"Your Majesty means to summon all of them into the palace?"
The Empress Dowager looked slightly surprised. As she shifted, her figure revealed a different charm and a different view.
"I mean one at a time."
Li Chen genuinely had no intention of pretending to be pure.
First of all, he was a transmigrator with a healthy, fully functioning body. He had no illnesses or strange proclivities, and his orientation was perfectly normal.
As for his looks, it would take two and a half Pan Ans to match him.
In terms of physical prowess, he could outdo at least five Lao Ais.
He had trained painstakingly all the way to the maximum-level Saint Realm and then become emperor. Why couldn't he enjoy himself?
Any excuse would be superfluous. All that mattered was having fun within the bounds of what he considered reasonable.
Li Chen could certainly see the many factional conflicts at court.
But he couldn't be bothered to touch any of them-not because he couldn't handle them, but because he saw no need to.
In Li Chen's eyes, all these civil and military officials worked for him.
As long as they made no fundamental mistakes and could actually do their jobs, that was enough.
After all, the late emperor had left him this administration, and it had achieved a certain balance to some extent.
There was no need for him to nurture more factions to fight these people openly and in the shadows. That would be far too much trouble.
As long as he sat on the throne, these people would always be his subjects.
As for the claim that turbulent undercurrents ran through the Heavenly Strategy Dynasty, concealing many dangers-
Li Chen didn't deny that. Even now, the cause of the crown prince's death had yet to be uncovered.
But the question was, so what if the undercurrents were turbulent? Li Chen was in the Saint Realm. Anyone who dared poke their head out would be killed in an instant.
The second prince yesterday had been a good example. After Li Chen revealed his strength, even his voice had trembled.
As a transmigrator, Li Chen had his own way of playing the game. He hadn't fretted over the system failing to activate back then, either.
Sufficient strength was the best safeguard in this world.
The greatest cause of so-called fear was insufficient firepower.
Then there was his position as emperor. Li Chen figured that the Heavenly Strategy Dynasty had existed for centuries upon centuries, and its successive emperors had already refined its rules and institutions. There was no need for him to expend that effort.
Just don't cause trouble for me. Push me too far, and I won't indulge you.
Of course, if he saw something unjust, he would still intervene.
Because he was strong, he could decide right and wrong according to his own judgment. That was the right of the strong.
That was also why Chancellor Zhao Wenyuan and Grand General Guo Poyun wanted to protect Li Chen no matter what.
In other words, if another prince had ascended the throne this time, he wouldn't have possessed absolute strength to make his subjects obey.
To secure his throne, he would inevitably seek ways to centralize power.
Then conflict between emperor and subjects would be plain to see.
Li Chen, on the other hand, found his subjects quite obedient. Even the Minister of Rites under the second prince-to put it bluntly, if Li Chen and the second prince issued orders at the same time, Minister of Rites Yan Hai would certainly carry out Li Chen's first. He would even have to consider whether the second prince's order might offend Li Chen before daring to carry it out.
Because Yan Hai knew that offending the second prince might get him ruined, but that was only a possibility.
Offending Li Chen, however, meant dying on the spot.
He still knew which weighed more heavily.
Take the Empress Dowager as another example. If the emperor were a powerless puppet, he would have to rise upon seeing her and address her as "Mother."
That form of address would bring him closer to the Empress Dowager. It was a kind of verbal flattery, as well as a bowing of the head.
Yet Li Chen couldn't even be bothered to welcome the Empress Dowager when she arrived, and he still addressed her by her "position."
Even the Empress Dowager found nothing wrong with it. Wasn't that because she, too, dared not offend this Saint Realm emperor too much?
Judging by his experience over these two days as emperor, Li Chen was quite satisfied.
Next, then, he needed to consider other matters.
Namely, the consorts the Empress Dowager was introducing to him.
He had previously been something of a homebody and had interacted with very few women beyond the palace consorts.
With such formidable tests frequently placed before him, his standards naturally rose.
So he hadn't refused the women the Empress Dowager introduced.
After all, sometimes the palace grew rather hot, and he needed to cool that fire.
Besides, the women chosen by the Empress Dowager certainly wouldn't be commonplace beauties caked in rouge.
For now, Li Chen didn't feel that the Empress Dowager intended to harm him. This was something he ought to enjoy as emperor!
If introducing these women was her way of harming him, then he hoped she would harm him a great deal more. She could even come harm him personally.
In the palace, after hearing Li Chen's answer, the Empress Dowager began introducing the women's backgrounds and identities.
"Your Majesty, this one is called Chu Ruoyan. She is the eldest daughter of the prestigious Chu Lineage in the imperial capital. She is one of the Twin Beauties of the Imperial Capital, and her talent and strength are quite good, too."
The Empress Dowager had actually wanted to say that Chu Ruoyan's talent and strength were both outstanding.
But remembering Li Chen's strength, she changed her wording.
Only Chu Ruoyan was in the imperial capital. If summoned now, she could probably reach the palace before long.
There were, in fact, many other beautiful women in the imperial capital, but the Empress Dowager had selected only those from factions under her who also met the requirements.
"All right, her, then. I'll head to the Imperial Study to review memorials first. Let me know when she arrives."
Remembering that he still had work to do gave Li Chen a terrible headache.
An emperor didn't need to hold court every day. Sometimes, once every week or so was enough.
It was just that quite a few matters had piled up lately, all waiting for Li Chen to handle them.
Elsewhere, at the residence of the prestigious Chu Lineage in the imperial capital.
For these distinguished lineages to gain a firm foothold in the Heavenly Strategy Dynasty's imperial capital, with its turbulent undercurrents, they needed someone powerful backing them.
Otherwise, newly risen lineages would soon replace them.
The Chu Lineage's backer was naturally the reigning Empress Dowager's nephew. They weren't yet qualified to approach the Empress Dowager herself; they could merely be considered part of her camp.
The Chu Lineage counted as only a second-rate lineage in the imperial capital, and its patriarch had Heaven-Viewing Realm cultivation.
But their patriarch was already advanced in years. If he rode a crane west one day, the Chu Lineage would lose its usefulness. The Empress Dowager's faction would naturally abandon them, their status would plummet a thousand fathoms, and they would disappear from the imperial capital.
Fortunately, their lineage had produced a peerless beauty and prodigy: Chu Ruoyan.
Chu Ruoyan was not only extraordinarily talented but also as beautiful as a celestial maiden.
She had been named one of the "Twin Beauties of the Imperial Capital" as soon as she reached adulthood.
Now in her twenties, her fully developed figure was exquisitely shapely, with alluring curves.
The sons of the imperial capital's nobles, the geniuses of its great and wealthy lineages, and even monstrous talents from elsewhere-all lost their souls at a single glimpse of Chu Ruoyan, swearing they would stay by her side and never choose another for the rest of their lives.
One could say that the people pursuing Chu Ruoyan could form a line from her doorstep all the way to the imperial capital's eastern gate.
The reason it would reach the eastern gate was that the eastern gate was nearby. The other gates were too far away.
The Chu Lineage had also gained a modest reputation in the imperial capital because of Chu Ruoyan.
Chu Ruoyan had displayed exceptional talent since childhood and had been well protected by her lineage, so she was naturally somewhat spoiled and aloof.
She had never shown anyone a pleasant face, including her own family.
Because she felt that her family always wanted to use her as a marriage-alliance tool to stabilize the lineage's development, without truly recognizing her strengths.
For someone so extraordinarily talented, that thought was perfectly normal. After all, she believed that if the lineage wanted to grow, it still needed solid strength of its own.
Before you continue