At the celebration banquet, I wanted to offer a toast and say, "Your marksmanship was really good today, I'm not as good as you," but what came out of my mouth was, "Next time we compete, I'll definitely not lose to you."

During a spring hunt, I saw her shoot down two wild geese with one arrow. I wanted to praise her for her "unparalleled archery skills," but she stubbornly said, "It was just luck."

Even on her birthday, I asked someone to bring me a jade hairpin from Jiangnan. I held it in my hand until it got hot, but in the end, I still forced it on her under the pretext of "protecting my hair in battle."

When I finally mustered up the courage, I wanted to take advantage of the Mid-Autumn Festival moonlight. That day, she sat in the courtyard watching the moon, her white clothes frosted with white, as beautiful as a painting.

But he still couldn't speak, and he just wandered off to another place, and there was no next time.

Because Su Jinyun used her political achievements to ask the Emperor for a marriage decree!

Besides, Qin Qianluo was far more than just a military general. When she wore the jade hairpin I gave her and dressed in a moon-white robe as a civil official...

Those civil officials in the imperial court who only knew how to wave their feather fans and talk about "benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom" were sweating profusely as they faced a mess of border grain and fodder allocation.

They couldn't even figure out whether the supplies should be transported by land or water.

When faced with the chaos of the Yellow River breaching its banks and the resettlement of displaced people, kneeling in the palace, they could only shout, "Your Majesty is wise."

They couldn't even figure out "how to distribute the grain," so they still had to stand around her desk, tiptoeing to look at the red lines she drew on the map.

Listen to her break down the strategies of "dredging first and then blocking, diverting floods and guiding water flow" and "exchanging grain for labor and resettling people locally".

Her pen flew across the paper, and her calculations of grain were accurate to the last detail. Even veterans of three dynasties had to show her respect, saying, "The princess's wisdom and decisiveness are beyond our reach."

Even though he was still feeling resentful, seeing Su Jinyun's "victory assured" expression made his teeth itch.

Especially when I saw her handing a hand warmer to Qin Qianluo during the morning court session, her fingertips were so careful, I couldn't help but grip the gun barrel tightly.

He thought to himself, "If it were me, I would never let her freeze her hands in the court."

But every time he went to the palace to see Qin Qianluo, he could see the gleaming mutton-fat jade hairpin in her hair.

The lotus pattern on the hairpin has become warm and lustrous, adding even more charm than when I gave it to her.

When she mentioned Su Jinyun, the smile on her lips was so wide that even the fine lines at the corners of her eyes curved upwards.

She said, "Last night she revised my notes on people's livelihood until the third watch of the night, and she even secretly put a piece of osmanthus cake on my desk," and I accepted it all.

I, Mu Yunxi, am someone who has been through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and I know best how bitter the feeling of "wanting but not getting" can be.

Just like back then, when we were parched at the border, our lips were cracked and bleeding, but we could only watch as the enemy occupied the water source in the distance.

That feeling of helplessness—being able to reach something but unable to grasp it—is etched into my very bones.

I would never do something so foolish as to jump out and disturb the peace and happiness of others. I will bury those thoughts in my heart, like an old arrow buried under the battlefield. If I don't touch it, it won't hurt.

On their wedding day, the capital was decorated with lanterns and colorful streamers. Red silk ribbons were hung from one end of the street to the other, and even the city walls were covered with gold-embossed "囍" characters. When the wind blew, all the red in the streets swayed.

Both Qin Qianluo and Su Jinyun wore bright red wedding gowns embroidered with gold, and the pearls on their phoenix crowns hung with tassels, making their shoulders slightly heavy. They were carried together from the residences of the Left and Right Prime Ministers into the residence of Prince Zhao.

The sedan chair carrying Qin Qianluo was painted with a "landscape painting", while the sedan chair carrying Su Jinyun was embroidered with a "literary star painting". The sound of drums and music was deafening, and the streets were packed with people.

They all stood on tiptoe to look and exclaimed, "Congratulations to the two of you, a match made in heaven!"

My eyes welled up with tears, but I didn't dare lift the curtain.

I was afraid to see the gold thread on Qin Qianluo's wedding dress, and afraid to hear the laughter coming from her sedan chair.

He was even more afraid that he would rush out, grab the curtain of her bridal sedan chair, and ask, "Do you really like her?"

As time went on, I gradually came to understand their difficulties.

Qin Qianluo had to travel around to observe the people's livelihood. She went to the cotton fields in the northern border to check the harvest, squatted in the field, pinched the cotton bolls, and asked the farmers, "How many kilograms can you harvest this year?"

I went to the mulberry gardens in Jiangnan to inquire about silkworms, and followed the silkworm farmers to pick mulberry leaves, my fingertips were covered in silkworm excrement.

They also had to keep an eye on the follow-up to those novel items: the new waterwheel that the workshop made last time got stuck, and the carpenters scratched their heads around the blueprints, saying, "The gears won't turn."

She squatted in the workshop drawing sketches for three days, wearing down three charcoal pencils in her hand. In the end, her legs went numb from squatting, and Su Jinyun had to send someone to pick her up before she could go back.

With Su Jinyun in charge of the central government, the memorials to the emperor piled up like small mountains. She had to keep a firm grip on everything from the allocation of grain and fodder to the appointment and removal of officials and the repair of waterways.

He often worked at his desk until dawn, replacing candlesticks one after another and grinding ink in the inkstone again and again.

Throughout the year, if the two of them can get together to drink a pot of pre-rain tea, chat, and enjoy a few days of sweet bliss, that's already a lot.

Once, I went to Prince Zhao's mansion for a meal and saw the two of them sitting by the window reading memorials. Qin Qianluo was massaging Su Jinyun's shoulders, and Su Jinyun was peeling oranges for Qin Qianluo.

The sunlight shone on them, warm as a painting, and I suddenly understood that some friendships cannot be won through force.

Qin Qianluo urged me to finish the waterwheel several times, but it still wasn't finished. So I went to the workshop to check on the progress for her, scratching my head at those gears and wooden shafts.

My fingers were pricked several times by splinters in the wood, and I could only mutter to myself, "This thing is ten times harder to handle than a gun barrel."

Su Jinyun was handling grain and fodder allocation in the capital when she encountered the corrupt practices of the Jiangnan prefecture government, which outwardly complied but inwardly resisted and deliberately delayed the grain ships.

Those officials, holding official documents, claimed that "the waters are too high to navigate and the grain ships might capsize," but in reality, they detained the grain ships at the dock for their own private use, reselling official grain to make a dirty profit.

When I led my troops to quell the rebellion in Jiangnan, I took my personal guards and stormed into the prefectural capital, where I bound those lazy officials and escorted them back to the capital chained together.

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