On the night we wed for good luck, my prince husband “died” in our marriage bed.
As the daughter her family cast aside, Shen Zhiwei is forced into a substitute marriage to bring good fortune to Prince Jing, who is rumored to be gravely ill and on the brink of death.
On their wedding night, while the red candles still burn, Prince Jing, Xiao Heng, “passes away” in their bridal bed.
Everyone waits to laugh at the princess consort who married to bring him good luck, expecting her to become a widow or even be buried alive with him.
Instead, she lifts the white cloth and looks straight into his clear, alert eyes.
“Your Highness, one more dose of that fake-death medicine and you really would have died.”
With the medical texts her mother left behind, she sees through the deception.
Thus begins a pact between two people, each with their own agenda: he needs her superb medical skills to conceal his condition and cure his poison, while she needs her status as Princess Consort of Jing to uncover the truth behind her mother’s brutal death.
As the truth gradually comes to light, she discovers that her mother’s death, a deadly poison from the Western Regions, and the empress’s ambitions are all intricately connected.
From the prince’s residence to the imperial palace, she wields medicine as a blade, breaking through every trap and forging her own path.
She treats the prince’s household, battles the powerful, and neutralizes deadly poisons.
Shen Zhiwei wants more than revenge. Amid the suffocating constraints of a patriarchal society, she intends to carve out another way for women to live.
Later, he sweeps away every obstacle and ascends the throne, offering her the phoenix seal and his empire as a betrothal gift.
But Shen Zhiwei places a divorce agreement before him. “Your Majesty, the position of empress cannot confine me. My clinic is the whole world.”
She doesn’t want the throne, but the freedom to heal the world.
Xiao Heng’s eyes turn red. “I’ll grant you the freedom you want. But for the rest of your life, you must share this empire with me.”
[Clear-eyed physician consort × restrained prince, mutual healing, power struggles and comeuppance]
Watch the heroine go from pawn to player as she heals the world, heals hearts, and heals all under heaven, even in the direst circumstances!
