The Phoenix Seeks Its Mate

[Blurb]

◆ Gentle, patient, ailing empress bottom x cool, steadfast, scheming musician top

◆ Two female leads | Palace romance with angst | Mutual redemption | Guaranteed happy ending

Yun Wangshu was the perfect empress for ten years.

She remembered every rule of the palace, but forgot who she was.

That was until the pipa player who was always hitting the wrong notes appeared.

"Your Majesty's flute sounds like a caged bird beating its wings."

Shen Liuying's fingers brushed the scars on her wrist:

"Does it hurt?"

On a rainy night in the deep palace, they made their moves from opposite sides of a chessboard:

"If I win this game, Your Majesty, will you draw my eyebrows for me?"

"And if I win?"

"Then I... will give you my life."

When the empress dowager's decree, "Beat her to death," came down,

Yun Wangshu smashed her phoenix crown and knelt before the hall:

"I'll trade my position as empress for her life!"

But Shen Liuying laughed softly from the torture rack:

"Your Majesty, do you know... I came here to kill you?"

[Highlights]

★ A battle between equals: an empress who seems gentle and frail but is actually deeply calculating x a musician who pretends to be aloof but is really an assassin bent on revenge

★ Intense push and pull: tuning strings with their fingertips, bathing together, drawing eyebrows, feeding each other poison and medicine

★ One twist after another: "Every bird you saved was one of my spies." "The poison on that handkerchief is enough to kill three people."

★ Palace power struggles: the empress dowager, emperor, empress, and musician all vie for power, and someone dies in every chapter

★ A redemptive happy ending: a journey from "using each other" to "willing to die for each other"

[Content Warnings]

1. Neither lead is a virgin. The empress has previously attended the emperor's bed, and the musician has a history of revenge.

2. Contains descriptions of punishments in the imperial court.

3. They scheme against each other early on, fall in love with each other in the middle, and live or die together later.

4. The musician has permanent damage to her right hand and later switches to playing the qin with her left.

[Sample Dialogue]

"How did you get the scar on your wrist?"

"I wanted to remember the warmth of Your Majesty's fingertips."

"Shen Liuying, who are you really?"

"The only variable in Your Majesty's game of chess."

"I order you to live."

"Then, Your Majesty... will you feed me my medicine yourself?"

Theme: ...