My Blade Answers to No One

She entered the palace at fourteen.

At sixteen, she ruled from behind the curtain.

On the first day Shen Qingwu sat behind the beaded curtain, she dismissed a grand chancellor who had served three reigns.

Eighteen-year-old General Xiao Che knelt before the hall and looked up at her. “Where is the Empress Dowager's blade hidden?”

She walked past him without looking back.

Later, he fought his way across the northern frontier for her, bringing back the tiger tally, his military honors, and the loyalty of a hundred thousand cavalrymen.

She stood atop the city tower to accept Southern Chu's surrender, then turned to him and said, “Thank you for your service, General.”

He had waited four years for those words.

On the day she ascended the throne, he submitted his resignation.

Her vermilion reply held just two words: Denied.

She took the petition and went to him, meeting his eyes for the first time of her own accord.

“The blade may leave,” she said. “You stay.”

She is the emperor. He is her blade.

She can give up the realm and conquer another.

But she will only turn back once in her life.