Ten years ago, Shen Chongshan, a famed general of the northern frontier, was falsely accused of colluding with the enemy and surrendering a strategic pass. The Shen family was wiped out, and only Shen Lingyi survived by sheer luck. Ten years later, she takes her late elder sister’s name and marries into the Prince Regent’s household, all to get close to the heart of power and clear her family’s name.
But the man she must face is Xiao Jibai, the very man who personally signed the order for their execution. Everyone says he is cold-blooded and heartless, with power over the entire court. She, too, believes she is merely a pawn pushed into the game. But as one piece of old evidence after another comes to light, she discovers that from the hidden network in the prince’s household to the former soldiers of the northern frontier, from damaged records in the Ministry of Rites to the late emperor’s blood edict, he has already paved her way to the truth through the darkness.
She wants to clear the Shen family’s name. He wants her to live in safety. When the old case leads to embezzled military provisions, doubts surrounding imperial power, and murderous schemes at court, they can only test each other step by step, caught between love and manipulation, truth and its price.
This is a story of political intrigue and a wrongful case reopened through a proxy marriage, and of a deep devotion ten years in the making.
