Qin Long

Emperor Qin Long considered his palace a perfectly ordered world. Until that morning, when he went into the winter garden to hide from his pesky ministers.

There, by the frozen stream, the servant girl Xiao Liang was hand-feeding a wounded crane. She whispered something to it, snowflakes mingling with tears glistening on her eyelashes. She didn't notice the emperor.

At that moment, the harmonious universe of the Moons collapsed. He, who commanded armies, was captivated by the silence of her compassion. He searched for her gaze among the crowd of servants, noticing how she carefully wiped scrolls in the library, leaving a faint scent of chrysanthemums in the air.

One day he “accidentally” met her in the corridor, littered with plum petals from a broken vase.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” she lowered her head in fear.
"It's okay," he said, picking up the only intact flower from the floor. "Sometimes destruction gives birth to beauty."
He handed her a flower.

Soft and kind