The Hostage Prince Is the Heartthrob of the Capital

[Not 1v1 + everyone’s favorite + real and false affection + angst and catharsis + romance always comes first]

[Political intrigue with no regard for logic]

He is everyone’s cherished moonlight, and everyone’s prisoner at knifepoint.

Song Yun Zhao is the young prince of Yue Li in Nanjiang.

At fifteen, the Wuding Marquis’s iron cavalry swept through Yue Li. He was sent to the capital as a hostage, and from then on, there was no turning back.

At twenty, he had helped the emperor eliminate everyone who needed eliminating, becoming the sharpest blade in Da Min. Then he realized he was in danger of being cast aside.

For Yue Li, he had never had any other choice.

In Da Min, Song Yue met many people.

Prince Jin coveted his beauty and called him A Yue with a smile, yet did not so much as blink when he sent him to the imperial prison.

The calculating emperor bestowed on him the name Yun Zhao and pulled him out of the mud, only to be just as ready to throw him back in at any moment.

A subordinate who used him as he used them held him in a carriage at midnight and said, “I was worried about you.” When they turned and drove a sword beneath his ribs, their hand did not tremble.

And then there was the foolish, sincere boy. Song Yue used him again and again, yet the boy still said with red-rimmed eyes, “You saved my life.”

Every one of them gave him a little of their heart.

But that affection never made them cross their own lines. They could give him power, fine clothes, and fleeting tenderness, but not a way home, not peace, not everything he wanted.

Even if his own feelings were false, they had to love him with all their hearts.

So

If he could neither leave nor destroy this place, then he would turn this man-eating capital upside down for his sake.

Until the High Priest of Yue Li decided to come to the capital.

He was a god on a high altar, untouched by worldly cause and effect, indifferent to mortal affairs, yet for one person, he descended into the dust.