The Emperor was gobsmacked. Wasn’t it just rewarding a subordinate? How did it change into marrying a wangfei?
Yet Jing-wang forcibly called this marriage a reward, while rewarding Li Yu was really something that the Emperor had allowed Jing-wang to decide for himself. The Emperor recalled Jing-wang’s multiple inquiries previously and realized that it was extremely likely that Jing-wang had laid this trap ready for him.
Back then, when Jing-wang was worrying about how to reward Li Yu, it was probably all fake. What he really wanted was to facilitate this wedding.
The Emperor was extremely shocked and also very angry, angry that Jing-wang had plotted against him, and also angry that Jing-wang suddenly wanted to marry a man for his wangfei.
Although this dynasty didn’t prohibit homosexuality, past Emperors have also had male wangfei before and also doted on them very much; even the current Emperor himself wanted to try something new and had a male noble before. However, whether a man can become the main wife or a concubine…… Ultimately, men had nothing to do with the big picture. Because men can’t give birth, they can’t possibly occupy the position of the main wife. If Jing-wang was determined to make Li Yu as his side wife, the Emperor might have followed Jing-wang’s wishes and permitted it. According to a wang’s status, he was permitted to have a main wife and two side wives. Li Yu was a man and also a commoner. To gain the title of a side wife would be a joyous and fortunate thing for him.
However, in Jing-wang’s report, what he had mentioned was the main wife. The position that he wanted to give to Li Yu was also the main wife position. The Emperor naturally wouldn’t agree.
How can a man, especially one without any background, occupy the position of wangfei? If he allowed it, and Jing-wang wanted to marry a noble lady from some high-ranking official’s family in the future, then it’d be very hard. After all, which lady would willingly become a side wife when there was a male wangfei who couldn’t even bear children? Not to mention, the children that they bear would only be able to gain the title of son of a side wife/concubine?
In a mere moment of time, the Emperor already found a pile of justifications. He didn’t actually endorse this marriage. Jing-wang’s cheap scheme here was just a clever gimmick. If the Emperor’s mind could be so easily changed, then he wouldn’t be emperor anymore.
However, because the Emperor had made a promise earlier, it was really not good to take it back so apparently. The Emperor thought about it and ended up simply holding onto the request, refusing to reply.
If he didn’t answer, then Jing-wang naturally couldn’t marry.
The Emperor was very mad at Jing-wang internally, disappointed that the other had failed to meet expectations.
He once worried to death over Jing-wang’s marriage. Jing-wang didn’t seem to have any desires or preferences. Now, he had finally decided to get married. If it were a lady from any family, the Emperor wouldn’t have refused him. However, Jing-wang had begged for a man to become his wangfei. This son of his… the Emperor was just thinking that Jing-wang was somewhat impressive, yet unexpectedly, Jing-wang was already stabbing him in the heart like this!
The Emperor really did get angry and planned to ignore Jing-wang a bit so that he could reflect on his wrongdoings. The Emperor had sent Jing-wang to gain experience in the West Frontier to give him an equal opportunity for the throne. It wasn’t to allow Jing-wang to request to marry a male wife randomly.
In a fit of fury, the Emperor summoned the Old ChengEn Gong, Jing-wang’s maternal grandfather, Ye Qian, to enter the palace to discuss what to do with him.
Ye Qian had already met Li Yu before. The letters that Jing-wang sent to him had already reached his hands as well. In the face of the Emperor’s unexpected fury, Ye Qian seamlessly gave him a few words of persuasion.
Jing-wang’s request to marry a male wangfei finally made the Emperor realize that it was indeed time for Jing-wang to start his own family. Having no woman by his side to care for him really wasn’t the way to go. The Emperor thought perhaps he could first appoint a marriage partner to Jing-wang. If Jing-wang got married, then perhaps Jing-wang wouldn’t think about that Li Yu anymore.
And even if he still thought about him, Li Yu can be granted the title of side wife. Wasn’t doing this much better than marrying a male main wife?
Ye Qing understood the Emperor’s plans and deliberately made things difficult by asking him: “Does your majesty have someone in mind?”
Questioned like this, the Emperor was speechless.
Jing-wang’s marriage wasn’t something that the Emperor had worried about only once or twice. It’s true that Jing-wang didn’t really care; but it’s also true that the Emperor really couldn’t find anyone suitable.
All of the noble ladies from well-matched families in the Imperial City had tactfully expressed that they were more willing to become the wife of the other princes; they weren’t interested in the mute Jing-wang.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
There were willing choices from those born of lesser families, but either they had bad reputations, were extremely ugly, or also had some kind of disability like Jing-wang.
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How could the Emperor not know this? In the many reports that Jing-wang had sent, he outright and secretly wrote plenty of praises for this Li Yu person. The Emperor was aware that this was really a very good natured child who had also made a contribution. If it were anyone else, perhaps the Emperor would have got rid of him a long time ago.
Recalling this point, the Emperor became even angrier. Jing-wang was indeed not impulsive or reckless. He had been scheming all along.
