The Mirror of Startling Beauty: Her courtiers are everywhere

The moonlight, like wine, spills down, casting slanting shadows of plum blossoms in the courtyard, their subtle fragrance wafting in the air.

A few petals fell and drifted in the wind.

The strategist Yan Ci stood with his arms crossed, leaning against a pillar in the corridor, his black-patterned white robe fluttering slightly in the night breeze.

He looked up at the crisscrossing sword shadows in the sky, then slowly looked away and glanced at the commander of the Imperial Guard beside him.

"Commander Shen, aren't you going to protect the Emperor?"

His voice was clear and gentle, like a spring, neither hurried nor slow.

It was as if the earth-shattering battle overhead was just a short excerpt from a play.

Shen Cuo stood three steps away, his young and handsome face filled with utter despair.

He looked up at the sky, then down at the long sword at his waist, before expressionlessly looking away.

"Is Military Advisor Yan certain that I'm going up to protect the Emperor?"

"Not to kill me to entertain you two gentlemen?"

Yan Ci's lips twitched slightly.

Shen Cuo glanced at him and added casually:

"In this high-level game, I, Shen, will not go up to get kills."

"Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll need His Majesty's protection."

"I really didn't expect that..."

Yan Ci raised an eyebrow and lowered his head to play with the ink bamboo folding fan in his hand.

His tone carried a casual mockery, yet also seemed to be a genuine expression of emotion.

"I think Commander Shen is all height and no brains."

"Strategist Yan, don't assume everyone else is stupid just because you're smart!"

Shen Cuo glared at him angrily, his handsome face flushed red.

He gripped the hilt of his knife tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white, as if he had suffered a great injustice.

"Where am I brainless?"

"If you had any brains, how could you be so easily fooled by your adopted sister?"

Yan Ci chuckled and tapped his folding fan against his palm, producing a crisp sound.

He met Shen Cuo's puzzled gaze and continued unhurriedly.

Although Prime Minister Shen treats you coldly, he doesn't deliberately make things difficult for you.

"Why are you, the esteemed young master of the Shen family, having your allowances cut and being humiliated by your servants?"

"It was that adopted daughter who secretly tampered with things, bribing those people to embezzle your monthly allowance."

The curve of his lips was meaningful, as if he had tasted something extremely interesting.

"Such a clumsy method can hardly be considered clever."

"But some fools just actually believed it."

"Anyway, she's protecting you from the wind and rain—as for where that wind and rain came from, don't worry about that."

"Asking that would just make you ignorant."

Yan Ci's words fell lightly, yet they were like a poisoned knife, precisely piercing Shen Cuo's heart.

Shen Cuo froze on the spot, like a frozen stone sculpture.

He stood there blankly, the moonlight falling on his face, casting a pale, ashen white glow.

Those usually bright eyes were now filled with immense shock and disbelief.

It was as if someone had suddenly pushed open a door that had been closed for many years, revealing a completely different truth behind it.

"Some people... use small favors to get your wholehearted care."

Yan Ci lowered his head and brushed the fallen petals off his sleeves.

"She really knows how to pick people."

You wouldn't believe it until you looked it up; what I found was quite shocking.

He had to admit that Shen Yan was quite capable.

They also know how to choose people.

Shen Cuo is exactly that kind of person—if you give him three points of kindness, he'll want to repay him tenfold.

The grace of dripping water is reciprocated by the fountain.

This kind of temperament is called being loyal and righteous, but when it comes to Shen Cuo, it becomes his Achilles' heel that others can exploit.

An adopted daughter managed to live a more respectable life in the Shen family than the legitimate daughter, Shen Nian.

This is hardly a clever tactic.

They clearly understood people's hearts to the core.

The moonlight fell silently, illuminating Shen Cuo's face, which was gradually losing its color.

He recalled those years.

He remembered that when he went to Lintai on an empty stomach, Shen Yan secretly slipped him a bag of pastries.

He thought it was a timely help, but now he realized that she had extinguished and then relit the fire herself.

He remembered the time when the servants were restricting his winter clothes and he was shivering in the cold wind, and it was Shen Yan who brought him an old cotton robe.

