Cassie Bendix’s Reviews > The Poet Empress > Status Update

The truth revealed. God damnit this is so fucking sad

“I don’t know how much suffering is normal.
How much was ordinary, expected, the price we paid to live.
How much was created by us, needless.”

“At nine years old, maybe ten, I had learned the price we must pay to live.
I kept writing. The pain kept coming.
And coming.
And coming.”

A harvest song

Ciyi - “why, did I ever agree to teach you to read?”

And all that statement holds. The scheming is shocking…damning…heartbreaking.

Holy shit…her servants.

“Suddenly it didn’t matter how many tongues I cut off. How many hands I severed. How many ppl I pushed out of my way. It did not matter how high a cost I had to pay, so long as it resulted in the thing in front of me dead.”

“First I had cut off a tongue, and now I had cut off a hand. And I was not even finished. If someone told a young get version of me about the Wei who lived in the palace, that little girl would have been disgusted.”

So sad…you understand why they do what they do…despicable as it is. The trickle down effect of power struggles and how it’s shaped everyone to be so desperate in this nation…

“My chest felt heavy. Somehow, this seemed the cruelest part of my scheme — this making of an honest man into a villain.” 😔🥺

Ugh! “I was getting good at this.” 😰😭

“Everyone believes their own cause is noble.”
“Then may everyone do what they must to win.”