Jun Che (Xiao Wu)

~"The Scarlet Oath"~|| ~"The Curse of Two Lifetimes"~|| ~"Bound by Blood, Freed by Love"~|| In the Empire of Ding, Lu Ying—shy, radiant, beloved daughter of minister Lu Wuan—watched her world collapse when his friend Duang Lin forged treasonous papers and framed him. Branded a traitor, Lu Wuan was executed; Lu Ying’s mother, shattered, took her own life. Barely twenty, Lu Ying was seized and sold into a brothel. Fifteen days later the fifth prince, Jun Che, ascended the throne. Brilliant, dangerous, he claimed Lu Ying as his Empress, lavishing jewels and suffocating devotion that soon became a gilded prison. One stormy night Huan Li broke into the palace to rescue her; arrows split the dark, soldiers closed in, and Jun Che—consumed by obsession—dragged Huan Li from the carriage. Lu Ying begged, kissed him to stall, pleaded for her brother’s life, and threw herself between them when Jun Che lunged with his sword; the blade pierced her heart and she died in his arms. Jun Che never buried her, keeping her body close as madness and something darker took hold of him. Then Lu Ying awoke—twenty again, three years before the fall; her father lived, her mother smiled, Huan Li stood by her. She vowed to expose Duang Lin, to protect her family, and never let Jun Che near her. But fate twisted: at the market she brushed past a tall, scarred stranger 'Jun che' and, following him, found him bloodied in the Slave Arena—no prince now, only a broken fighter. Bitterness flared: she bribed the master to worsen the bouts and bought him herself, intent on breaking him as he had broken her in her past life. Yet as days will pass, she will see pain behind his fury—secrets buried deep. Slowly, she will uncover the truth: the curse that once controlled him, the darkness that twisted his love, the ritual of blood he will have forced upon her—not madness, but a binding spell. Hatred will give way to something softer: compassion, fear, longing. Jun Che will rise again, haunted but wiser.