1.
Song Linghui was the late emperor's most beloved youngest daughter. She and her husband, Zhao Yanqing, had been childhood sweethearts, deeply in love.
But barely a year into their marriage, Zhao Yanqing was framed by treacherous men and thrown into prison. Many of their closest friends from years past were implicated too: some had their homes confiscated, while others were exiled.
Song Linghui knelt before the palace gates for three days, but the emperor never came. Instead, the new favorite minister at his side arrived: Li Tiao, the Grand Secretary known as the "Living Yama."
She said coldly, "If you have any conscience left, let them live."
Li Tiao looked down at Song Linghui, prostrate on the ground. His voice was as indifferent as his expression. "A chance to live has to be fought for, not begged for."
Three months later, Zhao Yanqing's sentence was commuted from execution to exile. On the very day he set out for Lingnan, Princess Dingguo remarried Li Tiao, the Grand Secretary.
The world sighed over Song Linghui's heartlessness, saying she had cast aside her marriage and all the feelings it entailed. Others condemned her for failing to distinguish right from wrong and conspiring with a corrupt minister like Li Tiao.
Only Song Linghui knew that she and Li Tiao had merely been using each other. In the end, they were on different paths and could never work together.
2.
Li Tiao first met Song Linghui at a banquet on Qionghua Terrace.
He slipped away from the feast to avoid the wine and happened to encounter the Princess of Dingguo, who was disguised as a young eunuch. Every smile and frown of hers became a fate he could never escape.
Li Tiao thought that a marriage he had schemed so hard to secure might win him even the slightest glance from her. But her eyes had always belonged to Zhao Yanqing, the epitome of grace and virtue. Even on the nights when red candles burned and the bed curtains were drawn, whether she was awake or dreaming, she called only Zhao Yanqing's name.
Before long, Zhao Yanqing cleared his name and returned, reinstated in his former position. She went to the Zhao residence again and again, turning Li Tiao into a laughingstock in the eyes of the world.
If her heart was no longer here, Li Tiao wouldn't force her to stay.
But before he could hand Song Linghui the divorce agreement he had written, she stormed into his bedroom and held a dagger to his throat, demanding, "Were you the one who framed Zhao Yanqing and the others all those years ago?"
Li Tiao took her hand and pressed the blade deeper into his flesh. Blood gushed from the wound.
Song Linghui dropped the dagger and said coldly, "Li Tiao, I was wrong to trust you before. From now on, you go your way and I'll go mine. We have nothing to do with each other."
A bitter smile spread across Li Tiao's face. "Princess, when have you ever trusted me?"
3.
When they met again, a powerful minister had become a prisoner despised by all.
Every new law he had issued, good or bad, was repealed. Every achievement of his, great or small, was erased.
From the imperial family to the common people, everyone called him a traitor. Anyone who disagreed was treated as one of Li Tiao's accomplices.
For a time, no one in court dared to speak up for Li Tiao, or utter a word about injustice.
Yet the Princess of Dingguo, whom everyone considered a fickle opportunist, did not turn to the embrace of Zhao Yanqing, the new Minister of Revenue.
One day, the drum that petitioners could beat for justice rang throughout the palace.
"For whom do you seek justice?"
"For my husband, Li Tiao, former Grand Secretary."
Theme: Different paths can still lead to the same destination
