With the new emperor’s accession, Lan Yanhui, the Crown Prince’s tutor at the time, becomes a rising star at court.
A strategist advises him: “His Majesty loves beautiful women. You could select a woman of exceptional beauty and talent to present to the palace. In all the realm, only your younger sister and Miss A Zhi fit the bill.”
Lan Yanhui replies without hesitation: “Yao Yue is off limits.”
Only then does A Zhi understand. He taught her music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, and how to read and manipulate people, all so that one day he could send her to another man’s bed in exchange for wealth, glory, and immense power.
The only person he truly cared about was his cousin, Lan Yaoyue.
On the night the rebels besieged the city, a great fire in the imperial palace turned half the sky red. A Zhi stood atop the city wall and leapt into the flames...
Lan Yanhui quells the rebellion, rises to the highest position in government, and marries Lan Yaoyue as he had wished.
Yet rumors circulate that the Chancellor Lan and his wife are at odds, sharing a bed each night but dreaming separate dreams.
*
A Zhi changes her name and appearance, hoping to live out her days in peace, but fate brings her face-to-face with Lan Yanhui’s nephew, the Marquis of Yunzhong, Xiao Congjin.
Irreverent and flirtatious, he is indifferent to matters of the heart, and at first treats her as little more than a plaything.
To keep his family safe, he plans to offer her to His Majesty. This time, however, she refuses to sit back and accept her fate.
At a palace banquet of lavish indulgence and clinking wine cups, he sees her chatting and laughing merrily, her zither playing astonishing the entire hall, and seethes with jealousy. Just after toasting his uncle, he drags her into a secluded corner, clasps her slender waist, and breathes warmly into her ear. “What am I supposed to do? Is it too late to regret this now?”
In the end, everyone who tried to use her as bait became her plaything, falling under her spell.
