Originally titled The Great Marsh
I was betrayed by someone I trusted, and died in the most disgraceful way.
That ridiculous, smitten charm demon who burned with desire and would have gone through fire and water for me.
In the end, he pushed me into a fatal trap to reclaim his own good name as a paragon of elegance.
Thinking of his superb acting, good enough to fool even himself, and all his outrageous antics, I could only applaud loudly.
I died a gruesome death, so naturally I knew nothing of what happened afterward.
The flames soared into the sky. The disaster lasted for days, and my people were reduced to livestock to be bought and sold.
Meanwhile, Shengzhao, the brilliant young preceptor of the Ming Kingdom, went mad overnight, massacred the court, and turned his sword on his aunt.
-
Reborn, I met him again at the ironworks where we first met.
The new ruler of the Ming Kingdom, a sickly man with the bearing of an immortal, listlessly sent someone to ask me for directions.
I looked at him coldly, as if watching a shoddy play whose ending I'd already been told.
Later, he delivered himself into my hands and let me imprison him at my feet, humiliating him day and night.
I shattered his Daoist heart, ground down his pride, and listened to his broken, restrained moans.
Even when everyone abandoned him, even when he cut out his core and purged his soul, he could never reclaim that moment of tenderness when I once said, "I trust you."
[Alluring, wanton master of secret identities x clear-eyed female demon who cannot be deceived or coaxed]
Shengzhao was a prodigy in his youth, frail and sickly, imprisoned all his life in the darkest, cruelest part of the Ming Kingdom's Blazing Terrace.
The demon race watched hungrily from the front, while his own family surrounded him on all sides from behind.
During his long years of plotting, Shengzhao split his soul and turned into a lowly, twisted charm demon.
He forgot everything, but then he met her.
The main story is told in third person.
Both leads are sexually inexperienced. Extensive original worldbuilding.
Theme: The path of ideals and faith.
