She was the illegitimate daughter of a general’s wife and another man. To keep the general from discovering the truth, her mother secretly abandoned her in the wilderness, leaving her to fend for herself.
The little girl suffered through a life of wandering. In the dead of winter, people stripped her naked and made her squat in the street. They poured urine on her and sold her from one person to the next.
He was the emperor’s favored son, the crown prince and heir to the throne. Cold and indifferent from childhood, he had watched his own crown princess and unborn child die before his eyes without so much as a reaction.
But one day, by chance, he saw the little girl squatting there naked, letting people bully her.
The sight shocked him beyond words. Because he had failed to save her, he was consumed with guilt day and night.
Years later, when he was devoted to serving his country and its people, he offered a thousand taels of gold in exchange for a skilled person’s help.
He promised wealth, status, and power, offering the expert anything in the world, yet nothing could move them in the slightest.
As he struggled to understand and grew suspicious, he also became intensely curious about her.
When he learned that the expert was the child he had failed to save all those years ago, he vowed to do everything in his power to treat her well, give her a happy and peaceful life, and spare her from ever having to wander again.
But who could have guessed that she had come to take his life?
He looked at the sword she had plunged into his abdomen with her own hands and laughed coldly. “Didn’t you want to know all my trump cards? Does my life count? If it does, then take it.”
Much later, she looked at the Crown Prince’s cousin, who bore an uncanny resemblance to His Highness, her eyes reddening. “He must regret ever meeting me.”
The Crown Prince’s cousin, renowned throughout the capital for his unmatched looks, gave a wicked smile when he heard this. “Regret? He had you at the very height of your beauty. What could he possibly regret?”
