Tragedy

A group of tourists travels to an island for a vacation, only to be forced into a deadly game with enormous rewards and their lives at stake. Over the days that follow, one special contest will be held each day, and the event will be chosen by a randomly selected Featured Player. At least one person will be eliminated in every contest. There is only one way to end this brutal game early: identify the Mastermind hiding among them.

Chen Nuo is terminally ill and had planned to end his life during the trip. But once he is drawn into the game, desperation rekindles his will to survive, and he joins the other contestants in one unexpected, heart-stopping contest after another. As the number of survivors plummets, the game’s rules grow increasingly cruel, laying bare the best and worst of human nature in a struggle between life and death. They have three Mastermind votes. Can they unmask the Mastermind? And what astonishing secret lies behind The Missing Game?

After Southern Xu fell, sixteen-year-old Princess Xihe fled through a land at war with the young heir to the throne, only to be delivered into a Northern Qian military camp.

An enemy general fell in love with her, believing her to be an ordinary girl, while she watched those dearest to her die before her eyes.

Hatred for a fallen nation and vengeance for her family drove her onto a road paved with thorns.

Years later, she became empress of Northern Qian and laid her plans one careful step at a time amid court intrigue and bloodshed.

Even when she had been wounded beyond bearing, someone still broke through every obstacle to reach her – but she would have to choose between her own love and hatred, and the lives of all beneath heaven.

A merchant had been away for three years without returning home.

Everyone said he had fallen for someone else and set up a mistress in another town.

His wife refused to believe it.

On New Year’s Eve, she stood beside the road with a bronze mirror in her arms, listening to the words of wandering souls.

When she learned where her husband was, she set out alone to find him.

A year later, their daughter Yihe received a letter from her mother.

The letter assured her that all was well.

But Yihe knew her mother was in danger.

To uncover the truth, she followed her mother’s example and took up a mirror to seek an answer.

After a long wait, a wandering soul’s face appeared in the glass.

Slowly, it spoke: “The Son of Heaven is lighting the Everlasting Lamp.

“Human bones are its wick.

Human flesh is its oil.

“While the lamp burns without end, its master cannot die.

“Thus may the Son of Heaven live forever.

“Your father has already been rendered into lamp oil.

As for your mother…

“She is to be the emperor’s new empress.”

Gu Qingxue had already been chosen as the next crown princess.

Out in the wilderness, she stole Father’s horse, tossed down an ingot of silver, and called it payment.

The delay kept Father from bringing the midwife home in time.

Mother died in childbirth.

Father said he would seek justice for her.

Gu Qingxue treated him as a beggar and, in a fit of anger, kicked him in the chest.

It killed him.

On the day of Father’s funeral, Gu Qingxue married, becoming the most exalted crown princess in the land.

Later, a new dancing girl arrived at the Eastern Palace.

My mother was a general.

A powerful prince humiliated her, then spread vicious rumors to avenge his wounded pride.

When my brother sought justice, the prince’s sister accused him of rebellion.

The emperor condemned our entire household, and she was crowned empress.

They thought we were all dead.

They were wrong.

I survived—and entered the palace as the emperor’s favorite Go player.

Now I would become his favorite consort, and make every move count.

I had failed my mission.

With the rebel cornered and a blade held to each of our throats—mine and the heroine’s—the man I had been sent to win over had to make a choice.

Of course, I was the one he abandoned.

My mother was exquisitely beautiful.

But during the years my father studied abroad, another man kept her in his power and abused her.

On the day Father returned, he stumbled upon what was happening.

I thought he would be horrified.

Furious.

Instead, he merely closed the bedroom door.

And heartlessly shut my mother inside with her humiliation and her tears.

I was the late emperor’s younger sister, the reigning emperor’s own aunt, and the only Grand Princess of Great Jin.

On my sixtieth birthday, my husband’s supposedly dead first wife appeared at my door with the daughter she had borne late in life.

“The first wife is the lawful wife; her successor must take a concubine’s place.

But Your Highness is far too exalted for me to ask that of you.

I am willing to become a concubine myself.

I ask only that you show mercy and allow Mian to be entered in her father’s clan register, so that father and daughter may be reunited.”

Only then did I learn that the husband who had shown me such love and devotion had been keeping her in another household for forty years.

Seven years into my marriage, I met the woman I wanted to protect for the rest of my life.

She was gentle.

Romantic.

Her smile lit up my stagnant life.

Beside her, my wife seemed so much less.

All she ever talked about was our child and the endless petty details of daily life.

So, on our anniversary, I asked for a divorce.

But the tears, the accusations, the desperate struggle I expected never came.

Her hands merely paused over the food she was preparing.

She turned to me calmly.

“Fine.

I have just one condition.”

“Sell this apartment, and I’ll sign.”

Pei Xu was the Chancellor’s son.

On a wager, he disguised himself as a poor young man and set out to win me over.

Instead, he fell deeply in love with me and swore he would marry no one else.

When his sister learned of it, she had my younger brother and sister killed, then sold me to a brothel to put an end to my presumptuous dreams.

Years later, she was to marry the young marquis.

But on their wedding day, he never came to fetch his bride.

Dressed in his wedding robes, he was at a brothel, spending a fortune on me.