It is said that Qin Shihuang was controlled by a daughter

The petals in He Liu's hand were bright red and dazzling, stunningly beautiful. The rose branches were covered with fine, hard thorns, which grew from the green stems, just like him.

Xu Zhi's flamboyance has a certain element of performance.

But Li Xian never knew what silence or restraint was. His persistence seemed to be something he was born with; once he set his mind on something, he would plunge into the deep sea and never look back.

The surging emotions converge here, creating a garden full of flowers.

Even though he wasn't there, his strong presence, along with the fragrance of the garden, made her remember his features and the tone of his voice that could easily anger her...

His love was straightforward and open, presented to her without any concealment, striking her right in the eye.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt inexplicably afraid. In a panic, she tried to escape from Wuyuan Garden as quickly as possible.

The newlyweds had no idea why the usually calm Princess Yong'an was in such a panic.

Night fell on the platform, illuminating the carriage.

"Your Highness?" The voice was faint and weak, sounding distant.

She shuddered; Xu Zhi was ultimately afraid of death. Zhang Er had come to kill her at night, and besides, she didn't have a gun now, so she had Shen Zhi prepare the carriage to return to the palace early.

Seeing that it was Xiao Fu and her husband, she lowered her guard and waved for the guards to leave.

"On your wedding night, why aren't you two in your bridal chamber? What are you doing here?"

Xu Zhi noticed that they were all still wearing their wedding attire. The bride was beautiful, and the husband said that he truly deserved the title of "my beloved husband."

Xiao Fu was grateful. A few days ago, Gongzi Gao returned to Yongcheng. She heard that he left Xianyang Palace with Hu Hai. Gongzi Gao and Princess Yong'an had a good relationship. Because she had promised her that she would not let her younger brother come to Zhilan Palace, Yong'an went out of the palace to see her brother without any trouble.

"This servant was able to survive entirely because of Her Highness the Princess's protection. For all these reasons, my husband and I must express our deepest gratitude." With that, the two knelt down and kowtowed.

Xu Zhi found the way the maid addressed herself as "servant" annoying, but she knew that if she didn't bow, Xiao Fu would probably feel unworthy of it.

"Alright. I accept this prayer."

She smiled, and Shen Zhi, who was beside her, understood and helped Xiao Fu up.

Xu Zhi then said, "It's still early. You and your husband should go back quickly. Spring nights are short, and every moment is precious."

A blush crept across Xiao Fu's face as she shyly took her husband's arm.

Xu Zhi saw the form that the word "happiness" looked like.

She felt very comfortable, but also envious.

But even after kneeling before her, the two still showed no intention of going back anytime soon.

Xiao Fu looked conflicted, but in the end, she seemed to have made a huge decision.

“I have thought about it for a long time. Although I promised Lord Li that it was not the right time to tell, my husband and I have discussed it for many days and we still feel that we should tell Your Highness about this matter.”

Xiao Fu's husband took out a carved, double-layered wooden box from his sleeve. It was square and not very big, but the exquisite carvings made it seem very valuable.

Xiao Fu took it, then held it out and presented it to the princess.

A jade disc was placed on the upper shelf.

The jade disc was bright and lustrous, as pure and clear as the moon.

Xu Zhi recalled something... In the 28th year of Qin Shi Huang's reign, the second year of Ying Zheng's reign, when he toured Dongting Lake, a sudden storm arose, so he "threw the jade disc into the river, and the storm subsided." The jade disc, which was used to worship the river god, disappeared into the water.

The jade disc that sank into the river stirred up ripples in the Qin Dynasty six years later!
Along with Mars's conjunction with Antares, a meteorite falling from the sky, and the reappearance of the sunken wall, these were three major events that occurred in Ying Zheng's later years, collectively known as the Three Great Calamities, foreshadowing the demise of the Qin Dynasty and the overthrow of the six states.

The first two are innate anomalies.

The sinking of the jade disc was very likely caused by human intervention.

(Historical records say that someone with a jade disc stopped the envoy, saying that it should be given to Lord Haochi—meaning, "This year, the First Emperor will die.")
But Li Xian found the jade disc and handed it over to her.

He did this quietly for sixteen years.

