Phoenix-Fated Little Witch: The Prince Keeps Wanting to Swear Brotherhood with Me

Synopsis

When the Zhenbei Marquis’s household in the Great Yong Dynasty welcomes twins, a boy and a girl, the Imperial Astrologer declares, “Two stars will shine upon the world, but yin and yang clash. If they meet before they turn twenty, one is sure to suffer.” To escape their fated calamity, their parents devise a scheme to fool the heavens: the older brother is raised as a sheltered young lady, while the younger sister, Yun Zhao, takes the heir’s name and becomes the capital’s infamous little troublemaker.

At six, after one prank too many, from pulling roof tiles down and startling the emperor to teasing dogs and disturbing the neighbors, Yun Zhao is sent away to practice cultivation on Misty Cloud Mountain. Over the next twelve years, she becomes her sect’s “little menace”: stealing her master’s finest wine and blowing up her senior brother’s alchemy furnace. Even the immortal cranes and spirit apes flee at the sight of her. On her eighteenth birthday, her master sends her down the mountain with a sigh of relief, telling her to “seek out the person destined for you.”

She enters the world dressed as a man, using mystical talismans and her eccentric ingenuity to solve one strange case after another. She and the cold-faced Prince of Chu, Xiao Yi, start out fighting before becoming friends who would risk their lives for each other. As their “brotherly bond” grows deeper, Xiao Yi is tormented by his feelings, until he catches sight of her with her long hair loose at a hot spring and realizes the source of his attraction is that she is a woman.

Unexpectedly, the emperor is also drawn to her vibrant spirit, and the favor of the Son of Heaven brings both honor and danger. The consort frames her, powerful ministers interfere, and jealousy drives a wedge between the emperor and Xiao Yi, bringing the danger of brothers turning against each other ever closer. To protect the woman he loves and secure the realm, Xiao Yi is forced into the vortex of power.

After schemes and intrigue, war and turmoil, finally come to an end, the new emperor, Xiao Yi, stands before the crowd and places the phoenix seal in her palm. “Ten thousand miles of rivers and mountains cannot compare to your smile.” Yun Zhao rolls a talisman between her fingers and beams. “Your Majesty, did you put the inner treasury keys somewhere safe?” A destiny that began with a scheme to fool the heavens becomes a love story in which the realm itself is her betrothal gift, and they remain together for life.