Book excerpt: It's bad enough that Dong Tu is being forced to marry a very unpleasant man--it gets even worse when she dies on her wedding day. Her life is turned on its head as she finds herself abducted by three strangers from a notorious group of martial art experts, the Monstrous Eighteen. In their company, she encounters the intriguing Obsidian, king of poison, a man whose entire body is laced with lethal toxin. The story follows Dong Tu as she becomes tangled in a romance with the dangerous yet handsome man, catching a glimpse into his life in the Whispered World.