Arc 5.12 Empress of Four Kingdoms

Thankfully, Hua Shen still had a sense of decency and washed Li Feifei's body and her mouth when she was sleeping.

When Li Feifei opened her eyes the next morning, she already knew that her devil was long gone from the bed.

"Liu Yi," she called out, not surprised at how hoarse her voice was.

"Yes, gongzhu?" As opposed to her normally energetic replies, the little maidservant timidly called out from the other side of the room's door.

Liu Yi already knew that Hua's emperor was no longer in the room with her princess, but she didn't think she would be able to meet Li Feifei's eyes without blushing furiously--especially after knowing what went on the previous night. In fact, she was already flushed just hearing how raspy Li Feifei's voice was when calling her name earlier.

Thus, she stayed outside the room even after she saw the taller man walking out earlier that morning.

He had also ordered her to make sure her princess got plenty of rest on his way out of the Second Princess's palace.

Unaware of the innocent maid's thoughts, Li Feifei ignored the slight pain in her jawbone, "Come in and help this princess get ready for the day."

"...yes, gongzhu," Liu Yi walked in with her head bowed, too embarrassed to look at her princesses appearance after having been pampered all night.

Li Feifei just dismissed the girl's antics as being silly.

Given that she was going to leave for Hua the following day, she knew that they were going to be busy preparing for such a rushed departure. Hence the reason Hua Shen had gone out so early.

As for her four maidservants, they were sure to come along in order to keep her company as fellow Li citizens so that she wouldn't feel "lonely" in a foreign kingdom.

Not that she would ever feel lonely, especially with her devil constantly keeping her company--and later on, her little baby.

And, the only maidservant she bothered to remember of the four was Liu Yi, as the other three weren't as expressive and distinguishable.

When Liu Yi dressed her up and put up her hair, Li Feifei didn't have to worry about exposing the lacerations on her wrists as Hua Shen had used some sort of item to miraculously heal everything. Her wrists were now perfectly flawless and smooth as if she hadn't been roped up the previous night.

But just because they didn't exist anymore didn't mean she'd ever let him tie her up again. Even if it was a punishment, that kind of treatment was uncalled for. All she did was play around and she didn't even do much else aside from ogling some eye candy and accidentally fondling another woman's breasts.

They were both women, though, so she really didn't understand why Hua Shen had to overreact so much. Well, she kind of did after he complained to her in the carriage ride back to the palace. He was probably just mad that she made him cry, so he retaliated by making her cry too.

How childish.

After she was done getting ready, Li Feifei took Liu Yi with her to the morning court once more.

Since she woke up late, the court session was almost over by the time she arrived.

Emperor Li was seated on his dragon throne at the very top with Hua Shen not too far below to his left as a show of respect of being in the other's kingdom as well as Li Yunzhi being his future father-in-law.

Below Hua Shen and to Li Yunzhi's right was Li Yun, the Crown Prince, and slightly below Li Yun was Li Hao, who had been able to attend court ever since the problems within the royal family had been resolved. The Fourth Prince, Li Luo who was only five, sat obediently beside Li Hao, who was responsible for explaining the things that his younger brother didn't understand.

Long Zheng stood near the front as he held the highest position after the two prime ministers.

At the sight of such a harmonious scene despite the officials screaming their lungs out in either protest or consent, Li Feifei smiled as Liu Yi announced her arrival.

Everyone stopped whatever they were doing as Emperor Li laughed brightly while beckoning her in.

She complied and was just about to sit in her usual seat right beside him but was pulled by the waist into a certain devil's lap instead, causing four other men's faces to darken all at once.

As it wasn't their place, the two princes could only glare at Hua Shen for touching their sister so brazenly while Long Zheng clenched his two fists so hard that his veins were showing, narrowing his eyes as his gaze swept over both Li Feifei's and Hua Shen's figures before finally keeping his sight on Li Feifei.

In contrast, even though Emperor Li was also displeased that his daughter's tofu was eaten right in front of him he also felt that it was the right time to disclose the new marriage alliance between Li and Hua. He had been waiting for when the court session was just about over to drop such groundbreaking news so that the officials wouldn't be able to complain for very long.

It just so turned out that his daughter had truly impeccable timing!

And that his future son-in-law was quite shameless.

Seeing as his eldest son was starting to look at him with pleading and questioning eyes like a puppy while Li Hao looked as if he was ready to bite off Hua Shen's neck at any moment, Emperor Li felt a minor headache coming about as he remembered that he would have to properly offer his wife an explanation later regarding the marriage of their only daughter.

