Everyone says the feud between the Xie and Pei families was paid for with three hundred lives, and that nothing could ever settle it.
Xie Hengwu thought so too, until the Empress Dowager issued an imperial decree of marriage and thrust her and the Pei family’s young general, Pei Yanzhi, into the same game.
She is Jiangnan’s foremost beauty of letters, and twenty years have taught her to keep everything at arm’s length. No one gets to make decisions for her. He joined the army as a boy, is decisive and ruthless, and obeys the decree without protest, but old resentment smolders in his heart. He has come to the capital partly to marry and partly for revenge.
Sharing a household, they clash at every turn and test each other step by step. He never expected her to see through his chess game in three moves; she never expected him to keep watch by her sickbed until dawn. The deeper they investigate the old case, the more dangerous the conspiracy becomes. When the blade falls, he takes the blow for her.
Late one night, with candlelight flickering, she thinks he is asleep and softly says three words.
He is awake.
The hatred fades, but the love remains. When love stirs, she will tell him everything.
