Legend has it that the Ninth Prince and the imperial consort grew up together and remained chaste for one another. Then one day he met her, a woman who looked remarkably like the consort. Though he treated her as a substitute, time and again he knew perfectly well that she was not the woman he loved.
To save her family, she had no choice but to use her face to plead for mercy, swallowing her humiliation as she struggled in agony. But when she saw him utterly defeated, still desperately protecting her, her heart grew unsettled.