Oh well, he would just have to convince her in bed.

Coughing lightly to regain the attention on himself, Emperor Li's deep and resonant voice sounded throughout the hall.

"About three weeks ago, zhen annulled Fei-er's engagement with General Long as per Fei-er's request and General Long's consent," he thought it was better to start out with this as nobody had been aware of the annulment until he opened his mouth just then.

Looking at the eager and greedy gazes of some of his officials as they looked at his daughter, Li Yunzhi suddenly felt an evil pleasure rising up as he imagined their crushed looks after hearing what he had to say next.

"Yesterday, Hua's emperor and ambassadors arrived in Li, and proposed to form a marriage alliance."

It took some of the officials a few seconds to process what the words he'd spouted implied, before their faces paled while some of them immediately kowtowed and shouted protests.

""Your Majesty! Please reconsider!""

They already knew that Emperor Li must have accepted the proposal, as he didn't inhibit nor reprimand Emperor Hua's actions that lacked propriety. Not that it was appropriate to reprimand another emperor in the first place, but knowing Emperor Li and his love for his only daughter it wasn't wrong to assume he'd do so if he had already rejected Hua's offer.

Also, it wasn't as if they were entirely lacking in brains. They were officials for a reason. An alliance between the two kingdoms was a really good one, especially if the other party was only asking for a princess's hand in marriage. Not to mention, they were both military kingdoms.

The ambitious officials who'd always dreamt of a united era of the four kingdoms already felt their hearts swelling at the foreseeable future.

The only reason the protesting officials weren't so fond of the idea was that Li wasn't as stable in terms of government affairs as Hua was, so an alliance wasn't exactly the best thing at the moment.

After all, they were still fighting over who should be the real crown prince--the Third Prince had made his intentions obvious so long ago when he started recruiting officials into his faction.

Similarly, General Long was a very powerful individual who had even more status and authority than General Bai of the same rank. They would be lying if they said there wasn't any reason to be suspicious of the young General.

On the topic of youngsters, Li really did not have many promising young soldiers or scholars aside from the princes and General Long, so a long-term alliance with Hua was also not very favorable as one day they would undoubtedly be overturned by the other kingdom due to the lack of capable officials.

Really, the officials worries regarding the power struggle within the royal family was unfounded especially after Li Hao completely dropped his ambition. Of course, he still maintained his own hidden forces as the male lead, but he wanted them to support the Royal Family, not just him.

As for his allying with General Bai, he had already inadvertently told the father of his lover that he no longer wished to pursue the throne. Similarly, he had told the other officials in his faction that the jig was up, as if he was simply testing their loyalty to the crown, making them all break out into a cold sweat. Thankfully, he reassured them that as they hadn't committed any atrocious deeds nothing would happen to them.

General Bai, of course, was miffed. But what could he do? He was already inferior to General Long, and he didn't dare to oppose Emperor Li for favoring Long Zheng, either. So he could only swallow the bitter fruit and be happy that his useless daughter had managed to gain the Third Prince's affection. At least in that way their power would not be threatened.

He felt even better after the morning court session when he found out that Long Zheng's engagement with the Second Princess had fallen through.

As for Long Zheng's ambitions, how could he back down simply because of a few minor setbacks? He still wanted to rule over the four kingdoms. It was just that Li Hao could no longer be his scapegoat and he had to scheme even deeper.

When Emperor Li had announced Hua's proposal between the two kingdoms, he was already debating whether it would be better to wait until the four kingdoms had been united by Hua Shen to take it and Li Feifei from him, or if he should get rid of Hua Shen and do everything on his own early on.

When he raised his gaze to Hua Shen's peerless face with his deep and unfathomable red eyes that were impassively staring right back into his own, his pupils constricted and he instantly knew that the young emperor of Hua was not as easy or childish as he made himself to be in the eyes of the public.

Towards Li Feifei, Long Zheng wouldn't say he'd fallen in love in a span of a few weeks, but he did know that she was a worthy woman to be by his side. He wanted her just as much as he wanted to rule over the four kingdoms.

As for her being "used goods," Long Zheng didn't care about any of that.

As long as Li Feifei remained the woman that intrigued him, he didn't care if she gave herself to another man. Her cunning temperament and competent martial prowess were enough to make him want to be by her side.

When he saw how she simply let Hua Shen do whatever he pleased as she sat on his lap, the young general guessed that she was the one who had convinced her own father to agree to the marriage alliance. After all, Li Feifei had rejected him (LZ), and she seemed to be scheming up plans of her own from the very first time he'd seen her.

