Zhaoran Sets Out for the Dawn

Qing Xiao, the youngest daughter of the Qing family, has an extraordinary sense of smell and dreams of practicing medicine to help the world, living freely and without care. She flees home to escape an imperial decree arranging her marriage, only to stumble into an international conspiracy along the way. Chu Jingzhao, the eldest prince of Jingyong, has just returned from a bloody campaign at the border. Deeply calculating and mistrusted by the emperor because of past events, he is ordered to marry the moment he lays down his armor. On their wedding night, he lays down three rules for his new bride, the daughter of an old acquaintance.

As hidden arrows fly through the court and the princes’ succession struggle drags the Qing family into its grasp, Chu Jingzhao quietly shields her from the turmoil.

Qing Xiao takes charge of the Imperial Medical Bureau and uses her extraordinary medical skills to unravel the court’s deadly schemes. Her cheerful yet perceptive nature also begins to uncover the tenderness beneath his armor.

Her brother Qing Mu, a master strategist, and Wei Li, a princess of Yanshu who cares deeply for her people, are caught between love and duty because of their countries’ opposing interests. They become key pieces in the political game.

The obsession of an enemy prince, the royal family’s ambitions to seize power, and the flames of war along the border close in at every turn.

A marriage that began as a matter of imperial authority slowly changes amid official propriety and quiet devotion. Bound by the shackles of a marriage arranged before love, can the two join hands to break through the crisis, protect the people with the healing arts, secure the realm through political strategy, and, alongside her brother and sister-in-law, find a place where love and duty can coexist?