Bride of Vengeance: Blood Debts of the Crown

Huo Zhaohua comes into the Xia palace playing a girl who has seen nothing of the world, timid and easy to talk over. Underneath, she is careful and hard. Her older sister Huo Junhua taught her medicine and poisons, and she knows how to get at what people want. Consort Rong is the emperor's favourite and does not care to share him. She had a quarrel with Huo Junhua before any of this, and she takes one look at the face on the new arrival and starts looking for a way to put her down in public. She hands Zhaohua a painting of ink jade peonies she has never managed to finish and tells her to finish it. Zhaohua takes the work. She mixes her own blood into the pigment and paints with that. Everyone watching is shocked by it, and so is the emperor Zhou Yan, who has been in the room without being seen.