She was Princess Taiping's only daughter, Empress Wu Zetian's granddaughter, and Shangguan Wan'er's last disciple.
At the age of seven, the empress declared, "This girl is just like me," and she became the empire's brightest jewel. But after her mother was executed for treason, she plunged into the abyss overnight. She should have died in that blood-soaked autumn.
After years in hiding, she changed her appearance, disguised herself as a man, and returned to Chang'an. Everyone thought she'd come for revenge: against the emperor who ordered her mother's death, and against the palace that devoured her family.
Thirty years later, the ruler on the throne finally met her gaze.
But he saw no hatred. What he saw was the same calm resolve that had filled the eyes of the empress who sat in the great hall forty years ago.
She wanted to live the lives that every woman crushed beneath the weight of power had been denied: her grandmother, her mother, Aunt Wan'er, and Yang Yuhuan.
Then all things returned to the snow-covered slopes of Zhongnan Mountain...
Theme: Power is a mirror that lays bare the human heart; history is sand that buries true names. A woman whose name was erased by an age of prosperity insists on rising from the ashes of blood and fire, carving out an era for them in the blank spaces of the historical record.
