Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I was betrothed to Xiao Chengxu, the Emperor of Great Liang.

Everyone in the capital knew this.

When the late Emperor was still alive, he had once held my father’s hand and said that the Shen family’s daughter Zhaoxue was wise and dignified, and would one day be the empress. I was twelve that year, and Xiao Chengxu was still the young Crown Prince in the Eastern Palace who would secretly climb over the walls to pick apricot blossoms for me.

He said, “Zhaoxue, when I ascend the throne, I will use the most magnificent phoenix carriage to come for you.”

Later, he truly did ascend the throne.

But the phoenix carriage never came.

All that came was an imperial decree for a political marriage.

Northern Yan had deployed its troops at Changyuan Pass, with a hundred thousand iron cavalry pressing against our borders. No one in the court dared to fight. In the Golden Hall, before the assembled officials, Xiao Chengxu said, “Shen Zhaoxue is peerless in both talent and beauty; she can secure the borders in place of the Emperor.”

In place of the Emperor.

Those words were colder than a blade.

I knelt in the hall, my forehead pressed against the icy gold tiles, hearing my father kowtow heavily behind me. He was a three-dynasty minister, yet his back had never been bent so low.

But the decree had been issued, and not a single person in the hall spoke a word on my behalf.

Three months later, dressed in the wedding robes of a Princess of Great Liang, I was sent to Wuxu, the capital of Northern Yan.

The people of Northern Yan built a Princess Residence for me, with vermilion doors and golden tiles, surrounded on all sides by Armored Soldiers. It was called a courtesy, but in reality, it was a cage.

My husband was the Fourth Prince of Northern Yan, Qi Yan.

Rumor had it that he was cruel and bloodthirsty, his hands stained with the blood of his brothers and the blood of Southerners alike. Other rumors claimed he was born sickly, coughing up blood every time the moon was full, and that he would not live past twenty-five.

On our wedding night, when he lifted my bridal veil, I caught a faint scent of medicinal herbs.

The candlelight illuminated his face-pale and lean, yet his features were as sharp as a blade in a cold pool.

I watched as he picked up the wedding wine.

There was my blood in that wine.

Before my departure from Great Liang, the Imperial Academy of Medicine had fed me a Hail-Frost Pill. From that day on, my blood was poisonous. Once mixed into wine, it would turn one’s internal organs to ice within fifteen minutes.

I didn’t cry when I bit the tip of my tongue.

I thought that if I killed him, Northern Yan would surely fall into chaos. If I died in the ensuing turmoil, at least my life wouldn’t have been wasted.

But Qi Yan suddenly caught my hand.

He looked down at the faint streak of red in the cup and laughed softly.

“Shen Zhaoxue, don’t be in such a hurry.”

My heart lurched.

He knew.

In the next moment, he tilted his head back and drained both cups of wedding wine.

I lunged forward to snatch the cups, but it was already too late.

His fingertips were ice-cold as they brushed the blood from my lips, as if he were erasing the evidence of a crime for me.

“The heads of those civil and military officials,” he whispered, “this Prince will cut them off for you, one by one.”