In the winter of the 39th year of Jiajing, Zhang Juzheng went to Prince Yu's Mansion to give lectures.
He was a talented lecturer who became a Jinshi at the age of twenty-three, and she was a humble concubine who was born as a bricklayer. He used the palace as a way to get promoted, and she relied on her son to gain a foothold in the palace. Two people who are the best at calculating are assessing each other's worth across a bead curtain.
A reprimand from King Yu made her completely sober: her birth, son, and status are all things that others can take back with just one word. She calmed down and from now on she would only be a chess player, not a chess piece.
She wakes up first. He entered the game later.
Investigate, test, attract. She roped him into the game, and he did it willingly. From using each other to being each other's confidants, from testing each other behind the curtain to standing side by side on the top of power. In ten years, there is no more separation than a bead curtain.
The most intimate contact was when he brushed the snow off her shoulders.
The longest commitment is that she has guarded his country for ten years.
Then he left. The snow is still falling. The eaves are empty.
Reasonable fiction within the framework of historical facts, not official history.
Intent: Loneliness and redemption of sober people - two people struggling in the quagmire of power redeem each other because of their understanding of each other, and due to the shackles of identity and time, they move towards the eternal regret of not getting what they want.