Hu Buwei asked, "Your imperial brother has invited you. Will you go or not?"
Long Xuanjiao said coldly, "Unless he dies, I will never go to the Kang Capital. Still, since they have come to invite me, I must give them some face. I intend to send Long Yue."
Yang Longyue was the emperor's younger brother, but he was not Empress Dowager Long Xuanjiao's biological son. Now titled Prince Fu, he and Yang Longjing, the reigning emperor of the Fragrant Kingdom, shared a father but had different mothers. Born only seven days apart, they had grown up together and shared a deep brotherly bond, yet their temperaments were entirely different. Yang Longjing was indecisive, kind, and generous, with a love of poetry and song, the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting. Yang Longyue, by contrast, was bold and rough-hewn, resolute and tenacious. He had loved wielding sabers and swords since childhood and was the prized disciple of Xie Tianyuan, known in the Fragrant Kingdom as the Southwestern Saber Saint. It was said that his mastery of the saber was already approaching his teacher's.
Yang Longyue was not only highly skilled in martial arts but also adept at deploying troops and arranging battle formations. Two years earlier, he had led an army to quell a barbarian rebellion, and his prestige among the troops had grown with each passing day. Although Emperor Yang Longjing valued him highly, Empress Dowager Long Xuanjiao had begun to feel a profound sense of danger. The greater Yang Longyue's prestige became, the worse it was for her own son. Prince Fu himself had done nothing rebellious, but quite a few ministers had already begun whispering among themselves. Yang Longjing might nominally be the Fragrant Kingdom's emperor, but his temperament was far too weak; in reality, Empress Dowager Long