A Lantern to Guide the Way

My new story, "The Stand-In Becomes the Heroine's One True Love," is now live. Feel free to add it to your favorites~

The very first day we met, Madam took my life.

[The full story is complete. We take no responsibility for any discrepancies between pirated copies and the official text.]

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That year, her entire family was accused of treason and executed. She alone escaped and scraped by in the world. Later, the Crown Prince took her in and trained her to be a cold-blooded assassin. The Crown Prince often said she was a blade he'd raised for ten years...

Burdened with a blood feud, she mistakenly became embroiled in a struggle for imperial power. The only mission she ever failed was thanks to that villain.

Their first meeting

On the tenth year of her service, she was assigned to assassinate Lord Zou. She climbed through his window late at night and was about to end his life when the man, desperate to save himself, said mournfully, "I won't tell... My lord... you need to run..."

The man was cunning. Shizai got caught, but somehow he didn't die!

As she left, Shizai could no longer hold back. "You're really hard to kill, aren't you?"

Later

He wanted to save her, help her kill her enemies, set her free, and help her escape the machinations of imperial power. He wanted to test how she felt about him...

Zou Shi: "A Gui, A Gui, where is the road home? Where is your place of belonging?"

You Gui: "People are like duckweed. Wherever the wind blows them, that's where they belong."

Zou Shi was unwilling to accept that. He wanted to give her a hand. If he couldn't be the blade, then he would be the lamp lighting her way.

Later, he asked again, "A Gui, A Gui, where is the road home? Where is your place of belonging?"

You Gui: "Zou Shi, please light the way for me."

Zou Shi understood.

In the dim mist, he swept up his robe and raised the lantern to light her way.

A fox spirit who fears death and talks himself into things (Zou Shi) x a cold-blooded, wooden, highly skilled fighter (You Gui).

The male lead is an aide to the Third Prince; the female lead is a cold-blooded assassin. They're on opposite sides of the struggle for power at first...

In short, when one side is a foot ahead, the other is a yard ahead.

P.S. 1. Both leads are powerful. The man is a strategist, the woman a fighter.

2. The male lead is a hopeless romantic and has a bit of an M streak, but not much...

3. The political intrigue is the main focus, with romance as a secondary element. The setting and politics are fictional, so don't overthink them.

Male lead's combat ability: 1

Will to survive: 99.99%

Female lead's combat ability: 99.99%

Will to survive: 1

Theme: Even in darkness, you can break free and emerge like a butterfly