A piece of Japanese incense

When I first met the girl, she was eating a rice dumpling with relish. Therefore, the old lady gave me the name: Yutuan.

However, before I was selected from a group of orphans by the prince consort and brought into the Yun Mansion to become the girl's personal maid, my name was Xiaoman, Pei Xiaoman.

I have a father, a mother, and an older brother who is two years older than me.

Everyone in Yun Mansion is kind, and the young lady treats me very well, like a sister.

At first, I only passed on some intelligence and secrets in the mansion to my father. Later, when I grew up a little, I was only responsible for telling my master the details of the girl's daily life. However, the more I spent time with the girl, the more I felt that the Yun Mansion was my real home and the girl was my real relative.

Tormented by guilt, I sent a message to my mother, saying I didn't want to stay with the girl anymore and wanted to return to my own home.

Before I received my mother's reply, Yuyi and I followed the young lady into the palace. I thought I would lose all contact with my family until Yuyi found a silver piece in her pastry. The unique pattern on the silver piece made it easy for me to recognize it. It was the silver piece my brother wore on his belt.

I also have a bracelet with the same silver ornaments as my brother's. It was made by my mother for me and my brother. The lotus seeds, the seeds of pity, and the hollow lotus pods represent the hope that we can communicate with each other, understand everything, and have multiple ways of doing things.

The moment I saw the silver piece, I had a bad feeling in my heart. Maybe something happened to my brother, or maybe he wanted to leave Yun Mansion, and my father took this as a warning.

The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became. Until when the girl and I were imprisoned in Sui Garden, Zhou Song found me and told me that my brother had received my letter and did not want me to be caught in a dilemma, so he was eager to advance the Lord's plan and drugged Bai Xian in advance, but was discovered by the Bai family and imprisoned.

By the time he was finally able to contact me, my brother had been tortured to death. Zhou Song said he looked at his brother's body from afar, which was covered in wounds and tortured using no less than a dozen different methods.

So, for my brother's sake, I resolutely stayed by the girl's side, sparing no effort to expose the Bai family's evil deeds. Only by implicating the girl would the prince consort be forced to take action...

During the Lantern Festival that year, I had planned to escape from the Yun family to reunite with my family under the cover of night when our lord was rebelling, but unexpectedly the master and his wife were poisoned.

When the young lady entered the palace to search for an antidote, I took advantage of the chaos and left the mansion, hoping to seek an antidote from my father. I begged him desperately, but he simply said that no one in the Yun Mansion would harm anyone without the master's orders. But then, why did the master still get poisoned?!

I returned to Yun Mansion with nothing. The whole mansion was deserted. Until I was brought to the girl, I saw her lying there covered in blood...

I repeatedly questioned my father, and he always firmly replied that no one had attacked the Yun Mansion. It wasn't until I saw how much effort the master had put into arranging everything to protect the girl that I finally felt relieved and focused on taking care of her.

Three years ago, the girl heard that the old lady was critically ill. In desperation, she agreed to the Yan family's request, made an engagement with His Highness Zhixu, and risked everything to break into the imperial city to save people.

After two days and one night of fierce fighting, the entire imperial city was left with only hopeless ruins and endless sorrow. The ground was soaked in blood, and broken limbs and debris were everywhere... The tragic scene still makes me shudder when I think of it, and I dare not look back.

In the end, Emperor Zhaoding turned the tide and put an end to the war. After the master killed the lord with his own hands, the emperor, in order to atone for his past sins, not only did not punish him, but also appointed him as King of Feng.

On the contrary, the Yan family army was almost completely wiped out after that battle, and even Queen Yingyi and General Shaoyu died...

Originally, he wanted to leave the girl, but when he saw Zhou Song accompanying his mother, he felt like an outsider. He knew very little about the people and things in the family, and he felt uncomfortable.

The night before the girl left Beijing, the master and the girl talked all night long. Although I don’t know what they talked about, I can see that they were reluctant to part with each other.

As a middleman, I still pass on messages to my master from time to time, and during festivals, I will hand over the gifts that my master wants to give to the girl in my name.

The successive deaths of her family members dealt a heavy blow to the girl. I often feel thankful that I chose to stay by her side, allowing my tiny candlelight to flicker stubbornly in her darkest nights. Even though it's weak and may eventually burn out, it can still illuminate her long and lonely journey, at least with this humble flame of mine.

It was originally thought that the girl's marriage with His Highness Zhixu would end with the war, but unexpectedly, it was brought up again by Emperor Zhaoding three years later, and he even personally issued an edict to grant the marriage while on his sickbed.

In fact, over the past three years, anyone with a discerning eye could see that the master was intending to match the girl with Yan Yue, the lord of Sanchuan City. On the eve of the arrival of the imperial edict, the master had received a secret report and summoned Lord Yan to discuss the marriage with the girl in order to avoid the arranged marriage.

The girl was firm in her attitude and refused again and again. Her relationship with the master had been on thin ice in recent years, and it had become even more tense recently.

But now that the imperial edict has arrived, can the girl really disobey the imperial order...