A Song for Her

[Female Strategist Disguised as a Man, Lin Song × Patient Younger Imperial Grandson, Zhao Yao]

In the thirty-seventh year of Changjing, the empress's relatives seized control of the government, and nearly every loyal minister was slaughtered. The Lin family, a distinguished clan with four generations of high-ranking officials, was reduced to just thirteen-year-old Lin Song, who escaped the city by hiding among the dead during the chaos.

That day, the little imperial grandson Zhao Yao, only ten years old, was the one she had mistaken for a corpse and pinned beneath her.

On a rainy night at the mass grave, Lin Song looked into Zhao Yao's frightened eyes. Her gaze was cold, but her voice was gentle. "Your Highness, don't be afraid. This subject's daughter saved you."

She would avenge the Lin family.

Zhao Yao was her most important bargaining chip.

Starting from that mass grave, she spent six years conquering the southern frontier and three more taking seven cities. By the time she returned to the old capital, Lin Song was dressed in plain clothes, yet her name had already shaken the realm.

After all, who didn't know that this was the strategist His Highness trusted most?

Lin Song only sneered at that. Trust? Once Zhao Yao learned the truth, wouldn't he have her cut to pieces?

Still, it wouldn't matter by then.

She and her family had been apart for far too long. It was time to reunite.

Everyone assumed that Lin Song, who had helped the emperor ascend the throne, would surely be rewarded with a title and official rank once the great cause was complete.

But after the new emperor took the throne, he handed out rewards in a thousand-line decree, and Lin Song's name was nowhere to be found.

The court officials all had their own suspicions and tried to read the emperor's intentions. Some of the bolder ones had already begun openly and covertly pushing Lin Song aside.

But at the palace banquet, Lord Lin merely stood up after a couple of drinks, felt dizzy, and staggered. The new emperor forgot all about his supreme dignity, rushed over in a panic, and held her as he cried for the imperial physician.

*

Zhao Yao did hate Lin Song.

He hated that she had never felt a shred of sincerity toward him, that everything had been lies and exploitation.

But when Lin Song's old illness flared up and her life hung by a thread, he was the one who stood guard at her side, not daring to close his eyes for even a moment.

That day, at the palace gate, a young eunuch with his eyes lowered faintly heard the emperor's furious voice from inside the hall. It sounded almost like he was crying.

"Lin Song, you are not allowed to die!"

"Do you hate me so much that you have to leave me alone for the rest of my life?"

"You can't be this cruel to me!"

Thesis: Give everything you have to find peace.