Eastern Palace: Li Chengyin Is Reborn

She killed herself before the two armies, trading her eighteen-year-old life for peace between two nations.

Her white robes were stained red with blood, as were the yellow sands, and Li Chengyin's long life without her.

He was the Fifth Prince of the Feng dynasty. Under the alias Gu Xiaowu, he had deceived her into loving him, led an army to wipe out her entire clan, and personally cut off her grandfather's head. She had once leapt into the Wangchuan River for him, then fallen from a city wall for him.

“Li Chengyin, I forgive you.”

Those were her last words. She spoke them with a smile and tears, bearing a love and hatred left with nowhere to go after her country fell and her family was destroyed.

He ascended the throne, took control of the government, and brought peace to the land. Later histories would call him the wisest ruler of his age. But only he knew that every night, the same nightmare jolted him awake: the moment those white robes fell, the sound of the golden-inlaid saber hitting the ground, the girl he had wronged for a lifetime and could never make amends to.

He did not deserve descendants, forgiveness, or a single tomorrow without her.

Yet fate gave him its cruelest and kindest gift:

One night, he awoke to find himself back on the eve of his diplomatic mission to Xizhou.

She was still the radiant girl in red, galloping across the deserts of the Western Regions.

This time, he would not be Gu Xiaowu. He would not deceive her, use her, or harm a single member of her clan. The plots lurking in the shadows, the false messages, the excuses for wiping out her people, he would tear them all apart with his own hands, one by one.

Even if he had to make an enemy of the world. Even if it meant giving up a throne within his grasp.

He would stand before her and say, at last:

“Xiaofeng, this time, let me protect you.”