Yan Yin Gives to Hua

During the Jinghe era of the Great Liang dynasty, Jiang Yushu, a young lady from the Taifu household, had three great passions in life: sleeping, daydreaming, and sunbathing. The noblewomen of the capital mocked her as talentless and useless, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t that she couldn’t compete; she just couldn’t be bothered.

That changed when an imperial edict summoning candidates for the imperial consort selection landed in her lap. Her stepmother schemed to thrust her into the spotlight, and at the selection banquet, the Noble Consort humiliated her in front of everyone. Just as she was about to be dismissed, Chu Shiyan, heir to the Duke of Zhenguo and known as the “Cold-Faced Yama,” suddenly spoke up. “I think this young lady is excellent.” The whole hall was stunned.

After entering the palace as a candidate, one strange incident followed another: a consort was poisoned, a prince was attacked, and the imperial study caught fire. Jiang Yushu was forced to “accidentally” reveal her abilities again and again: she could heal with a touch, solve mechanical traps, and see through conspiracies. As her secret identities were exposed one by one, from heir to the Medicine King Valley, master of the Shadow Ink Tower, and successor to the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion to the adopted granddaughter of Jiangnan’s richest man, the “Cold-Faced Yama” by her side went from shock to acceptance, and then to heartache.

When every clue pointed to the same mastermind, the regent whom the emperor trusted most, the married couple went from quietly falling for each other to fighting side by side. Together, they exposed a wrongful massacre case buried for twenty years. In the end, he refused the title of prince with a different surname, and she turned down the title of commandery princess. All they wanted was to be “the only ones in each other’s lives, for all their days.”

This is the story of a woman who “just wanted to lie flat but was forced to become a hero,” and a “cold-faced prince who secretly loved her for ten years and finally married her,” as they find their way to each other through the whirlpool of political intrigue. Sweet and bittersweet in turn, with plenty of satisfying payback.