She was the emperor's lost beloved, his prisoner, and the one truth he could never tell.

Seven years after the Crown Prince's rebellion destroyed her family, Ye Changning has learned to survive as a ghost. Then Emperor Li Chengmu finds her at Anyuan Temple and drags her back into the palace, where every smile hides a blade and every kindness comes with a price.

To the court, she is only a low-ranked concubine who resembles the Emperor's dead favorite. To Li Chengmu, she is Yuer: the girl he failed to marry, failed to protect, and refuses to lose again. But Changning remembers the blood between them. Her former husband died in rebellion. Her clan was erased for treason. And the man who now offers her tenderness wears the crown built on their graves.

As false pregnancies, staged deaths, and buried witnesses surface inside the harem, Changning must decide whether the Emperor is her destroyer, her shield, or the last person alive who truly loved her.

A completed novel of dark palace intrigue, forbidden love, and a devastating truth that arrives too late.

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