Peach Blossoms as a Prison, Ashes Like Frost

“Wait five years. I swear I’ll win you a kingdom and make you my queen.” Beneath the peach trees, the hostage prince Xuanyuan Jin made this vow to Nangong Nian, princess of Nanzhao.

He returned carrying the painful memories of three lifetimes, vowing to defy fate and keep her safe. But five years later, he led his iron cavalry to conquer Nanzhao and hung the heads of her father and brothers from the city wall.

On the day the city fell, the King of Nanzhao killed himself with his sword, leaving behind a cruel lie: “I planted a life-linking curse between Nian’er and Rouze. Rouze must drink Nian’er’s blood every month to stay alive.” From then on, she was imprisoned deep in the palace, forced to endure the agony of having her blood drawn each month while watching him go mad for another woman.

“Xuanyuan Jin, you killed your own child.” She engineered a miscarriage, taking revenge in the most devastating way.

In the end, she bled herself dry. Her final letter contained just one sentence: “Take all my blood. Let me go, and let yourself go, too.”

Only after she died did she learn the truth: in every lifetime, he had watched her die horribly. In this life, he seized the realm only to give her an age of peace and prosperity. And Rouze, the woman supposedly meant to drink her blood to survive, had already given her life to protect Nanzhao.

Holding her cold body, he learned that every sacrifice had stemmed from a lie, and completely lost his mind. “I calculated every twist of fate, yet I was the one who pushed you... into the abyss.”

The dream of Jin turned to ashes. The peach blossoms remained, but the one he loved never came back.