Just as he caught his breath at noon, the Grand Tutor came with the Gongyang Commentary, lecturing on the "Great Unification" and "Three Generations Theory" over and over again.

The quotations and allusions made my head spin, and I even had to suppress a yawn for fear of being accused of "disrespectful behavior by the Grand Tutor."

In the afternoon, I was going to the Ministry of War to listen to the Vice Minister of War talk about local civil administration. The stack of papers was so high that it could bury half of my body. The disasters and taxes recorded on them made my heart clench.

They also had to follow King Jinrui Zhao to the training ground to learn military tactics and formations. The flags on the sand table were planted and pulled out repeatedly. The sun made their armor hot, and sweat streamed down their backs.

In the evening, we had to go to the Imperial College to listen to the old scholars lecturing on the classics and history. Their swaying heads and nodding made us sleepy, but we dared not doze off for fear of missing the important points.

The days are cut into tiny pieces, like osmanthus cakes cut in the imperial kitchen, each piece has a fixed quantity, and even the time to drink a cup of tea has to be timed precisely.

Only half an hour in the training ground could be barely saved, and that was only because the Emperor had specifically discussed it with Prince Zhao.

That day, he stood in the training ground and watched me finish practicing a set of spear techniques. Sweat beaded on my forehead and my headband had come loose.

"Let her practice shooting, relax a bit. She's always stuck in her official documents, she's going to get restless."

Once, when the Grand Tutor was lecturing on the Gongyang Commentary, he spent an hour going over and over the three words "Great Unification," quoting the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Book of Rites. I was so engrossed that my eyelids were drooping.

Unable to resist, she leaned over the table, buried her face in her arms, and sighed. Even a pearl hairpin in her hair fell off and rolled to the ground with a soft "clink".

Just as I uttered the sigh, I heard a clear, cheerful laugh, like the wind in a martial arts arena.

When I looked up, King Jinrui Zhao was standing by the table, still wearing his silver armor. There were bits of grass from the training ground on his shoulder armor, and the soft clinking of his armor sounded like shattered jade falling to the ground.

I suddenly remembered that these books were taken from King Zhao's spatial storage. Could it be that my performance displeased King Zhao?

"What's wrong? Are you stumped by the Grand Tutor's interpretation of the classics?" She reached out and tapped my book, her fingertips carrying a hint of the coolness of her armor.

I bent down to pick up the pearl hairpin that I had shaken off, and wiped the dust off the hairpin with my fingertips—it was a gift from my elder brother, the Crown Prince, and there were still some tiny scratches on the pearls.

She handed the hairpin to me, her eyes smiling: "This hairpin must not be lost; it is His Highness's beloved possession."

Seeing me nod with a frown, like a deflated little animal, she suddenly smiled, her eyes curving into crescents, revealing her little tiger teeth.

It has less of the sharpness of the battlefield and more of the warmth: "When I first learned 'The Art of War,' I pondered the five words 'Warfare is based on deception' for three days."

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I felt the author was deliberately beating around the bush—the whole "showing weakness when you are capable" thing was clearly a lie! I was so angry that I tore up three copies of the military treatise.

As she spoke, she pulled a piece of oiled paper from her sleeve. The oiled paper was wrinkled and covered in dust, as if it had been in her bosom for a long time, and the edges were worn out.

When it was opened, a piece of amber-colored maltose was revealed, coated with white sesame seeds. Its sweet aroma immediately filled the hall, overpowering the smell of ink and sandalwood on the table.

"Here you go," she handed me the candy, her fingertips touching mine, the candy slightly cool from the outdoor air.

"I just bought it from the market near the palace gate. That old man has been running his stall for decades, and his sugar is the most authentic, even sweeter than what the imperial kitchen makes."

Seeing me staring blankly at the sugar, she added, "Take your time. Look at this sugar, it needs to be simmered in the pot for three hours."

If the heat is too high, it will burn and taste bitter; if the heat is too low, it won't thicken and won't have a chewy texture.

You have to stand by the stove and keep an eye on it, stirring and stirring, until it's bubbling and sticky, before it'll be this sweet.

The same applies to learning these classics and military strategies; you can't rush it.

I held the candy in my mouth, the sweetness spreading from the tip of my tongue, warming my heart along my throat, and even the breath I had been holding in earlier dissipated, and the soreness in my wrist lessened.

The sweetness wasn't cloying like the candied fruits in the palace; it had a touch of earthy flavor, like the jujube cake made by Wan Cui.

She walked to the map in front of the wall and pointed her finger at Yanmen Pass in the northern frontier—a small red circle marked there, a place frequently invaded by enemy troops.

Her fingernails were worn white from years of holding a gun, and there were small, unhealed wounds on her fingertips.

“Look here, the winter winds are so strong they can blow over tents, and the snow can be up to your knees. The grain and fodder have to be transported from inside the pass three months in advance. It’s too slow to travel by land, so we have to use waterways and transfer to post stations.”

Otherwise, if the heavy snow covers the mountains, the soldiers will suffer from cold and hunger, and won't even be able to draw their bows.

Sunlight streamed through the cloud-patterned window lattice, falling on her striking profile and casting a soft glow on her eyelashes, as if they were edged with gold, even making the stray hairs at her temples shine.

A breeze blew in from outside the hall, ruffling the memorials spread out on the table with a rustling sound, like the sound of gunfire from a distant training ground.

The fatigue of the past few days was like the tide soaking into a cold pool, spreading from the soles of my feet along my bones to my heart, making my eye sockets feel heavy and my eyes always covered with a thin mist.

The memorials on the desk were piled up like a small mountain, with the red ink pen pressing down on the top one, "Investigation of the Loss of Relief Funds for the Floods in Jiangnan".

One has to squint and rub their eyes three times to decipher the words "300,000 taels have been allocated, and the prefectures and counties along the way reported that 'most of it was used for dike repair,' yet there are still starving victims."

But he dared not loosen his grip on the pen—the Crown Princess's edict had already been engraved in large gilded characters on the blue stone tablet at the Meridian Gate.

The old officials inside the red walls, the common people outside the palace chatting and banging their rough porcelain bowls in the teahouses, even the farmers on the ridges of the fields on the outskirts of the city—all were staring at me.

If I show even the slightest negligence, it won't just be a loss of face for myself; it will also lead to my father being impeached by the censors, who will say that he "failed to properly educate his daughter."

He gritted his teeth and turned the pages of the Gongyang Commentary annotated by the Grand Tutor until the edges of the pages were curled, the ink smudged the corners, and the pages turned yellow.

I've even worn down the annotations on the characters for "Great Unification" to the point of being shallow.

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