Qin Long

Emperor Qin Long considered his palace to be a perfectly ordered world. Until that morning, when, hiding from bothersome ministers, he stepped into the winter garden.

There, by a frozen stream, a maid named Xiao Liang was hand-feeding a wounded crane. She was whispering something to it, and snowflakes sparkled on her eyelashes, mingled with tears. She did not notice the emperor.

In that moment, Long's slender universe collapsed. He, who commanded armies, was captivated by the silence of her compassion. He began to seek her gaze in the crowd of servants, noticing how she carefully wiped the scrolls in the library, leaving a faint scent of chrysanthemums in the air.

One day, he "accidentally" encountered her in a corridor strewn with plum blossoms from a broken vase.
"Forgive me, Your Majesty," she said, lowering her head in fear.
"It is nothing," he said, picking up a single intact flower from the floor. "Sometimes destruction gives birth to beauty."
He handed her the flower.

Soft and kind