When she picked up the child from under the wall of the cold palace, he was four years old, curled up on the corner of the bed, clutching her finger.
She lived two lives. She failed to protect him in the last life, but she came back with all her memories in this life. From Zhu Qiyu's ascension to the throne, Zhu Qizhen's restoration, to every assassination, every poisoning, and every hidden line in the court in the Chenghua Dynasty, she blocked him for fifteen years.
People say that Concubine Wan Gui specializes in spoiling the country, and that she climbed from palace maid to noble concubine by relying on scheming and means. No one knew that she was waiting in the moonlight by the window sill every night. No one knew that she kept a list of people who should be killed for him.
On the day he ascended the throne, he said to the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty: "I have the final say."
She stood outside the hall in the morning light without going in.
This is the story of a palace maid who spent her whole life clearing the way for a young emperor, and it is also the story of the young emperor spending half his life to say "I'm here to find you" back to her.
"Your Majesty, this servant has blocked the ups and downs of these fifteen years for you. You will have to walk your own path from now on."
"Zhen'er, I'm here to find you. Please walk slower."
Intention: 1. The ultimate form of protection is letting go. Wan Zhen'er has lived for two lives, and her core action is "protection". But the end point of protecting is not to protect Zhu Jianshen under his wings forever, but to allow him to sit on that chair alone and walk the "future road" alone. She shielded him from the wind and rain for fifteen years, and before her death she said, "Your Majesty will walk your own path from now on." True protection is to clear a path for the other person, then step aside and let him or her pass by on his own. 2. Love is not possession, it is giving your time to him. In the diary written by Zhu Jianshen after Wan Zhen'er's death, there was only one line on the last page: "Zhen'er, I'm here to find you. You walk slower." He asked her to walk slower, and he went the next day. This is the starting point of the book - to love someone is to spend the rest of your life completing the journey that she has not completed after she leaves. 3. Dirty work and clean roads Wan Zhen'er said, "The unclean concubines come and go. When they are done, sweep the road clean before Your Majesty can leave again." This is the ethical core of the entire novel. She took the initiative to bear the stigma, killings, and conspiracies, not because she was greedy for power, but because she knew that there were roads under that chair that must be walked by someone. With her gone, Zhu Jianshen can take a clean path. This is a classical, almost silent logic of sacrifice. 4. Things that have been remembered will never disappear: the scratches on the wall, the bowl on the windowsill, the name on the roster, and "Ann" written backwards. The novel repeatedly writes about the action of "remembering". Wan Zhen'er's rebirth is essentially a kind of "remembering" - she remembers everything in her previous life, and then uses her second life to rewrite it. Remembering is not for revenge, but for those people, things, and feelings that should not be forgotten to retain their shape in time. 5. Lived two lives and still chose to go to the same ending. Wan Zhen'er said, "The first time I did those things, I knew I couldn't change them, but the second time I did it, I still tried." This is not a fatalistic surrender, but a choice to complete the journey despite knowing the outcome. The background of the novel is tragic, but it is not hopeless - its power comes from "trying" despite knowing that it is impossible to do.