Snow Burns the Golden Urn

[A princess seeking to restore her fallen dynasty vs. a prince fighting for the throne of the new dynasty; a serious political drama]

[Snow blankets a thousand leagues, flames sear the sky. The realm remains whole, but love and hate can never be put to rest.

Love and sorrow beneath the tides of history]

In the twenty-seventh year of Zhengde, Rong Ke, Prince of Wei of the Great Xia, led his army into Jinling and destroyed the Liang Dynasty in a single campaign.

Amid the flames soaring into the sky, Jiang Qian, the Grand Princess Who Protects the State of Liang, watched the man on horseback with icy eyes. She lightly turned the mechanism on her arm and smiled. "Will you come with me to the underworld?"

Rong Ke pulled the arrow from beside his neck, and a torrent of fury surged through him.

No one knew that he had once held her in his arms beneath the bed curtains and personally fastened an exquisite crossbow to her arm.

That year, she was called Xie Qian.

In the twentieth year of Zhengde, Xie Qian lost her family.

As a princess of the fallen dynasty, she had only one thought left: restore her country.

She moved carefully, using Prince Rong Ke to kill her enemies, find hidden treasure, and stir up the political world.

Everything was part of her calculations, except him.

On the day her identity was exposed, he pinned her hard against the desk, his voice hoarse.

"Where are the men you ambushed? Why don't you call them out to kill me?"

"Xie Qian, if you want me dead, why do you need a knife?"

Tears fell one by one, yet her eyes burned bright.

"I used you, and I helped you too!"

"Rong Ke, you owe some of what you have today to me, don't you?!"

Rong Ke returned from the frontier covered in blood, only to become entangled in the struggle for the throne.

As a prince, he had only one ambition: the empire.

After meeting Xie Qian, he gained another: Xie Qian.

Even when he saw that everything had begun as a scheme, he still concealed it all for her.

He thought he would finally live to see the clouds part, but instead he was met with an even deeper betrayal.

The flames of war rose again. She smiled like ice, the cold gleam of her weapon aimed at his heart.

In that instant, fury surged through him, yet he could not tell whether the fire scorching his lungs

was hatred or a heart falling out of control once more.

"A Ke, the snow of Kunlun and the streams of Zhongnan will never meet in this life."

"A Qian, all the waters of the nine provinces flow into the Eastern Sea. So too will our story reach its end."

Reader's guide:

1. A spy in disguise * love and hate * a love steeped in sorrow.

2. The prologue is not the ending. The ending is happy.

3. Both leads are strong; every character is morally gray.

4. A balance of plot and romance.

Content warnings:

1. The leads are each other's first love and have no prior partners, but later in life both go through marriages in name only.

2. The male lead and the second male lead only ever love the female lead. The female lead develops feelings for both of them, though not at the same time.

If this bothers you, don't read it. There are countless novels out there; let's not make each other miserable.

Theme: The realm remains whole, but love and hate can never be put to rest.