In the winter of the 19th year of Chengde, the fire in the East Palace burned for three days and three nights.
Everyone said that the crown prince, grandson Qi Min, and Princess Chang Xin were all destroyed in the fire. Only Nanny Lan held the charred child in her arms, who was only breathing. She knelt in the snow in the side courtyard of Prince Changxin's Mansion, kowtowing over and over again: "Your Majesty, this is your son, Master Yuanhuai... He, he is still alive."
When the bronze mask was placed on his cheek, six-year-old Qi Min woke up in severe pain.
Through the eyeholes of the mask, he saw the terrifying face in the bronze mirror, and heard the choked voice of Nanny Lan: "From today on, you will follow Yuan Huai. You have to live and survive to get back everything that belongs to you."
He doesn't understand what "everything" means.
But he remembered his mother-in-law pushing him into the sea of fire, her determined yet gentle eyes, and the feeling of hot tears falling on his forehead.
"Min'er, bear with it."
This endurance lasts for twenty years.
