At eight years old, Li Lingrou clasped the hand of a lowly Uighur slave amid a torrent of blood. From then on, he became her father's adopted son, and she became his first love, the one he could never forget.
Li Chengxun was one of the Thirteen Guardians of the waning Tang dynasty. He spoke the languages of the surrounding peoples and could read the scripts of the Six Tribes. As a boy, he was adopted by Li Keyong, Prince of Jin. His resourcefulness and eloquence made him the brains of the Thirteen Guardians.
Yet he was jealous, hungry for power, and obsessed with beauty. Beneath his impeccable clothes and peerless looks lurked a cruel, ungrateful man who could turn cold in an instant.
He seemed to have little skill in martial arts, but his strength and scheming were just as unfathomable.
This dissolute rake loved Li Lingrou but could never have her. When rejection drove him to madness, he even wanted to force her with his strength.
Li Lingrou had no way to resist as he gripped her by the throat and said with contempt and icy cruelty, tinged with a hint of viciousness, "A dog that bites the hand that feeds it thinks it can turn on its master?"
Li Chengxun stared at her for a long while, then smiled with pursed lips. His tone was like that of a boy falling in love for the first time. "Yes. I'm your dog."
*
At twelve, Li Lingrou officially became a Taoist nun and moved into the temple her elder brother, Li Cunxu, had built for her.
That year, she met Bai Xingzhou, the legendary "One-Slash Wanderer," famed as the strongest martial artist in the jianghu. But he had been poisoned from birth, and a renowned physician had declared that he would not live past thirty.
He bore a mysterious lineage and had been entrusted with the responsibility of shouldering the world.
He avoided love, unwilling to face his true feelings.
In this relationship, she loved Bai Xingzhou with every fiber of her being, and Li Chengxun loved her just as desperately. She did whatever she pleased, held nothing back, and flew like a moth into the flames...
Right in front of Li Chengxun, she threw his sincere feelings to the ground and trampled them underfoot.
She was a little madwoman who lived only to perform a single role to the very end.
PS: The story is set in the late Tang and Five Dynasties period, but does not follow history completely. Major events follow the historical timeline; everything else is fictionalized.
Theme: Though I face death nine times, I will not regret it.
