Playing Along

This novel is complete. The full text has been revised, so pirated versions are incomplete. Please support the official version. The story is told in the third person.

[Ambitious heroine who hides her true nature × Scheming hero who uses others to kill]

Coming next: The Dust-Covered Pearl

[The first part of the blurb is told in the heroine's first-person perspective, while the second is told through the hero's letter to his wife. The first three chapters provide background, and the key plot begins in Chapter Four. Please be patient, dear readers!]

*When I was sixteen, bodies were strewn across Mount Kunwu. I knelt before my master, sobbing uncontrollably. He pulled a scroll from his robes and pressed it into my hands, then pushed me away. In the end, he was pierced through the heart by a storm of arrows.

Every night, I relive it in my dreams. I remember it clearly. I dare not forget, and I cannot forget.

The imperial prison was an awful place: dark, foul-smelling, bloody, and full of humanity at its worst. Every day, I could hear people screaming in agony. I often stared at the moon through the small skylight in my cell, sometimes lost in thought.

The door opened. I was next.

The whip hurt, and the water was cold...

Still... they only ever asked the same question:

"Who put you up to this?!"

I said nothing and let them torture me. Besides, they wouldn't let me die.

I laughed to myself. It was all part of my plan.

From setting the scheme in motion to being thrown into the imperial prison today, every step, every person, even every word had been calculated by me.

A beam of light stabbed at my eyes. Perhaps it was because I had gone so long without seeing daylight. I closed my eyes, and heard hurried footsteps beside me.

A familiar voice sounded by my ear. "Zhaozhao, you were too impatient."

Just as I expected, he had come.

I raised my eyes, but he covered them with his palm. I smiled, lifting the corners of my lips. "Xie Jingce, you love me."

You're finished.

A Letter to My Wife

For my beloved Zhaozhao, to read

Zhaozhao:

Seeing your words is like seeing you. May you be at ease as you read this. Though we are separated by a thousand miles, my thoughts of you have never ceased.

The cold wind bites, and winter is drawing near. I was unable to see you off when we parted, so I send this letter to convey my feelings.

Yet when I put brush to paper, I do not know what to say. I fear my words will fail to express my thoughts and you will not understand how I feel.

We have been apart for months, and I have not seen your face. I think of you every night and dream of you, and you fill my thoughts by day. From the first moment we met, I was already drawn to you. In this letter, I pour out all I have thought over these past months.

The journey by carriage is slow, but my longing has already become an illness.

Today, yellow sand swirled up to the sky. I woke early with tears in my eyes. I do not know whether I was hurt by last night's thoughts and dreams, or whether the sand has blinded me and left me in pain. I have turned it over in my mind day and night, and my thoughts are tangled.

On the sixth day of the eleventh month, snow fell in delicate flakes. It was just like the day we shared our feelings beneath the corridor. You wore red, your dark hair falling loose, like a plum blossom standing proud and striking in the snow. Your hair captured my heart. I was slow to realize it, but I had long since fallen for you. Yet I was not free to act as I wished, and feared I would hurt you.

Now winter is cold. You are in the capital. Are your clothes warm enough? Are you well? Do you think of me?

As I write, I am reluctant to part from you, and have so much more to say. Yet these words cannot convey all that I feel. I can only write this:

Zhaozhao is the moon in the clouds. These feelings are for Zhaozhao alone.

The sixteenth day of the eleventh month, Chongzhen era

Written personally by Shuheng

Notes:

① One true pairing, 1v1, both leads' first and only love!

② The entire cast is full of skilled actors!

③ Both leads are smart! They suspect one another, so expect a true battlefield of love and intrigue!

④ The hero and heroine belong to opposing factions and each serves their own side, creating endless tension.

⑤ The heroine is absolutely not blinded by love and will never become stupid!

Theme: Stand on your own and grow stronger