"Your Majesty, the princess sent by Huiju Kingdom for a marriage alliance will soon reach the capital. How would you like us to arrange matters?"
Early that morning, the Minister of Court Ceremonies steeled himself and stepped forward to ask the emperor how to handle the princess Huiju Kingdom had sent.
Ever since their emperor had an Empress and three consorts in his harem, he had stopped adding to it.
Over the years, people had certainly proposed that the emperor hold a consort selection.
But whoever dared raise the subject received a thorough tongue-lashing from him.
Chrysanthemum Kingdom's main purpose in sending a princess this time was to seek the Li Kingdom's protection.
Huiju was only a small frontier kingdom, frequently harassed by the nomadic tribes of the grasslands.
When the Late Emperor had once sent the Grand General Who Pacifies the Distant Lands to attack the Xiongnu harassing the Li Kingdom's borders, the general had accidentally taken a wrong turn and ended up in Huiju.
He encountered nomadic tribes that had come to harass Huiju. With anger he had nowhere to vent, the general simply took his troops off to attack them.
He could hardly go all that way and return empty-handed, could he?
From then on, Huiju's king had kept sending princesses to the Li Kingdom.
He had sent three princesses in fifty years!
The first two had both entered the Late Emperor's harem. In the fifth year after the current emperor ascended the throne, Huiju had sent another princess, but the emperor had married her off to the Marquis Who Secures the South's second son.
Apparently, Huiju's old emperor had died not long ago, and his favorite sixth son had smoothly succeeded him.
The princess sent this time was the new king's own younger sister.
"Since they've already sent her, handle it the same way as before."
The emperor had no desire to add anyone else to his harem. Those three women alone had already drastically reduced the time he could spend with the Empress.
One more would mean there was always an extra person for leaf cards. Just thinking about it was a nuisance.
The ministers naturally knew what the emperor meant by the old method. They exchanged glances, none wanting their sons to suffer the misfortune of an imperial marriage decree.
The emperor sat on his dragon throne and waited for quite some time, yet not a single brave soul stepped forward to ask for this Huiju princess's hand on his son's behalf.
[System, is there any juicy gossip about this Huiju princess?]
Her points had been disappearing rather quickly lately, and Wenren Luoshui needed fresh gossip to earn more!
This Huiju princess had arrived at just the right time. She wondered how many points the woman's gossip would earn her.
[Salty Fish System: Yes. Give me a moment, host. I'll search the database.]
The ministers thought, Yes, yes, exactly! Let us first learn what this princess did in her own country. Only then can we better ease His Majesty's burdens!
The emperor thought, Like hell I believe you!
[Salty Fish System: Found it, found it. Host, I think you'd better read this one yourself.]
Wenren Luoshui received the electronic document the system sent her. After reading just the first few lines, she found it utterly mind-blowing.
Standing beside her, Yunjian watched her best friend's expression change seven or eight times within a minute and couldn't resist coming over to enjoy the gossip with her.
[Yunjian: Luoshui, do you think this Huiju princess is pretty? Does she have fair skin?]
[Hmm... I don't think those outward qualities matter.]
[Yunjian: That's not what you used to say! Have you been possessed? Get out of my best friend's body!]
[Shoo, shoo, shoo. Back in her own country, this princess's greatest hobby was collecting handsome men. She kept no fewer than thirty male favorites in her Princess's Residence!]
[Yunjian: Wow! What a fierce little princess. Are all these handsome men really young?]
[From ten to thirty, she has every variety of handsome man in her Princess's Residence.]
The ministers thought, Thank goodness we didn't speak too hastily and offer up our dear boys to take this princess off their hands.
Hearing Wenren Luoshui's thoughts, the emperor was also speechless. Who would have imagined they had the gall to send over a princess who loved keeping male favorites?
Without betraying anything, he examined the ministers' expressions below and found that not one looked pleased.
It seemed he couldn't marry this princess off to anyone else!
[And she gave birth to a child in her own country.]
What?!
Was Huiju sure the princess they had sent this time was really meant for a marriage alliance?
[Yunjian: In that case, if she's come here for a marriage alliance, what happened to her child?]
