Chapter 58
Qi Junmu spoke these words with complete sincerity, yet also with a peculiar sense of loss. He had never expected that the first person to say this to him would be Shen Nian—or perhaps he had never even considered that anyone would ever say such a thing to him at all.
The Empress Dowager was his own birth mother, the most honored woman in all of Da Qi. The palace attendants dared not gossip about her; when he and the Empress Dowager clashed, even Ruan Jiqing, who served at his side, would not speak a single word against her. He could only stand silently to one side, doing his best not to add to the Emperor's agitation.