He was the last piece she landed on the chessboard, but he was the string she held tightest. At the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet three years ago, she stepped on an old dance skirt with faded silver threads and chose him in a staggering way that no one noticed. From then on, the beacon smoke in Huainan, the imperial edict from the Imperial Ancestral Temple, the half piece of sweet-scented osmanthus cake outside the cold palace wall - every step was between her fifteen years of palm prints. She was sitting on the dragon chair reviewing folding papers, with the raw edges of the old rope tied around her wrists. He stood on the altar to listen to the court, with the knot of the new rope close to his heart. All the dignitaries in the palace didn't know that there was a side door to the inner court. They didn't know that the old road three miles outside Xihua Gate led to a pastry shop in the south of the city that never closed. One is unwilling to give up power, and the other is willing to be a pawn. The two threads are entangled with three knots, entangled in the old party's dark network and the northern border. All paths on the chessboard lead to the cup of tea in her hand that never goes cold. He walked a long way, and she was still waiting when he came back. When the third rope was tied, it was just dawn.
