[Woman disguised as a man + two formidable minds and political schemes + dangerously obsessive love interest + medicine and forensic autopsies + her identity exposed at court]
Shen Mo disguises herself as a man and enters the court as an official, all to clear her father and brother’s names. She proceeds cautiously, step by step, never expecting to attract the attention of Xie Yan, the craziest power broker in Great Yong, who serves as Grand Secretary.
At first, Xie Yan regards her coldly. “Your hands are so soft. Can you even hold a knife steady? Don’t die in front of me and dirty my ground.” Later, she takes a blade for him in the ghost market and examines a corpse in a fire. Xie Yan looks at her, eyes reddening, and presses her relentlessly. “Shen Mo, even if you’re a man, I’ll accept this forbidden love between men.”
Then, at the palace banquet for the Emperor’s birthday, a treacherous minister forces her to prove her sex, driving her into a corner. She lets down her hair and appears in women’s finery, stunning the entire court. “I am a daughter of the Shen family. I alone will bear the crime of deceiving the emperor!” The court erupts in an uproar, and the emperor decides to take her as a consort. But the arrogant, mad Grand Secretary draws his blade in front of everyone, sets the Sky-Piercing Tower ablaze, and protects her in his arms as he fights his way through the entire palace.
“To hell with deceiving the emperor! She’s my life!” “I don’t want this Great Yong throne anymore. I only want to take her home!”
From the capital to Jiangnan, from the imperial court to the martial world, this is the story of a mad power broker and his black-lotus “accomplice” joining forces to overturn a chaotic age.
