In the eleventh year of Shunzhi, the third son of the emperor Xuan Ye was born. Half a blue and white jade pendant with two dragons holding beads was sewn into the swaddling clothes, which was passed down from the ancestors of Han Dynasty minister Hong Chengchou.
Forty-seven years later, on the night when the crown prince was deposed, Kangxi sat alone in the Qianqing Palace, holding the half of the jade in his palm, recalling his panic when he took out the other half from the Queen Mother's dressing box when he was eight years old. The pain of nails digging into the palm of his hand, and the words "You are the eagle of Aisin Gioro", have stayed with him his whole life.
Half a jade, two people. A son whom he never acknowledged until his death, and a mother whom he never spoke of until his death. Sitting on the dragon chair is Mr. Aixinjueluo, with the soul of the Hong family beating in his heart.
The whole book uses a cracked jade as a clue, spanning the fifty years of the early Qing Dynasty, from the destruction of Songshan City to the death of Kangxi, and writes a secret of the bloodline that has been hidden in the history books - under the conspiracy, what is hidden is the temperature of a bowl of porridge, the waiting of a lamp, and the hesitant to say "live for a few more years".
Concept: Core theme: the eternal torn between blood and identity - what a person "is" and what he "should" can never coincide.