In the winter of Yong’an’s twenty-seventh year, the deposed empress Shen Jinghong drank poisoned wine and swore on the lives of her entire clan that those who betrayed her would pay in blood.
When she opened her eyes again, she was sixteen once more. The Shen family was still intact, and her enemies were still wearing their masks.
In her previous life, she had been a foolish pawn blinded by love. She trusted the emperor’s tenderness, let her half-sister frame her, and ultimately lost her family and her life, leaving not even a body behind.
In this life, she has shed all innocence and hidden her claws. Only a hatred and scheming fierce enough to consume everything remain in her eyes.
Crown Prince Xiao Che is gentle as jade, yet ambitious to the core? She will pretend to win his favor, help him rise step by step, then drag him into the abyss with her own hands.
General Murong Heng of the Northern Garrison is ruthless in battle and has no ties to her? She will cater to his interests and wield his military power as a blade, throwing the court into turmoil.
Her hypocritical and vicious half-sister, Liu Qingyao, wants to take her place? She will turn that scheme to her own advantage and let her taste what it means to fall from the clouds into the mud.
The inner palace is treacherous, and the court is rife with intrigue. She maneuvers among the factions, playing the perfect role in each of their eyes: the innocent confidante in the crown prince’s heart, the sensible beauty in the general’s writings, the harmless young lady in everyone else’s.
But no one knows what kind of heart, capable of turning the tides, lies beneath that delicate facade.
She makes herself the bait and turns love into a scheme, manipulating every pawn in her palm for the sake of the highest seat of power.
Only when her disguises fall away and blood stains the palace walls do people finally understand:
From beginning to end, she was the only one moving the pieces.
Once a deposed empress, now reborn, she seeks no love, only...
The throne
