After Killing My Husband and Seizing the Throne, My Shadow Guard Became Mine

[Clear-eyed, ruthless heroine VS silent, loyal secret guard]

[A battle of wits between two powerful people, desperate gambits, standing together at the summit]

A thousand miles of barren land, corpses strewn everywhere. Ten taels of silver stood between life and death.

Shen Qinghe carried her dying younger brother on her back and knelt outside a clinic. All she got in return was, “Get lost, you pauper.” With nowhere else to turn, she looked at the black carriage trimmed with gold. She didn’t beg. She placed herself precisely in the Prince of Zhenbei’s line of sight through the carriage window:

Using her beauty to open the door, and wagering her life.

She became the lowest-ranking concubine in the prince’s household, but knew all too well that favor was the deadliest poison in the world.

The principal consort’s oppression? She used the Sixth Prince to bring down the Wang clan and have her rival confined until death. The prince’s suspicions? Once pregnant with the heir, she secured her position, then used a slow-acting poison to send the “benefactor” of old to bleed out in a military tent. Court intrigue? She offered the military tally to the new emperor, then became the Dowager Princess who ruled the northern frontier without question!

Others called her a vicious, scheming woman. Only the secret guard Xuan Ying had seen her gently tending her brother’s wounds late at night, and the weariness of her life on the edge of a blade.

On the night she murdered her husband and seized power, she entrusted her young son and her entire plan to this shadow.

With the outcome decided, Xuan Ying presented copies of the intelligence reports he had collected over the years. The writing on the final page seemed to burn: “The starlight in her eyes outshines the rivers of stars across the heavens. I would gladly remain her blade forever and keep her free of worry for the rest of her life.”

Shen Qinghe ran her fingers over the page and smiled. Her fingertips felt the chill of power, yet warmth stirred in her heart.

In this troubled age, she sought no one’s protection. She would be her own ruler. And this silent man was the only one she dared embrace after claiming power over all under heaven.