The story begins on New Year’s Eve in the Year of the Wood Snake. Hua Yuli, a strikingly beautiful orphan, serves as a page to Gong Yanlin, the legitimate son of the Gong household, enduring contempt, abuse, and tormenting, complicated feelings. After his close friend Gong Chen gives his life to secure Hua Yuli’s freedom, he escapes the mansion, only to rescue a badly wounded, amnesiac man named A Mo in the city. They rely on each other through poverty and fall in love.
But fate turns once more. Hua Yuli is found and brought back to the imperial court, where his astonishing origins are revealed: he is Huangfu Zhen, the consort’s “stillborn” prince. At the same time, A Mo’s memories gradually return. He is actually Shangguan Xu, a general framed by his enemies. Caught between court intrigue, old enemies, the unspoken affection of Crown Prince Huangfu Lan, and Gong Yanlin’s obsessive, frenzied entanglement, Huangfu Zhen and Shangguan Xu support each other through the treacherous currents. To stay by his side, Shangguan Xu is willing to defy convention and marry Prince Zhen as a general.
From a plaything trampled by others to a prince of honor, from a lonely child adrift among commoners to someone reunited with family and the one he loves, Huangfu Zhen transforms both his identity and his heart. In the end, he and Shangguan Xu stand together at court and raise children, guarding a happiness more secure than any other: a profound love that began in lowliness, was tempered in blood, and transcended convention.
