Shen Tang, daughter of a condemned general from Nanzhao, saw her entire family executed. The emperor adopted her as the Fifth Princess, but in truth she was his personal assassin. At fifteen, she was ordered to assassinate Xie Yuan, the Third Prince of Beishuo, but ended up poisoning him and blinding him. The emperor believed she had betrayed Nanzhao, so he poisoned Shen Tang and sentenced her to death.
She didn't know Xie Yuan had never truly hated her. He neither killed her nor let her go. He prepared a carriage to send her back to her homeland. Before she died, she learned that something was amiss about the deaths of the Shen family, but she had no time to take revenge. At the moment she breathed her last, she was brought back to life "by chance" in the body of Wen Shi, a tea-picking girl from Yunxi Town.
Three years later, she entered Prince Yuan's villa as a physician and personally treated him with acupuncture to restore his sight.
She knew everything, but couldn't say a word.
He thought he would be blind for the rest of his life, and spent three years waiting for a dead woman.
The day the poison wore off, he opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Wen Shi's face.
One pretended to be blind, the other pretended to be foolish. Until the Crown Prince's coup and half of a private seal from Nanzhao brought the truth of that year to light.
The two miserable souls joined hands to purge the court and bring about a unified realm of peace and prosperity.
Happy ending
[Character Profiles]
The heroine seems like a meek, obedient tea-picking physician, but she's really a little assassin and con artist who tells the truth in every sentence. The hero seems like a miserable, disillusioned prince who has gone blind, but the blade in his scabbard has never truly been put away.
Theme: Hurt/comfort, mutual secrets, and a reveal of their identities. A blind prince and a soul-transmigrated physician spar on a knife's edge. Two interwoven mysteries involve drained military supplies and half a private seal, all building toward the redemptive romance of "the dead woman he waited for has returned."