He thought it was a deep sibling bond, but now he realizes that the chill was something she had brought in and then dispelled herself.

He thought it was a rare warmth in the world, and that she was truly kind.

Only now do I realize that warmth was chilling to the bone.

Shen Cuo lowered his eyes.

"Oh."

He suddenly chuckled.

The laughter was extremely soft and bitter, like a pill that could never be dissolved.

Human nature—how could he not see through it?

"Strategist Yan, you're right, I really am a complete and utter fool!"

Princess Mirror had shown him kindness when he was young, and was his true salvation, but she never mentioned it, and he was unaware of it.

And what about Shen Yan?

Shen remembered everything she did for him, but it turned out to be a carefully woven web.

"I was definitely a mistake! Everything I do is wrong!"

"He even admits his mistakes to his benefactors, and he misjudges who is good and who is bad."

"In my entire life, this name is the only one I haven't gotten wrong."

Shen Cuo was now questioning the meaning of life.

"Shen Cuo".

"Your father named you wrong, and you think it's because he dislikes you, hates you, or thinks you're superfluous."

Yan Ci's voice deepened, as deep as a night drum, as deep as the past twenty years.

"But have you ever considered that—the one he's wrong about is himself?"

Yan Ci did not look at Shen Cuo again.

His gaze fell on the snow-covered red plum tree in the distance, and his thoughts drifted to even more distant places.

The current Madam Shen is a cousin of Old Madam Shen's family and the biological mother of Shen Cuo and Shen Nian.

That year, Madam Shen disliked that Mei Ruohuan had few children and felt that orphaned girls were easy to bully, unlike the obedient and proper girls from noble families, so she began to have designs on her.

A bowl of medicine and a calculated scheme left Shen Zhangzheng speechless.

That woman gave birth to twins, a son and a daughter.

Madam Shen took it upon herself to bring her into the mansion as her second wife.

Shen Zhangzheng never once set foot in her room, treating her as if she were nothing.

All those calculations and schemes ultimately amounted to nothing.

Despite the vast size of the Shen family mansion, there were very few descendants.

The two children born to the second wife received no favor from their father whatsoever.

Shen Xian was the only one whom Prime Minister Shen had carefully taught and truly regarded as his own child.

It's not that Shen Cuo and Shen Nian aren't good enough.

They were not what their father had hoped for from the very beginning.

Shen Zhangzheng, courtesy name Chiqian. He held the reins of the world, yet remained humble within his own heart.

He lived his entire life within the bounds of rules.

Every word and action is guided by the lines drawn by our ancestors.

Shen Zhangzheng is the eldest son of the Shen family, the future pillar of the nation, and the one who will be in charge of laws and regulations and uphold the country.

The only choice he ever made for himself was to marry Mei Ruohuan against everyone's wishes.

That was the bravest choice he ever made in his life.

It wasn't a weighing of pros and cons, nor was it a family arrangement.

For the first time, this rigid man disregarded the rules and followed his heart.

In the Wenhua Hall, he presented a sprig of white plum blossom to his beloved.

Such a serious person, such a disciplined person, when he opens his heart, there is also the light of youth in his eyes.

He thought that from then on, he could live a life of mutual respect and harmony with his beloved, growing old together.

He thought that this was the only time in his life he would act recklessly, and that God would surely grant his wish.

In the end, it was all for nothing.

He was clearly filial to his parents, respected his relatives, and did everything he was supposed to do to the best of his ability.

A single word can bring peace to the world, and a single decree can determine the fate of the nation.

But all he wanted was to spend his life with Yaoyao.

How did they become strangers?

Sometimes things in this world are just that absurd.

A person who followed the rules his whole life broke them the only time, but ended up with nothing.

And later, he didn't want any of the things that were forced upon him by the rules.

Shen Cuo, Shen Nian.

These two names were given to the two children by him.

He was the one who was wrong.

He was thinking of her.

Shen Zhangzheng didn't hate the children.

He hates himself.

The plum blossoms in Wenhua Hall bloom every year.

But no one stands before the hall anymore, waiting for a sprig of white plum blossom.