The Scorpion and the Night Blossom

The brightest and most beautiful flowers are the most poisonous.

Nine years ago, the war between the Kingdom of Night and the Kingdom of Rivers tore Àn'yīng's family apart, leaving her mother barely alive and a baby sister to fend for. Now the mortal realm is falling into eternal night, and mó — beautiful, ravenous demons — roam the land, feasting on the flesh of humans and drinking their souls.

Àn'yīng is no longer a helpless child. Armed with her crescent blades and trained in the ancient art of practitioning, she enters the Immortality Trials, open to any mortal who can survive the journey to the immortal realm. Those who complete them are granted a pill of eternal life — the one thing she knows can heal her mother. But to reach the prize she has to survive the competition, and death is common in the Trials.

Oddly, someone is helping her stay alive: Yù'chén, a rival contestant, powerful and handsome and as secretive about his past as he is about his motives. The longer Àn'yīng survives, the clearer it becomes that something is badly wrong in the immortal realm — and that she will have to decide whether the stranger she is falling for can be trusted, or whether he is the most dangerous player in the game, for her and for all the realms.

First in Amélie Wen Zhao's Three Realms duology: a Chinese-inspired trials fantasy with a demon apocalypse behind it and a romance built on a very reasonable suspicion.