Shen Yuan raised a Gu.
The creature lived in a white jade box, feeding on the blood from her fingertips. It guarded the greatest secret in the world: Gu Changyan, the current Vice Director of the Secretariat, had had his memories tampered with by her.
Three years ago, Gu Changyan was ambushed and struck by a deadly poison. The imperial physicians were powerless to help him. Shen Yuan, a concubine-born daughter forgotten by her family, used a forbidden Gu ritual to pull him back from the gates of death, paying with half her lifespan. The child Gu entered his body, while the mother Gu gnawed at her heart. Every full moon, she had to endure a backlash that pierced her to the bone. The child Gu inside him could imprint the memories she had altered into his mind at any moment, as long as she was willing to speak the words.
But she had never spoken them.
After he awoke, he did not remember her. He did not know who had saved his life, or even that there was a woman named Shen Yuan in this world who was willing to give up half her life for him. She had no intention of letting him find out. She only wanted to watch from afar as he lived well. That was enough.
Until her legitimate mother drove her out of the Shen family and forced her to marry a widowed middle-aged steward. Shen Yuan fled to the family estate, where she encountered an old acquaintance, Lu Wenqian: the impoverished scholar she had once secretly helped with his studies, now a successful candidate in the imperial examinations. Standing before her, he said, "When I pass the highest examinations, I'll marry you."
She should have accepted. But she could not forget Gu Changyan. Nor could she forget the Gu in that white jade box, which could tamper with his memories at any moment.
She had the power to rewrite everything, yet she alone dared not rewrite his love.
