He is reborn as Zhao Defang, the Eighth Virtuous Prince of the Great Song. From the start, his second brother, Zhao Dezhao, is being forced to take his own life.
His uncle, Zhao Guangyi, sees him as a thorn in his side. Corrupt officials throughout the court are ready to make their move, while the Liao cavalry watches hungrily from beyond the border.
Everyone thinks he is merely a sickly prince, too frail even to attend court.
They have no idea…
The stern, dark-faced young Bao Zheng is his hand-trained disciple.
The blue-robed, sword-bearing guard Zhan Zhao is a brother he has risked his life alongside.
The vanguard commander Di Qing, whose face bears the marks of punishment, is a military genius he rescued from a pile of corpses.
The valiant Yang Bamei is the sharpest blade in his Langya Pavilion.
Yang Yanzhao, who guards the frontier, is a brilliant commander he personally helped into the saddle.
Before the public, he is the Great Song’s most virtuous prince.
Behind the scenes, he is the Great Song’s foremost wielder of the executioner’s blade.
Then, with the Liao army pressing in on Chanzhou and the emperor preparing to flee, he appears at court dressed in white and says just four words:
“Anyone who moves the capital dies.”
At last, the court officials see what the Eighth Virtuous Prince, who has carried a medicine bowl for twenty years, truly holds in his hands.
He can be virtuous, or he can kill. He is true to the Great Song.
