At a Fork in the Road, I Meet Qing

[Contrasting identities + angsty push and pull + revenge and political intrigue + the regretful chase] [Genius poison doctor with a sunny heart vs. cold-faced demon] “I crossed a blood-soaked road with nowhere to return to, only to chance upon the clear light of you.” After burying her father, Liu Qingyi found a gravely wounded man at her doorstep. The mountains were deep and densely forested, and ordinary people couldn’t even find the trail. Yet this man seemed to have planned it all, collapsing right outside her home, his shallow breaths carrying a stubborn refusal to give in. Later, she gladly passed on everything her father had taught her to Chu Qizi. She thought she would spend her life by his side, until old age, never realizing that she had been caught in his schemes from beginning to end. The next time she heard his name, he was the new emperor, Chu Qizi. The skills she had taught him had become the blade with which he crushed his enemies, and her unrequited love had become the cage that trapped her. The palace was cold at night, and hearts were hard to read. She refused to be trapped, so she ran. Chu Qizi found her at the mountain god’s temple, his imperial robes dusted with snow and his eyes bloodshot. “You love the people and care for the realm, so I gave you a high position and the power to protect them. Why won’t you accept it?” Liu Qingyi wrenched herself free of his icy hand and smiled, her words sharp as ice. “I saved you, and you repaid my kindness with betrayal. And now you ask why I won’t accept it? If I’d known, I should never have picked you up.” Her innocence was gone, her naivety dead. All that remained was her, walking away without looking back into the cold wind. Later, in countless dark nights, he held her tight and pleaded hoarsely, “Ayi, can’t we pretend nothing ever happened, and fall in love all over again...?” He had hidden half a lifetime of cruelty beneath the wish to protect her and give her a lifetime of serenity. But the world had never been his to command.