"..."
Princess Taiping froze.
She watched Lu Changfeng speak with easy assurance, watched him casually seal a fatal flaw and turn a crisis that could shake both court and country into a miracle powerful enough to cement the imperial family's authority... A fierce surge of emotion struck her heart.
It was the revelation of a mind suddenly cleared of its fog, the exhilaration of meeting a worthy opponent across the chessboard.
But deeper still was a feeling she had not experienced in a very long time: peace of mind.
As though, so long as he was there, he could find a way out of even the most perilous game.
His ingenuity and composure won her admiration-and stirred her heart.
Yet what followed was an even deeper wave of helplessness and frustration.
She was the exalted Princess Taiping Who Guards the Nation, her power spanning court and country, yet she seemed forever unable to truly hold this man in her palm. He was like a gust of wind, bringing her cool relief and sweeping away the mist, but never willing to linger for her-"Ashamed to Follow the Peach and Plum"! That damned "Ashamed to Follow the Peach and Plum"!!!
Taiping secretly clenched her fists, her nails almost digging into her palms.
Never had she understood so clearly, and never had she regretted so deeply-regretted those past years of reckless indulgence in lust and pleasure.
The male favorites once regarded as romantic diversions, the rumors she had allowed to spread to consolidate her power-all of them had now become an insurmountable wall before him, a wall she had built with her own hands.
She was like someone who had walked through the mire for so long that she had grown accustomed to its filth, only to suddenly glimpse a clear, radiant moon.