The Shocking Swan's Last Strike

At fifteen, she rode into battle with a spear in hand. Using the Shen Family Army as her blade, she helped the discarded prince Xiao Che shatter the flames of war, surviving countless brushes with death to secure the throne.

She trusted his promise that they would be "together for a lifetime, with no one else." She took a deadly arrow for him and absorbed an incurable poison. She traded half the realm for his imperial throne, only to face the execution of her entire family on the Winter Solstice of the first year of the Daqi reign.

Snow fell at the Meridian Gate as all seventy-two members of the Shen family were beheaded. He watched the execution coldly from atop the city wall, sparing her life only to imprison her in the Cold Palace and make her watch him secure his throne. The once-renowned female marshal, astride her silver spear and warhorse, became a condemned woman whom everyone in the inner palace could bully. But no one knew that the flames of hatred in her heart had never gone out, even in the cold depths.

One day, she breaks free of her cage and travels a thousand miles to the border, where she takes command of the Shen Family Army once more. She becomes the guardian deity whom the people of Daqi revere. The emperor, who commands a realm stretching ten thousand miles, finally goes mad. He abolishes the imperial harem, issues an edict admitting his guilt, and kneels for days in the snowy night at Hemen Pass, giving up all imperial power to beg her to return. But all he gets is one question from her: "Xiao Che, look at the seventy-two spirit tablets before you and tell me, how will you repay the blood of the entire Shen family?"