The eldest princess of the Ye Kingdom is as beautiful as peach blossoms, with incomparable grace. The emperor's own older sister, she acts with impunity and lives a life of excess, protected by the emperor's favor. No one dares show her disrespect.
Before she has even married, she gives birth to a son. The newly appointed Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review fears no one in power and dares to scold her to her face, saying she has violated a woman's virtue and ought to shave her head, become a nun, and spend the rest of her life before the Buddha as a warning to all women.
Truth be told, if Yin Zhuhua hadn't already earned a reputation for being so domineering that she would casually have ministers beaten, he would have thought she should be put in a pig cage, or at the very least thrown down a well.
Yin Zhuhua reclines on a beauty couch and lazily glances at him. Three or four maids surround her, fanning her. Every item she uses, even the simplest fan, is set with brilliant jewels, a clear sign of her extravagant lifestyle.
A beauty lying in a drunken haze ought to dazzle the eyes of this stuffy man.
Yin Zhuhua furrows her brows and pushes herself upright. Her loose robe slips off her shoulder, revealing a stretch of bare skin. Seeing him blush and look away, she suddenly smiles, radiant as spring blossoms.
"If Your Lordship doesn't leave soon, this child will be yours."
For once, instead of reaching for a sword, she teases him with words.
Watching him flee, Yin Zhuhua feels inexplicably annoyed and once again considers keeping the child while getting rid of its father.
That's right. If he weren't the father of her child, she would have made him bleed for daring to offend her to her face.
Years later, the Grand Tutor, greatly trusted by her good younger brother the emperor, is a man of cool restraint and distant indifference, like the bright moon in the heavens: fit only to be admired from afar, never touched.
Yet he insists on becoming the child's adoptive father.
That night, a hot, familiar breath brushes the back of her ear, just like it did years ago, amid confusion and unbearable longing.
Yin Zhuhua's thoughts churn in a haze. With one last shred of reason, she faintly hears him say, "He's my child. Who else do you want him to call Father?"
Theme: What is feminine virtue? Can you eat it?
