During the mermaid uprising, many of the allies and territories wanted an experienced soldier to lead the charge, it didn't matter that they were not willing to lead the charge themselves or that he was the son of the father of gods or that the immortal they all wanted was his twin brother who was currently in a coma. Ye Hua was therefore more than a little grateful when the queen of Qing Qiu publicly declared they would only participate in the war if he led the effort. Many said it was because she was a woman but they'd forgotten she was the only female disciple his twin had trained.
She was not merely a figurehead at the war and preparations as many had expected but debated strategy and tactics better than most. She was a calculated risk taker, she weighed the impact of her tactics against possible outcomes before taking actions and would push back on whatever tactics were proposed till someone could answer her questions and show it was the best course of action.
She was creative and mischievous and defended her own honor, one of the princes of one of the allied territories made a side remark about her taking advantage of her relationship with the celestial royal family but not having anything to offer for herself and her fan which she'd been using to point out a path on the map turned into a sword and divested said man of his armor and robe without leaving a single scratch on his body then she'd walked out of the tent saying she was going to drink with people who actually thought rather than relied on their bloodline as a proof of intelligence.
She drank more than Ye Hua thought was possible. Whenever she wasn't in a strategy or training session or involved in actual fighting, she had a drink in her hand, sometimes more than one but he'd never seen her drunk. She fought like a monster, during the final series of clashes with the mermaid clan, he'd killed the mermaid king but had been ambushed almost immediately by the soldiers around him and it had seemed all mermaid soldiers were focused on him, someone or something had attacked his spiritual energy and he thought he was going to die when she swept through the ambush like a tornado, her artifact switching constantly from fan to sword and back again as she worked her way to him and fought side by side with him till the enemy army was gone.
He'd been enthralled with her from the start but by the end he had a full blown crush. He'd tried to get his family to arrange a marriage between them but the fox emperor had simply stated that Qing Qiu does not do arranged marriage and his daughter would marry whoever and whenever she wanted. They'd met a few times afterwards but those were few and far apart and she never stayed long enough to exchange more than a few words. He'd spent the last 10,000 years trailing her and attempting to track and woo her, sometimes he missed his twin; Mo Yuan would have had useful advice for him