She is a fallen dynasty’s imprisoned jewel, and a vengeful player who holds the strings.
Shen Nianshu, the most beautiful woman in the Great Qi, survives in the new dynasty’s palace with her stunning looks as her only shield.
Everyone thinks she is a delicate plaything for others to toy with, unaware that a poisoned blade lies beneath those gentle eyes.
He is a ruthless, unyielding crown prince who believes he controls everything.
Xie Yanheng looks down on all creation, seeing her as an ornament to the imperial family’s benevolence, something he can cast aside at will.
At a palace banquet, he casually tells his brother, “She’s only a princess of a fallen kingdom. If you like her, take her.”
His words reach her ears. She lowers her eyes and smiles faintly, though her fingertips dig into her palm.
Later, she tears his arrogance to shreds with her own hands.
She accepts an arranged marriage, ready to wed another man in phoenix crown and red robes.
On the day her bridal finery blazes before his eyes, he shreds the marriage contract and pins her in his arms, eyes red with fury. “Shen Nianshu, if you die, you can only die by my side.”
She smiles like a flower, but her eyes are rimmed with ice. “Your Highness, do you regret it?”
From contempt to obsession, from control to surrender.
He tramples his pride and kneels across the land before finally realizing that the jewel he once scorned has long since been branded into his very bones and blood.
And when he finally lays the empire at her feet
all she wants is to see him go mad for her.
"A seemingly delicate but actually cunning and ruthless princess of the fallen dynasty × the new dynasty’s crown prince, cold at first and later a crazed pursuer"
An all-consuming love-hate struggle that begins with appearances, becomes entangled in a battle of wits, and is true to the soul.