With that thought, he decided to indulge her and let her have her fun with the young emperor for a while. As the prominent general of Li, he would undoubtedly be seeing her more in the future once their plan to conquer the four kingdoms started. Furthermore... His eyes flashed with a crafty glint.

Breaking him out of his reverie, Hua Shen's indisputable voice boomed throughout the hall,

"Silence," he wasn't pleased at how others dared to question his connection with his wife. Especially that brat general who had been eyeing her from the moment she walked in.

What broke the final straw was when that brat was obviously scheming something up in his mind until he looked at his baby. Hua Shen would have to be blind if he didn't notice the brat's gaze softening and those schemes immediately turning into something resembling pampering and leniency as if he owned her!

Hua Shen swept his cold gaze throughout the entire hall, intimidating all of the rowdy officials from before with the might of an emperor before fixating them entirely on Long Zheng who seemed to feel nothing from his hidden force.

Hua Shen's body may have been young, but he was undoubtedly much older than all of the geezers in the room combined.

They didn't know that, though. So, it made their opposition even more unreasonable to Hua Shen. So what if Li had an unstable future? The entire Four Kingdoms believed that Hua was currently ruled by a fourteen-year old emperor. Even worse, this emperor was reputed to be childish and unruly. If that wasn't unstable, then what was?

Of course, he had simply taken on the original's character to give himself a false persona so that he would be able to get his baby much easier and faster.

After all, who could reason with someone known to be irrational and refused to follow logic?

Therefore, it shouldn't have been too surprising that his next words completely and utterly destroyed all hopes of wanting to stop the alliance from happening, not because of a threat but because he never took their opinion into consideration from the start.

"There will be a celebration and farewell banquet two sichen* from now. All officials and family members are invited to attend. We will be hosting the wedding procession back to Hua with Fei-er early tomorrow morning, and this banquet will be the last time some of you will ever see her."

Hua Shen threw a challenging glance towards Long Zheng when he spoke the last phrase before tightening his arms that were wrapped around Li Feifei's slender waist and lowering his head to nip at her sensitive earlobe, causing her to squirm involuntarily against his groin that was slowly rising due to her movement.

Speaking of Li Feifei, she simply went over to the court session to see what Hua Shen had in store for the officials and the royal family. She already knew what type of man Emperor Li was, so she guessed he would have saved such a topic for last.

However, even she didn't think Hua Shen would have meticulously planned out a farewell party for her ah! But thinking about it a little bit more, it did seem like a good way to display their affection in front of a lot of people. Specifically, Long Zheng.

As for her task of making Long Zheng fall for her, she hadn't given up on it. In fact, since he was a general who would undoubtedly be called out to battle in the future she was sure she could easily gain his heart then. A general's heart and soul lie in the battlefield, after all.

The problem was obviously the light bulb that was her hubby. But, she didn't really need to do anything too drastic to make Long Zheng fall for her so she didn't put much more thought to the matter.

Pleased with how Hua Shen handled his officials so easily, Emperor Li quickly dismissed court and kept back the involved parties to speak with them.

He certainly didn't feel the need to tell any of the officials of the plan for him to step down as soon as the four kingdoms had been conquered by Hua Shen and Li Feifei. That would only bring unnecessary unrest and disorder. It was much better to do as he did today--leave it 'til the very end so that they couldn't argue because the deed's already been done.

The throne room was now silent, as Long Zheng kept his emotions in check while Emperor Li's scrutinizing gaze swept over his lonely figure, then towards the flirting couple beside him.

He let out a sigh, as he felt that he'd wronged Long Zheng by giving him hope only to take it away at the last second not once, but twice. The first time was by setting up the engagement only to have Li Feifei annul it. The second, was when they informally annulled the engagement with the intention to bring it back up again in the near future only to have her stolen away by another man.

"Zhen apologizes for wronging General Long yet again. If the General has anything to ask of zhen, it will be granted."

Again, even if he had said "anything," it was implied that nothing too outrageous could be asked for.

But this was exactly what Long Zheng was waiting for as his countenance immediately brightened and the same crafty glint quickly flew past his dark brown eyes before disappearing as he knelt down on one knee with his hands folded in salute,

"Your Majesty has not wronged this general. However," he looked up towards Hua Shen, whose chin rested on top of Li Feifei's head dotingly, with an equally provocative gaze as the one Hua Shen had sent him before, "This general would like to accompany gongzhu as a personal guard to Hua."

To this, Hua Shen's face immediately darkened, while Li Feifei smirked in amusement.