The day Lu Zhao was born, snow fell from the heavens.
In the winter of Yongjing Year Seventeen, Nanyue and Xijing formed an alliance. The twelve-year-old Imperial Princess Lu Zhao was sent to Xijing as a hostage, becoming a token abandoned by Nanyue.
As a hostage, her days in Xijing were a nightmare. Born blind, she felt as though she had fallen into hell, where daylight could never reach.
If anything kept her alive, it was probably meeting Xie Yu.
The young man held out his hand and helped her up from the filth and mud. He stayed by her side, taught her to defend herself with swords, instructed her in the Six Secret Teachings and the art of military strategy, and took her to feel the spring and snow as the seasons turned. Beneath the quiet lamplight, he even folded flowers into her hair.
His hands were cold, but Lu Zhao always held them tight.
Even if he was a handful of snowflakes about to melt, she still wanted to cling to the one clear, lucid thing in her dream.
Until years later, when rebels joined forces with internal strife and external threats, and Nanyue teetered on the brink of collapse.
Far away, ten thousand li from home, Lu Zhao opened her eyes and finally saw this world shrouded in wind and snow, its realm battered and broken.
She returned from Xijing to Nanyue, crushed the rebels, slew the traitors, and reclaimed the capital. With the Son of Heaven's sword in hand, she personally took control of Nanyue's government.
From then on, her name was etched into a page of Nanyue's history.
But as Lu Zhao pored over the historical records, she suddenly caught sight of something:
It turned out that Xie Yu's name had long been recorded there.
The young man who had once recovered fourteen cities for Nanyue, a one-man army equal to a million soldiers, had died on the northwestern frontier ten years earlier.
Reading guide:
1. One-on-one romance, happy ending.
2. Fictional dynasty with original worldbuilding.
Theme: The rise and fall of the world is everyone's responsibility.
