Architect Zhu Yan transmigrates and becomes the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy merchant family in Jiangnan. She plans to keep a low profile, use her modern knowledge to build a business, and make her fortune. But at a poetry gathering, Gu Lin, the powerful Marquis of Zhenbei, takes an interest in her at first sight.
“Becoming my concubine is the best fate you can hope for,” the man says coolly, as if bestowing a favor.
Zhu Yan smiles radiantly. “My lord, you’re mistaken. My fate is in my own hands.”
Thus begins a breathtaking game of cat and mouse. He presses her at every turn, laying a vast, inescapable net; she keeps her wits about her and slips away time and again.
From the waterways of Jiangnan to the desert frontier, from bustling alleyways to the towering walls of the imperial palace, she runs and he pursues. She has nowhere to fly.
Gu Lin cannot understand why an illegitimate daughter would rather die than submit. He thinks he wants her body, unaware that he has already given away his heart. Only when she stands at the edge of a cliff one day, dressed in red like a flame and smiling with grim resolve, does he finally understand. “Gu Lin, you may keep me captive in this life, but in the next, we will never meet.”
At last, he understands the pride behind every escape, and the strength of character behind her refusal to be a concubine.
But by the time he finally learns how to love, she is already covered in wounds, with no way back.
“Zhu Yan, this time I’ll be the one to pursue you. To the ends of the earth, I won’t stop until one of us is dead.”