[Dead.]
[Yunjian: That ruthless?]
[Her child had congenital anal atresia. As a newborn, the baby could only drink milk, so the harm of being unable to relieve himself wasn't yet apparent. As the child grew, the range of foods he could eat expanded, and the waste produced inside his body gradually increased and hardened. His belly swelled more each day.]
[When this princess saw that her child only ate and never passed anything, she publicly proclaimed that she'd given birth to a pixiu. Before the child was even weaned, he was taken to a temple and worshipped as an auspicious omen, until he died.]
[After the child died, to keep her reputation spotless, the princess had people announce that he hadn't died but had returned to heaven to become a celestial child. She's quite a swindler. Even now, half the people in Huiju keep portraits of her holding her child in their homes and worship them!]
[Yunjian: What a marketing genius! Living here really does her talents an injustice.]
Although the ministers didn't know what congenital anal atresia was, once they heard the young commandery princess say that the child only ate and never passed anything, they more or less understood.
But just as the young commandery princess had said, this Huiju princess certainly knew how to get things done.
With that brain of hers, she could talk the dead back to life.
Even knowing her child couldn't survive, she had managed to pass him off as a celestial child.
[Not only that, she especially enjoys playing around with married men. Plenty of Huiju's ministers have been guests behind her bedcurtains. And because she played around so much, she eventually caught a venereal disease.]
At this point, Wenren Luoshui was puzzled too.
If this Huiju princess merely kept male favorites, gave birth, and sought thrills with married men back home,
then why would she come for a marriage alliance knowing she was diseased?
Was she really so confident that the Li Kingdom's emperor wouldn't simply kill her once her illness was discovered?
Wenren Luoshui hurriedly scrolled onward and finally found the truth.
[This is disgusting's mother opening the door for disgusting-disgusting has come all the way home!]
[Yunjian: Is there still more gossip about her?]
[Remember that younger cousin of mine? She's been reborn in this princess's body. She's come for a marriage alliance riddled with venereal disease because she wants to infect our Li Kingdom's ruler and ministers.]
Yunjian no longer knew what to say.
This truly defied comment.
"Yuqiao, take some people and intercept the Huiju princess's party. Escort them out of the Li Kingdom. We have no need for beauties who deliver themselves to our doorstep like this."
"As you command!"
Since the emperor knew why this Huiju princess had come to his country, he certainly couldn't ignore it.
As long as his subjects had done nothing wrong, they were under his protection. How could he let outsiders bully them?
[Why send her back? Wouldn't marrying her to Commandery Princess Nanyi's youngest son be perfect? It would also put an end to Commandery Princess Nanyi's idea of marrying the Seventh Princess to her son.]
[Yunjian: Commandery Princess Nanyi's youngest son? Doesn't he have a fairly good reputation?]
[He's a grown man of nearly twenty-seven who still sleeps in the same bed as his mother every day. What do you think?]
[Yunjian: Wow! That wild?!]
The emperor was thoroughly sick of Commandery Princess Nanyi too. With that temperament of hers, she actually expected him to marry his daughter into her family?
Did she really think their families were so close?
No, he had to find a way to give Commandery Princess Nanyi and her family a proper lesson.
Wenren Shuang had just left her room when she saw the Li Kingdom's Eldest Princess sitting perfectly composed in the inn's main hall.
She walked over, intending to greet the Eldest Princess, only for the princess to wave a hand. Wenren Shuang was immediately subdued and thrown into a carriage.
This body of hers had only a few days left to live anyway. Before the party reached the Li Kingdom's border, she died in the carriage.
Only after confirming that she was truly dead did the Eldest Princess lead her party back.
When Huiju's new king saw his younger sister's coffin brought back, not a trace of grief appeared on his face. He merely asked the envoy what the Li Kingdom had said.
Only when the envoy told him there must be no next time did his heart settle back into his belly.
Fortunately, the Li Kingdom's ruler was magnanimous and unwilling to take issue with a small kingdom like his.
Otherwise, with his younger sister courting death so recklessly, Huiju might well have been destroyed in his hands!