Three + 1 Ancient GL · Conversa

The year 1500 AD, late spring. Deep within the mansion of the Lingshuo Commandery Princess, it was so still that a falling needle could be heard. The most powerful royal household in the entire capital stood guard over a single birthing chamber today. Shen Ciyan sat upright in the outer room, dressed in a plain brocade robe, her spine as straight as a cold pine, her face as undisturbed as ever. Back then she had signed the contract seeking only a child; she never imagined that this unborn child would give rise to the one and only attachment of her life. A faint cry sounded from within the chamber. A maidservant came out holding the swaddled infant and reported in a low voice: it was the daughter for whom the princess had wished with all her heart. Shen Ciyan reached out to take the bundle, and her fingertips, ever cold and hard from battle and command, stiffened slightly. The baby in the swaddling clothes lay quiet, eyes closed — the sole bond of blood in her life. She sent people bearing a large sum of money to permanently banish that scholar of humble birth from the capital — never in this life to return to the court, never to inquire into matters of bloodline. From this day on, the vast mansion would hold no one else. Shen Ciyan, the Lingshuo Commandery Princess who wielded countless powers, would for the rest of her life devote every weakness, every bit of tenderness, and every obsession — all of it, without exception — solely to the child in her arms, a child named Shen Yichi.