The Duke's Crimson Bride

In the Present Day:

Yue Lin-codename: The Red Ghost-was never supposed to exist in the light. Raised in the underground assassin guild known only as the Glass Lotus, she was trained from the age of eight to kill without mercy, to erase herself from the world. Her reputation stretched across continents; her name was never spoken, only feared.

But assassins don't get happy endings.

On what should have been a routine assignment-eliminating a foreign diplomat in Shanghai-she was ambushed by her own team. A betrayal so sudden, so clean, she didn't even feel the first blade. As her blood pooled into the silk carpet, Yue Lin's final breath slipped out with one unfulfilled thought:

> "If I had a second chance... I'd live for myself. Not the blade. Not the blood."

---

In Ancient China - The Waning Years of the Southern Empire

When Yue Lin opens her eyes again, she is chained to a wooden pole in the center of a rain-drenched courtyard, her skin lashed, body starved. The scent of rot, incense, and cruelty fills the air. She is no longer herself-at least, not entirely.

She has awakened in the body of Mo Ran, a noblewoman accused of scandal: seducing and attempting to assassinate the feared Duke of Hei'an, a war hero who rose from peasant ranks through sheer bloodshed. The sentence: public execution by blade at dawn.

But as the executioner raises his sword, a voice slices through the storm.

> "Stop."

From the shadows of the pavilion, the Duke himself arrives-Li Zeyan, the Emperor's black dog, commander of the northern legions, and a man known for dragging entire villages into fire for treason. Cloaked in obsidian robes, with cold, bottomless eyes, he steps toward her.

He looks at the woman kneeling before him, her back straight despite the bruises, her gaze razor-sharp even in ruin. That isn't the terrified noble girl he expected.

He sees a killer's stillness.

And then, for reasons no one dares to question, he utters:

> "She is mine. Touch her again, and I will paint the capital in your blood."

With that, Yue Lin-now Lady Li-becomes the legal wife of the most dangerous man in the empire.

---

A Marriage Born of Blood, Not Love

To outsiders, it's a mercy. To court officials, a scandal. To Yue Lin? A prison wrapped in silk.

She is brought to Hei'an Manor, a fortress masquerading as a noble residence, guarded by silent soldiers and whispers. Servants are too afraid to meet her eyes. They say Duke Li once burned an entire city because someone insulted his dead mother. They say no woman lasts more than a year in his household.

But Yue Lin has survived worse. She plays the role of wife-silent, graceful, watching. And slowly, she pieces together the power web around her: corrupted eunuchs, a dying emperor, concubines who command assassins, and a mysterious cult spreading through the empire.

She also begins to sense something else-Li Zeyan is watching her, not with lust, but recognition. At night, he sits beside her sleeping form, fingers brushing the hilt of her hidden dagger, whispering names from a past she doesn't remember.

He has secrets.

And Yue Lin's instincts scream that this man once walked through time... just like her.