The Most Beautiful Consort Under Heaven

In the imperial prison, he said, "Woman, since you're about to die, serve me one last time before you go."

He took her hand for the last time, but not to grow old with her. Instead, he coldly ordered her execution outside the imperial capital.

She smiled. Even with rats gnawing her wrist until white bone showed, the pain in her body could not compare to the heart that had been cast down from the clouds. So her beloved had never trusted her after all.

The famously beautiful Princess of Yuan married a young nobleman from a minor clan whose face had been disfigured. The news shocked the entire city, but no one knew it was a mutually beneficial scheme they had devised together without a teacher's guidance.

She offered wise counsel, seized the throne, crushed the rebellion, and brought order to the realm. Yet when she was no longer useful, he confined her to a corner of the Cold Palace. He, meanwhile, embraced the woman he loved, dressed in a phoenix robe, as the officials paid their respects. So the play had ended, and the curtain had fallen.

In their previous lives, they had married and smiled together beneath red wedding curtains, never imagining that love would vanish in an instant, leaving them dead and wounded in spirit. In this life, he is a young ruler whose thoughts are impossible to read, and she is a beautiful, peerlessly wise princess from an enemy kingdom. Love, betrayal, misunderstanding, heartbreak; tangled together across past and present lives. As the grim truth behind the scenes draws near, she must face it head-on, even if her heart turns to ashes.