The lower layer is a flower, but not a fresh flower; it's a flower made of stone.

Carved from red jade, it refracted a beautiful light in the candlelight.

Xiao Fu said, "The master said he hopes His Highness will like these red roses."

Xu Zhi paused for a moment, then suddenly smiled, "He has never understood what a rose is."

However, Xu Zhi didn't know that. She had always thought that roses originated in the West, but in fact, red roses originated in North China.

In the context of the pre-Qin period, roses were not a type of flower.

Li Xian remembered Xu Zhi saying that he was at least half a Chu person, so why was he not romantic at all?

Li Xian also studied the Book of Poetry:

What man and woman, they jested with each other, and gave each other peonies.

What a beautiful and quiet maiden, waiting for me at the city corner. I love her, but cannot see her; I scratch my head and hesitate.

What a sight! The reeds are green and lush, the white dew has turned to frost. The one I long for is on the other side of the water.

Despite having read countless romantic works, his innate thirst for truth compelled him to ask for clarification.

What is romance?

Uncle Chen said seriously: "I think Guo Kai is quite romantic—both dissolute and unrestrained."

……

So, Li Xian still went to Zhongnan Mountain with high hopes, thinking that Mo Qi, who was as knowledgeable as Xu Zhi, would surely understand.

Han Fei happened to be on the mountain at that time.

Looking at this young man asking such absurd questions, Han Fei truly felt that he was like a father to his son.

His father, in order to trick him into giving up his manuscript, went to great lengths to express his love of learning and appreciation.

Li Si wrote down every word he said on his robe. Knowing he liked sweets, he held a large jug of fine wine and said to him: "The virtue of a gentleman is what I admire. The road ahead is long and arduous, but I wish to share it with you."

Will we stand together through thick and thin?

When they turned against each other, Li Si turned around and shouted at him: "If you don't listen to me, then wait for me to destroy Han."

After mastering his skills, the man not only fled Lanling, but also angered the king so much that he became a stutterer. Once the king had succeeded, he wanted to use the man again to flatter the King of Qin, but the man shamelessly turned around and said, "I don't want to kill you."

Thinking about all this, Han Fei, who had only been on the mountain for a little over three years, couldn't calm down.

To his surprise, his son expressed his purpose very directly: "The princess doesn't love me, she loves your student, sir. But I want to please her, so that she might remember me even a little bit."

Han Fei was speechless; they were truly of the same ilk.

He waved his hand, telling Li Xian to get lost.

After hearing the whole story, Tang Zhibei smiled and said: Roses are a kind of romance.

Li Xian still didn't understand, but he read through all the classic texts.

Soon, he found it... right on his father's desk, in the "Outer Chapters, Left Upper" section of the Han Feizi, which recorded a story: buying the box and returning the pearl.

In the story, a man from Chu used a wooden box decorated with roses to hold pearls.

Romance is like a rose.

And the "rose" was a precious pearl. He suddenly realized.

The vibrant flowers in the garden were all submerged in the night.

Xiao Fu felt that her princess needed to process what she had said.

Princess Yong'an's expression remained unchanged.

Her tone turned colder, and she asked sternly, "When did he originally plan to let you give it to me?"

Xiao Fu's husband was always a court musician. He was more afraid of nobles than Xiao Fu, so he stepped in front of his wife and said, "Your Highness, please calm down... When Lord Li handed it over to me, he said it would be on the first day of the fourth month."

"Hehe, he really did pick a good day."

The fifteenth day after the Spring Equinox this year is the first day of the fourth lunar month, also known as Qingming Festival.

"Why didn't you listen to him, but instead wanted to tell me in advance?"

Tanlang couldn't understand, but he still respected Xiao Fu's gesture of pulling his hand away. He stepped forward and looked at the princess who was being blessed by the cold moonlight.

"If Lord Li dies, Your Highness will be saddened."

Her hand had been resting on her forehead; it was unclear whether she was hiding her sadness or a headache.

She finally gave a weak smile and said it with great resolve.

"You're wrong, Xiao Fu, I won't be sad."

“I will hate him.”

-

In fact, time has changed more than just Xu Zhi.

Li Xian had heard and learned too much from Tang Zhibei and Xu Zhi's words. He even came to agree with the meaning of the word 'mission'.

