The Treacherous Minister Has Long Adored the Princess (Reborn)

[Next Novel] The Departed Need No Soul-Calling Rhapsody: A beauty who brings ruin, soon-to-be empress x a dazzling talent, a false traitor but true former husband. See the pinned comment for the blurb, and please add it to your collection~

---[Blurb]---

*

The great villain and traitorous minister Yin Ke, awaiting his autumn execution, was about to be loaded into the prison cart.

The prison warden, hands tucked into his sleeves, asked as part of his routine, "Does the criminal have any last words?"

"None, Your Majesty. May your grace be boundless."

His tone was dripping with sarcasm. What a traitor, unrepentant to the end.

Thirty years later, an earthquake struck during a disaster.

The old Yin family residence, overgrown with weeds, had completely collapsed.

The empress, Yuwen Yuan, was working tirelessly on the front lines of disaster relief and helping the people.

She received a strange wooden box.

The old wood was rotten and crumbled at the slightest touch.

"What sort of junk is this, sending it all the way to Her Majesty?" the chief eunuch scolded the careless servant.

But Yuwen Yuan suddenly reached out and snatched it, clutching the object inside tightly,

her whole body trembling uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.

When she was a princess, Yuwen Yuan had adored plum blossoms. Her favorite plum-shaped hairpin, fragrant to its very core, had gone missing thirty-nine years ago.

Now it lay intact inside a brocade box Yin Ke had hidden in a secret compartment.

Only then did she understand: "May your grace be boundless" had always been Yin Ke's heartfelt words.

All his life, Yin Ke had wished only to be Yuwen Yuan's vanguard and stepping stone.

Even if thousands condemned him, even if he was burdened with an immense infamy, he accepted it gladly.

His death and ruined reputation were the final gifts he gave the princess.

*

When she awoke from a dream, she looked at her right hand, the one that had just slapped Yin Ke,

and without hesitation slapped herself with it.

When the thick fog of misunderstanding cleared,

she finally saw:

Amid clusters of plum blossoms, her young love stood all alone, sword in his left hand, brush in his right,

exhausting every effort to protect the realm for her.

The historian's brush is a blade.

In the glorious annals of history, Yuwen Yuan's reign was marked by a host of renowned ministers and a constellation of brilliant generals.

But the one who began it all, the boy whose blossoms looked like snow and whose falling petals looked like snow,

would forever be recorded among the sycophants, his name condemned to everlasting infamy.

This time, she would save him!

[Extra Scene]

Yin Ke, the male lead who truly is a master strategist and a consummate actor, has been quite troubled lately.

Why has the little princess suddenly changed her ways?

Whatever he says, she looks at him with shining eyes and nods like a bobblehead, saying, "Yes, yes, yes" and "Exactly, exactly."

He's a "traitorous minister"! With the princess being so friendly, how is he supposed to keep playing his lonely, treacherous role?

Is his acting really that bad?

Even a man as brilliant as Yin Ke has, for the first time, begun to seriously doubt his own abilities...

[Reading Guide]

1. The heroine starts to foresee the future in Chapter 3; the first two chapters set things up.

2. A fictional setting modeled on the Tang Dynasty, with invented elements. Please don't nitpick the history.

3. One-on-one romance, both leads' first love, happy ending.

Theme: Women should strive to be strong and self-reliant