river.
When she opens her eyes again, she is fifteen, on the day of her coming-of-age ceremony.
In this life, she conceals her poisoned edge behind the guise of a gentle young lady, quietly making her moves before the game even begins. She breaks off her engagement, saves her father and brothers, and takes down her enemies before they can strike. Every step is carefully planned, all to reduce everything her enemies cherish to ashes.
She had accounted for every turn of the human heart, but not for that night in the imperial garden, when Pei Xuanzhao, the cool and jade-like new top scholar, seized her bloodstained wrist, his eyes as deep as an abyss.
“Miss Shen, have we met somewhere before?”
She smiled and slipped free. “Lord Pei, that pickup line is outdated.”
But he slowly drew a broken jade pendant from his sleeve. It was the only token she had clutched in her hand as she lay dying in her previous life.
The moonlight was pale, revealing the pain and hatred surging in his eyes, feelings born of the same source as hers.
“Then, Miss Shen, do you recognize this ‘Ashes of the Realm’? ... The day you sank into the river in your last life, I was on the opposite bank.”
At its heart:
- Both leads are reborn, and they save each other: She returns for revenge, while he comes to atone. Two people who crawled back from hell gradually uncover the truth of their past lives and the wounds they have hidden deep inside, caught between mirrored hatred and a desire to protect each other.
- Political scheming and power games, each the other’s chess piece
