The Phoenix Hairpin's Gambit

My name is Shen Qingyan. Three years ago, the Shen family was falsely accused of treason and executed to the last. I changed my name and hid in the imperial palace as a maid, scraping by while investigating the case.

I treated Su Lianyue like my own little sister, giving her my whole heart. Then, on the eve of the sacrificial ceremony, she tampered with the imperial phoenix hairpin I had made with my own hands.

Blood tears welled from the hairpin, an omen of great misfortune. The empress dowager was furious and ordered me beheaded in public.

At the execution ground, Su Lianyue knelt at the empress dowager's feet and wept pitifully. "Spare her, Your Majesty! It was all her fault. I couldn't stop her!"

As the executioner's blade was raised, I closed my eyes.

Then a golden light burst from between my brows, and memories of my past life surged back like a tide. I was no ordinary orphan. I was the foremost disciple of the Star Lord Siming in the Ninth Heaven, and I had willingly descended into the mortal realm to undergo a love trial.

Su Lianyue, meanwhile, was a transmigrator bound to a System. The heavenly book in her hands was the script of my death.

Just before the blade fell, Prince Jing, Xiao Jingyan, stopped the execution in full view of everyone.

He crouched down to meet my gaze and said just one thing: "It's been three years. You've certainly grown."

He recognized me.

The man who had accompanied me into the mortal realm to undergo my trial in my past life, giving up his immortal status to enter the cycle of reincarnation, had come to protect me once again in this life.

But Su Lianyue had never been the true enemy. Behind the heavenly book stood the Heavenly Empress, and behind her was an even more ancient being.

The immortal and mortal realms, righteousness and evil, clashed. I held the fate chart in my hands; he summoned the bloodline of the Celestial Emperor.

He once said these words, and I have remembered them through every lifetime

"Wherever you go, I'll go. If I can't repay you in this life, I'll keep repaying you in the next."