The Eternal Silence of Mountains and Rivers (MR)
By: Yi Hanhe
Live-Action Adaptation: Kill to Love (2025)
Native Title: 山河永寂（李煜同人） by 一寒呵
Genre: Adult, Drama, Historical, Psychological, Romance, Tragedy, Yaoi
Tags: Ancient China, Alternate History, Angst, Beautiful Protagonist, Blindness, Captivity, Court Intrigue, Court Politics, Emperor, Family Conflict, Historical Figures, Imperial Court, Kingdoms, Love-Hate Relationship, Male Protagonist, Multiple POV, Mythological Elements, Obsessive Love, Political Intrigue, Possessive Love Interest, Power Struggle, Prophecies, Royalty, Schemes and Conspiracies, Separation and Reunion, Star-Crossed Lovers, Tragic Romance, War, Poetry, Music, Adapted to Live Action
Content: 110 Main Chapters + 3 Extras + 1 Afterword
Status: Original Complete | Translation Soon
Synopsis:
Li Congjia has spent his life trying to prove that being born with the so-called countenance of an emperor does not mean he wants a throne. The Sixth Prince of Southern Tang would rather lose himself in poetry, music, red sandalwood, and the sound of Xiangquan than compete with his elder brother for succession. But in an imperial court where rumor can be more dangerous than ambition, refusing power does not stop others from fearing that he might someday take it.
Zhao Kuangyin arrives in Jinling from the north with a sword, an endangered younger brother, and ambitions far larger than Southern Tang. Drawn into Crown Prince Li Hongji’s schemes, he should have been nothing more than another threat to Li Congjia’s life. Instead, a chance encounter becomes a wager over the human heart, and the wager becomes a bond neither man can easily escape. One wants freedom from power. The other intends to seize enough power to reshape the world. Neither expects the other to become the one thing he cannot simply cast aside.
History refuses to leave them alone. Princes become rulers, allies become enemies, and private promises are dragged into succession struggles, political schemes, bereavement, betrayal, war, and the rise of a new dynasty. Li Congjia becomes Li Yu, ruler of Southern Tang. Zhao Kuangyin becomes the founding emperor of Song. Between them stand families, wives, brothers, ministers, armies, kingdoms, and the accumulating consequences of every choice made in the name of love, loyalty, survival, and ambition.
By the time war reaches Jinling, the question is no longer whether these two men love each other. It is whether love can survive the things they choose in its name. The Eternal Silence of Mountains and Rivers is a sweeping historical tragedy woven through poetry, guqin music, Tianshui Blue, red sandalwood, prophecy, longing, and repeated wagers on human nature, following two men from the fading splendor of Southern Tang into conquest, captivity, and a world in which keeping both the person you love and the realm you desire may be the one victory history refuses to allow.
Table of Contents: