The young maid trembled so violently that her forehead audibly knocked against the polished floorboards. She was absolutely terrified, trapped under the suffocating, heavy gaze of the most powerful and ruthless civil official in the empire.
"M-My... my master..." the maid stammered, her voice cracking with sheer panic. "He is the Vice Minister of Works! Lord Luo!"
Lord Luo.
The Prime Minister's dark eyes gleamed. Suddenly, the heavy, dry structural engineering books made perfect sense. She was the daughter of the Vice Minister of Works. A noblewoman who hid her ink-stained fingers, snuck out of her manor to buy advanced hydrology manuals, and dared to scold the Prime Minister of the Empire to his face.
She was a brilliant, utterly feral little anomaly hiding right under his nose.
"Vice Minister Luo," the Prime Minister repeated softly, the name rolling off his tongue like a rare, exquisite delicacy.
