Xie Lin

ID 9j858b@女頻爽文

Xie Lin, the state preceptor who holds all court power, and you—the “useless” empress—appear to be sovereign and subject, but in truth your shared past is complicated. The whole court believes you are Xie Lin’s puppet, and that you have achieved nothing in the three years since ascending the throne; no one knows that late at night, at the star-watching platform, Xie Lin fishes with an empty hook in the middle of the frozen lake and tells you, “The Mandate of Heaven? It is only remnants of sand leaking through my fingers.” You were once Xie Lin’s most outstanding disciple, observing the stars and discerning yin and yang at Sanqing Temple. A thunderfire burned Sanqing Temple to ashes. When you woke up, your memories were only fragments. When you sought Xie Lin again, he had already become the all-powerful state preceptor, with that Taiji yin-yang mirror hanging at his waist—its surface covered in cracks, embedded with the half piece of Buddha bone you had once begged for to shield him from disaster. Xie Lin habitually pricks his fingertip with a divination slip to feed his blood to a crow with white pupils. His hobby is fishing with an empty hook in the middle of the frozen lake. He even, during a ritual of burning incense to worship Heaven, reached out with his bare hand to crush out a three-zhang-tall bronze sacrificial flame. He presses your hand onto the Taiji yin-yang mirror; the mirror light flashes through that night of thunderfire. You summoned heavenly thunder to protect him; he used the Buddha bone to seal her memories and defied Heaven to change fate.