The second daughter of the Shen family was once the brightest moon in Yangzhou, but overnight she fell into the mud. Her gambling-addicted father used his daughters as collateral to pay off his debts. Her older sister was taken by warlord Lu Qingtian, while she was promised to Third Master Mo, a notorious salt smuggler.
At the brink of despair, Mo Yuanshan, a servant her father had treated like an insect and humiliated for years, cast off his disguise. With a mere gesture, he stirred up the whole city and wrested her from the devil's clutches with the force of a thunderbolt.
This is revenge in the name of love, and a tragic song of plunder and redemption in a time of turmoil. As moonlight spills over the river of vengeance he once crossed, its waters strewn with frost and snow, what will it reveal: a happy ending, or a deeper cage?
(Content warning: The heroine is a real... white lotus.)
Theme: Destroying something may be easy, but overcoming one's own shadows and rebuilding a dignified, hopeful life amid the ruins is the greatest test of human nature. The thrill of revenge is fleeting. How to go on living after revenge is a far more complex and worthwhile subject to write about than revenge itself.
