They also brought a coarse cloth bag of millet, the grains of which were plump and looked like small gold ingots.

The envoy, holding a bag, bowed and said, "These are seeds from Zhaoning. We have grown grain from them and want to return them to Zhaoning so that Your Majesty can taste the grain we grew. It is very sweet."

Haoyue has gained weight recently, becoming round and plump like a snowball. She keeps stealing tea from my cup. Last time she got burned, she shrank back, her ears drooping, and squatted on the brocade cushion, ignoring me.

I had to coax it with milk tarts for ages before it would rub against the back of my hand—isn't that silly?

Just like me back then, afraid of thunder, clutching your clothes and crying, I even laughed at it for being 'pathetic'.

As a result, it threw a tantrum and didn't show up all day, ignoring me no matter how I called it.

As he spoke, he would pause, his fingertips repeatedly tracing the words on the stone tablet, his voice so soft it seemed to dissipate with a gust of wind.

Even his breathing slowed down, becoming damp: "I am well, I have guarded Zhaoning very well."

The people have food to eat and clothes to wear, and they don't get cold in winter. There are no more unknown parasites in the court, and the ministers dare to speak the truth.

Even the Persian envoys came to pay tribute, praising Zhaoning as a celestial empire where the people live in peace and happiness… but… I really miss you.”

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the Regent's Space Library and the books on the shelves that have stood the test of time.

When you push open the carved nanmu door of the palace library, the first thing that touches your fingertips is not the dust in the cracks of the wood, but a wisp of fragrance wafting from the depths of the books.

The faint mold of aged paper mixed with the rich aroma of agarwood, like the lingering warmth after she left, gently lingers around one's wrist, making even breathing feel heavy.

The dark red wooden frame extends from the blue brick floor to the carved beams, with mortise and tenon joints fitting together perfectly, a testament to the skillful craftsmanship of Jiangnan artisans of yesteryear.

The books on the shelf were neatly stacked, with the corners all bound with thin hemp rope, the knots tied in her usual "double overhand knot," which had never come loose in decades.

Some of the pages were so yellowed and brittle that they crumbled at the slightest touch of a fingertip, yet the ink marks remained sharp—annotations she had written with a wolf-hair brush in her youth.

Some covers have lost their gold foil stamping, leaving only specks, but you can still tell that the lotus scroll pattern was drawn with cinnabar back then, and there are still shallow marks left by her fingernails on the edges.

Perhaps it was written unconsciously when I was engrossed in reading it back then.

Like the Regent, I have always held a special fondness for the Empress Wu, who shattered the shackles of a thousand years of traditional etiquette.

When reading "The Veritable Records of Empress Wu Zetian", I always liked to fold the pages that described her governance, leaving fine creases. After flipping through them many times, the edges of the pages became fuzzy.

During the three years of the Chuigong era, when there was a flood, she reviewed memorials in the Zichen Palace until dawn, and the candle wax piled up three inches deep, yet she still refused to stop.

In the disaster relief policies marked with red ink, the eight characters "deferred tax collection" and "opened granaries to release grain" were written with extra emphasis.

The year she personally led the expedition against the Turks, she stood before Yanmen Pass in her gleaming armor, the armor plates reflecting the snow, her battle robe fluttering in the cold wind.

The resounding words, "Those who offend my Great Zhou, though far away, shall be punished," still manage to ignite the heart even through the pages of another world, as if one could see her drawing her sword and pointing north.

But what I admire most is not only her achievements etched in history, but also her composure as she gazed at peonies at Shangyang Palace in Luoyang in her later years.

With a half-open peony tucked behind her ear, she said to those around her, "Flowers bloom and fade in their own time; there's no need to force them to stay." Her tone lacked the obsession of an emperor, but rather the wisdom of an ordinary person.

I love even more the blank stele she left behind before her death. The stone is smooth as a mirror. The craftsman wanted to carve "Empress Wu Zetian" on it, but she shook her head and refused to carve a single word "woman".

Refusing to define her life by her gender is as if she is saying, "I am an emperor, not an 'empress'."

I've never understood why the historical records of the regent's era vary from the New Book of Tang to the Zizhi Tongjian.

When writing about her, he always had to forcefully add the character "woman" before the character "emperor".

It was as if that title was not an imperial title on par with Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han, but rather an "anomaly" that needed to be repeatedly marked, an "exception" that needed to constantly remind the world that "women should not be like this."

Having been subtly influenced by the concept of "keeping oneself simple" during my childhood, I also had some vague doubts about the phrase "women's involvement in politics".

I always felt that those gold-embroidered court robes with the sun, moon and stars, and the heavy jade seals that made one's wrists ache, were originally meant to be men's possessions.

When a man wears court robes, it signifies "governing the state"; when a woman wears them, it signifies "overstepping boundaries." When a man holds the imperial seal, it signifies "wielding power"; when a woman holds it, it signifies "causing chaos."

If a woman in the imperial harem were to step out of her chambers, she would be considered a "hen crowing at dawn," and would be branded with shame by historians.

Just like Empress Lü of the Han Dynasty in the history book that the Regent showed me, she clearly stabilized the court, but was written as a "poisonous empress".