A slight smile played on her lips, and her fingertips unconsciously clenched the note hidden in her sleeve. The texture of the rice paper pressed against her palm, yet she felt a sense of security.

These are her words, her thoughts, and the strength she gave me.

The wind is blowing again, carrying the fragrance of the distant rice fields, mixed with a hint of the sweetness of newly sprouted wheat, and the faint scent of pear blossoms.

The sunlight shone down, falling on me, on the bluestone pavement below the city gate, and on the path where the procession and carriages passed in the distance. It was so bright that it was dazzling, and so warm that it made people's hearts burn.

The days flowed silently past my temples like the water that meandered around the white marble railings in the Imperial Garden.

In spring, water is poured around the peony bushes to create shallow eddies. Pink and white petals fall onto the water's surface, swirl around, and drift with the current towards the blue stone bridge. They are then swayed by the red-tailed koi carp and rolled into the crevices of the stones.

In autumn, the water overflows the withered lotus stems, forming a clear pool. Koi fish swish their fins as they peck at the remaining leaves at the bottom of the pool, stirring up the surface into a shower of sparks, even making the reflected cloud shadows sway.

Along with the black hair at my temples, the flowing water year after year has slowly turned it white, with a few silvery-white spots appearing at my temples, like a touch of winter snow.

Later, even the stray hairs on her forehead became snow-white. When combing her hair, palace maids would always use a jade comb dipped in osmanthus oil to carefully smooth it out, in order to cover up the traces of whiteness.

But after combing her hair, she turns around, and a gust of wind blows, and you can still see the white hair at her temples.

I have my own flesh and blood. The prince is a boy with sharp eyebrows and eyes, and a red dot on his forehead, as red as a dot of rouge.

It bears a striking resemblance, with about 70% similarity, to the mark on the portrait of the Ning family's ancestor in the imperial ancestral hall.

That ancestor was the founding emperor, and his portrait hung in the center of the ancestral hall. He also had sharp eyebrows and eyes, a red dot on his forehead, and even his eyes were somewhat similar.

When he was just over one year old and could sit up steadily, he loved to grab the hem of my dragon robe and wouldn't let go. His little chubby hands clutched the dragon pattern embroidered with gold thread, and his fingernails were still pink.

He tugged at the delicate cloud-patterned embroidery threads until they were fuzzy. When the palace servants tried to pry his hands off, he cried and insisted on holding on.

The first word she uttered when she was learning to speak was an unclear "Mother Empress," her voice as soft as honey, sticky and lingering in the ears, making everyone in the palace smile.

Just like when I made a wish upon that lightly ink-stained note in the Regent's Space Library years ago, Zhao Ning gradually became abundant.

The granaries were piled higher than the palace walls. On the day the new wheat was stored, Minister Zhou of the Ministry of Revenue led his officials to report, flipping through the account books with a loud rustling sound, the pages of which were shaking in the wind.

Sweat still beaded on his forehead: "Your Majesty, the granaries in all provinces are overflowing!"

The cellars in Tongzhou and Luoyang are already full of new grain; if we fill them any more, they'll have to be piled outside to dry in the sun. There aren't even enough threshing grounds to dry the grain!

I told him to distribute the surplus grain to remote counties in the Northwest and Southwest, without adhering to the rigid rule of "keeping 30% for famine relief".

The regent once told me, "Grain that gets moldy in the granary is not as good as grain that's steaming hot in the people's bowls."

Instead of hoarding grain to prevent famine, it is better to ensure that people have enough to eat every day and that every household has surplus grain.

The camel bells of the caravans echoed throughout the Western Regions, and the hoofprints of the Ning Dynasty caravans were imprinted on the bluestone roads from Yumen Pass to the market of Samarkand in Persia.

Every household's stalls displayed signs for "Ningguo Silk" and "Ningguo Porcelain," the red silk ribbons fluttering dazzlingly.

When the merchants from the Central Plains saw the bright yellow flags flying in the Ning Dynasty's caravan, they would bow respectfully from a distance.

In broken Mandarin, he said, "The goods from Ningguo are the most precious! Silk wrapped around the body is like being wrapped in moonlight, and porcelain is so shiny that you can see your reflection in it. Even our princesses are fighting over them!"

Even the chieftains of the southern border regions, who had been arrogant for centuries, personally led white elephants and carried chests full of jade to the capital to submit their surrender documents.

His homespun robe was still covered in yellow mud from the mountain path, and his trousers were rolled up, revealing mud-caked straw sandals.

He knelt on the steps, his forehead turning red from kowtowing, his voice so loud it made the bronze bells at the corners of the hall hum.

"His Majesty and officials of Zhaoning are able to bring peace to the country, ensure that the people have enough to eat, and enable children to go to school to learn Chinese characters and recite poems."

We are willing to be subjects of the Ning Dynasty for generations to come, even with a knife to our throats, we would not rebel! We only ask that Your Majesty allow our children to study in Zhaoning!

Occasionally, when he had some free time, he would go to the palace library to browse through books. When he pushed open the carved nanmu door, the scent of agarwood was still there, only fainter than before.

Like something filtered through the years, mixed with the newly added scent of camphor wood, it even made my nose feel a little sore.

I've worn the books on the shelf so much that their spines are white from all the flipping, especially those volumes that record the rise and fall of the previous dynasty in which the regent lived.

From the Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Qin dynasties, through the Han and Three Kingdoms periods, to the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties, which one wasn't at its peak?