The Mountains and Rivers as a Chessboard

[Reader Advisory]

- Neither male lead is a traditional “good person.” They’ll use morally gray tactics like scheming and deception to achieve their goals.

- The romance develops slowly, with testing the waters and cooperation taking center stage early on.

- The political intrigue is fairly complex and involves multiple factions, so it requires some patience to follow.

- Includes some dark political content, such as corruption, framing, and power struggles.

- This isn’t a wish-fulfillment story. The protagonists will face setbacks and find themselves in difficult situations.

- The battle scenes are direct and include casualties.

I finished editing this ages ago, but never got around to posting it. It’s still sitting in my notes.

Hope you enjoy reading, darlings~

“I’ll make those high and mighty people understand that some debts have to be repaid.”

Though the Great Sheng Dynasty has enjoyed peace for a long time, undercurrents have never ceased to flow. The Seventh Prince, Gu Cangmin, has been confined to his residence by chronic illness. No one knows that beneath his pale, sickly appearance lie the Hidden Scale Guards, powerful enough to overturn the court, and a secret network woven over ten years. Ji Yunqi, orphaned son of the General Who Pacifies the North, is held hostage in the capital. He spends his days drinking and composing poetry, but no one sees the eyes beneath his rakish facade, fixed on the truth behind the massacre in the north.

At the Begonia Spring Banquet, two unfathomable gazes meet in the imperial garden. Gu Cangmin uses a painting of a lonely northern frontier city as bait, while Ji Yunqi tempts him with a suspicious case involving grain transport. Coded messages pass over tea and wine, and they test each other amid laughter. Each knows the other wears a mask, but neither knows whether there is an enemy or an ally beneath it.

Grain shipments mysteriously sink in the canal. Weapons for the northern army were inexplicably short ten years ago. Jiangnan artisans quietly flee south. Nameless bones turn up in a secret passage in the harem. The game stretches from the shabby alleys of the capital’s western market to the banks of Yangzhou’s Slender West Lake, then burns its way back to the Tangli Court within the Forbidden City. The Crown Prince and Third Prince fight in the open and in secret, the Fifth Prince watches from the sidelines, the Empress seems to protect and control, and Consort Shu keeps her distance while drawing near. Everyone thinks they’re the one moving the pieces.

Gu Cangmin is struck by a poisoned arrow in Jiangnan, while Ji Yunqi breaks a deadly trap in the capital. The wronged souls of a hundred thousand northern soldiers seem to weep blood across the account books. A secret letter in the Imperial Study reveals the truth of treason and collusion with the enemy. Only then do they understand: there are no bystanders in this game, only the dead and those who will die next.

A fox disguised as a weakling and a lone wolf pretending to be harmless exchange tokens and lives in countless secret rooms on rainy nights. At last, they draw their swords with their backs to each other. What they wager isn’t just the throne and justice, but the last chance for this rotten dynasty to be reborn amid blood and fire.

“I wish to accompany Your Highness.”

“Until death.”

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