Jiang Mingzhu was the former dynasty's most beloved little princess. The day her country fell, she had planned to end her life, but a young general knocked the white silk from her hands with a single stroke of his sword.
His name was Xiao Fengjie, a general of the new dynasty who had risen to prominence at a young age. He was a man of deep scheming, rumored to have slaughtered a hundred thousand Xiongnu with just ten thousand soldiers. A ruthless man who feared nothing.
He was also the one who stopped her from dying for her country, took her back to his residence as a prize of war, and then asked the new emperor for her. From then on, he kept her locked at his side.
Mingzhu feared him. She feared his unreadable eyes, his smile as he spoke softly, and, most of all, the unrestrained obsession and cruelty he showed at night, as if he wouldn't stop until he had crushed her to pieces and chewed her up.
She wanted to escape this gilded cage and flee the enemy who had brought about her country's destruction and her family's death.
Once, twice, three times... Each time, he effortlessly caught her and brought her back, tightening her captivity even further.
Then, in the late autumn of that year, someone from her past arrived without warning. The young man who had once been betrothed to her had prepared travel documents and a fast horse for her.
Without looking back, she raced out of the city, headed north, crossed the frontier and the desert, and never returned. But one day, she spotted a slave at the market, and the slave's face was exactly like his.
He had thought he would never see her again in this life. He joined a group of human traffickers, only to run into her. When she bought him and brought him home, his world came crashing down: she had a child with another man...
