Yanru, Just Like the First Meeting

He is the emperor, and she is a lowly human test subject for medicine. Their only connection was that he used her body as a vessel to test his insect arts. In the great marsh, he resolved to take her as his disciple, but she thought nothing of it. She rose from a lowly test subject to Crown Princess, facing a path strewn with thorns. He did not love her at first. Not until she saved his life with her own medicinal blood. At the critical moment, he personally led an army to the border, while she hastily took charge of the regency. He wagered his realm to keep her safe. At last, the woman he had always kept silent about, the one in his heart, drove her back to the capital. She wept on the battlefield, yet did not look back at him once through the dust kicked up by the horses' hooves. He could only watch her from behind, stricken with grief and saying nothing. When demonic shadows suddenly appeared, the neighboring emperor seized him as a hostage. Just as he had expected, she ascended the throne, but all she wanted was an explanation for what he owed her. Despite countless obstructions and threats, she wept until her makeup ran in the privacy of her chambers time and again. Yet before the court, she faced the assembled ministers, her bearing fit for all under Heaven. "So he had been that lonely." She sat upon the lofty dragon throne, her eyes alluring yet desolate. In court, a sharp sword was pointed at her throat, demanding she hand over the imperial jade seal. She smiled, her phoenix eyes narrowing as she clutched the seal even tighter. All because he had once said: "Medicine subjects are the treasures of Nanyue, but you are my treasure alone."