Crown Princess Shen Yuan has been reborn.
Only after dying once did she understand that her gentle, refined husband, the crown prince, had been using her from beginning to end. The Shen family was famed for its loyal service and commanded a hundred thousand troops in the northwest. Xiao Jingheng needed that military power to win the succession, so he welcomed her into the Eastern Palace with an elaborate bridal procession. Once he had the troops under his control, the Shen family became a thorn in his side, and Shen Yuan herself was sent to the afterlife with a cup of poisoned wine.
When Shen Yuan opens her eyes after being reborn, the first person she sees is Xiao Jingheng, holding poison and asking after her with feigned concern. She pours the medicine into a flowerpot and makes a brazen decision: she will go find Xiao Jingheng’s father.
The current emperor, Xiao Yan, has ruled with an iron fist for twenty years. Cold-faced and cold-hearted, he is feared by every official at court. Everyone sees him as a piece of iron that can never be warmed, but Shen Yuan has no other choice. She will offer her intelligence as proof of loyalty and gamble on a chance to survive.
At the Dragon Boat Festival banquet, beside Taiye Pool under a moon as pale as frost, Shen Yuan stops the emperor’s carriage and says without flinching, “Your Majesty, I want to be yours.”
She thinks this is a transaction in which both sides get what they need. She doesn’t know that from that moment on, the roles of hunter and prey have already begun to reverse.
