Lady Clarissa collapses two days before her coronation; Top Scholar Edmund Cooper carries her back as the king angrily orders her guarded or he will execute Cooper’s clan. Clarissa, called Ms. Yowell, wakes blind—the imperial physician says exhaustion reactivated an old illness and may have caused permanent vision loss. Cooper comforts her and calms her fear; instead of pleading for treatment she unexpectedly asks him to find a husband. With the coronation imminent and the king’s execution threat hanging over them, Cooper faces an urgent choice that leaves the episode unresolved.