He was captivated by her tenderness and longed for the rare warmth of human life, but he would choose to die for the sake of the ending.

Without thinking.

If she thought about it carefully, she would realize that this is a replica of the ancient Xiakou Pass in Lingjiu Mountain.

But she hated him.

I hate that he plans to abandon this mess.

I hate that he would choose to gamble with his life.

I hate that in these sixteen years, countless things have changed and people have changed.

Once Xu Zhi got into the carriage, she could no longer maintain the reserved demeanor of a noble princess.

An uncontrollable outpouring of emotions surged forth.

"Li Xian, you bastard, you idiot!"

Almost every Chinese person in later generations knows that the mercury content in that area of ​​Mount Li exceeded the standard.

Even though she worked at her father's tomb for several years, a single terracotta warrior burial pit was enough for her to study for decades.

The imperial tomb remained a secret until the year she traveled through time.

As for the so-called "passing through three springs," what she knew was basically just fragments of information in historical documents.

Forced labor can be resolved through political means.

But she knew nothing about the underground palace.

Li Xian went there, plunging headlong into Mount Li, and went into the underground palace to search for the secret of the elixir of immortality.

"—Your Highness. The magistrate told us to wait until you take office before discussing it. The first day of the fourth month is the day Your Highness goes to Mount Li… But I sensed from Lord Li that he said the underground palace is vast and he doesn't intend to return…"

56.25 square kilometers, equivalent to the area of ​​78 Forbidden Cities.

There are at least one hundred tons of mercury in the underground palace.

"If you want to die in there, then go ahead and die in there! You won't even have a place to pay your respects at the grave."

"Oh. You're quite clever. You want to climb to the position of a high-ranking official while you're alive, and be the first to be buried with him when you die. Don't worry, I'll make sure the burial pit is wide enough for you."

"You bastard. I won't shed a single tear."

Xu Zhi cursed a few times, then felt very tired. She leaned against the swaying car wall, the moonlight reflecting a bright glow. A tear fell onto her chin and dripped onto the back of her hand.

"Am I crying?" she asked hesitantly, puzzled.

Shen Zhi wanted to tell her that she was really crying.

But she was afraid that Ying Hehua's hard-won emotional outburst would cause her to collapse again.

The weight of life can hurt her the most.

A moment later, Xu Zhi sat up abruptly, took out a handkerchief, and began rubbing her face haphazardly.

"No. Ah-Zhi, I can't cry."

"If Li Xian knew that I shed tears for him, he would be so happy he would be overjoyed."

"What did he say about responding to the ending? There's no such thing as a predetermined ending! He did wrong, he hasn't paid his debts yet, and he wants to die such a ridiculous death? It's absurd!"

Xu Zhi couldn't figure out why she was crying, so she just assumed it was because hatred was welling up inside her.

She frowned, twirling the coral bracelet on her wrist, and said fiercely, "If you've come here to atone for your sins, trying to escape by dying is absolutely a pipe dream!"

She tried to calm herself down, taking deep breaths and attempting to remain composed.

"I heard from Xiao Fu that Li Xian, that scoundrel, went to see Huai Qing before the palace banquet."

"Yes, Your Highness, I will speak to the mistress immediately."

"be quick."

"promise."

-

The construction of the Lishan Imperial Mausoleum has been underway for nearly thirty years, and the main buildings are now complete, especially the underground palace, where the network of tunnels, pits, and burial chambers have all been excavated.

The 720,000 conscripted laborers were responsible for completing tasks and transporting soil.

"His Majesty can't bring himself to harm his daughter. The only answer lies with Lord Li."

"...As your subject, I will provide whatever Your Majesty requires."

"I never imagined that Lord Li would aspire to be a loyal subject to the emperor in this lifetime?"

"...Xu Fu, I will not betray the Qin Dynasty."

"Sir, is it that you're too stubborn, or is this branding iron too powerful? Think about it, these are the things that were once inflicted on your father. Thinking about it like that, you can understand what the pain of getting what you want is like, hahahahahaha!"

Since the ending is unchangeable, he will make his own ending happen sooner rather than later.

He thought, if I must die first, then I will make a rose from the red stone. (End of Chapter)