Recalling how Jing-wang had lured him step by step into the pit, the Emperor felt extremely annoyed. Yet still, Jing-wang made every single step logically and reasonably; the Emperor didn’t notice any evidence of Jing-wang’s plot. At most, he could only reprimand Jing-wang for being muddle-headed and treating something as important as marriage like it was a game.
The stinking brat dared to anger him like this, wasn’t Jing-wang afraid that he might order him to stay in the West Frontier forever, never to return to the Imperial City?
The Emperor knew internally that he’d never do this. Jing-wang just got a little confused regarding marriage. His mistake was much different than what the 2nd Prince and 3rd Prince had done. And plus, currently Jing-wang can also be counted as a meritorious Prince. If he punished Jing-wang because of this, the high government officials would object. The Emperor can only criticize Jing-wang a bit in front of the Old ChengEn Gong.
Ye Qian was very familiar with the Emperor’s temperament. While the Emperor criticized Jing-wang, Ye Qian only listened quietly, occasionally acknowledging his words, but never interrupting. After criticizing for a while, the Emperor lost his interest. Although Empress Xiao Hui had passed away many years ago, in terms of seniority, the Old ChengEn Gong was still his father-in-law. Scolding his son in front of his father-in-law didn’t seem very appropriate.
At last, the Emperor calmed down somewhat.
Another one of Jing-wang’s reports also very quickly arrived. Because the Emperor didn’t reply to the previous one and not many days had passed, the Emperor thought that Jing-wang didn’t get his message yet, but instead had sent another one over directly.
The Emperor picked up this report and scanned it. The report carefully narrated one of Li Yu’s proposals.
In the past, other than the bandit issue, the West Frontier was bothered with another disaster that made the Emperor worry. Several towns in the West Frontier had been plagued with locusts for at least one, if not two years.
The West Frontier was chaotic from war all year round, with sparse farmlands. If they encountered locusts again, the civilians would suffer famine again and be forced to be displaced from their homes.
Plus, the Emperor was worried that the locust swarms would grow bigger and bigger. At first the locusts only appeared at the West Frontier. Recently, they’ve been starting to cause trouble elsewhere as well.
The Emperor diverted plenty of money every year to control the locusts, but they’re never eradicated. Would the youth’s words be more useful than the professionals in charge of this at the Ministry of Works?
However, this was the youth that once helped Jing-wang defeat the bandits.
The Emperor was curious. Even though he knew that Jing-wang was paving the path for Li Yu here, he still couldn’t resist reading onward.
Maple’s Landing, Jing Estate.
The four fish babies that Li Yu birthed were one month old now. Under his and Jing-wang’s meticulous care, the fish babies’ bodies have all changed. Out of the originally pretty much transparent bodies, now three out of four fish babies have grown colorful scales belonging to that of a Koi.
Bao#1 was a completely gold colored, majestic looking fish. Bao#2 was a fish with gold scales with patches of silver; his coloring was exactly the opposite of Li Yu’s silver base with patches of gold. Bao#3 was the best looking. He was completely silvery-white. Looking from afar, his fish scales looked like exquisite pearls, shiny and dazzling.
The two colors, gold and silver, were tones that Li Yu had currently. At first, Li Yu didn’t see the fish babies with any gold or silver scales. So he thought they wouldn’t become Kois. Their fish dad himself only became a Koi from doing missions after all; he wasn’t born like this. Therefore, it shouldn’t have passed down to the little fish babies.
However, unexpectedly, after a month, the fish babies began to have their own colors. Looks like it wasn’t impossible to pass on the koi heritage. It was just that the fish babies were still too young.
Of the four young fishes, Bao#1, Bao#2, and Bao#3 all changed. Only Bao#4 remained the same again.
Li Yu couldn’t help but feel somewhat worried. Bao#4’s response was already a little slower than the other fish babies usually. Was growing his scales going to be the same?
Clearly all of them came from the same batch, why would there be such a difference?
The fish babies still didn’t know how to speak very well. They only knew the simplest phrases. Li Yu still couldn’t figure out what Bao#4 was thinking at all. Bao#1, Bao#2, and Bao#3 were all more and more Koi-like in appearance. After another half a month passed, the transparent Bao#4 finally changed.
Li Yu finally waited until this day had arrived.
However, the scales that Bao#4 wasn’t gold or silver like his older brothers. Instead it was grey-black. He became a normal little black fish, extremely similar to when Li Yu first transmigrated.
Same batch, but why such a huge difference?
Lately, Bao#4 also became aware of his difference. Unable to change into a little Koi like his older brothers, the little black fish was a bit depressed.
Li Yu saw this and immediately placed the little black fish on top of his head, bringing him to spin around in circles to make him happy.
“Regardless of whether you changed into a Koi or not, Bao#4, daddy still loves you!” Before when Li Yu heard these kinds of words a few times, he’d always got goosebumps. Now he can say them to his baby without even blinking an eye.
With fish dad’s comfort, Bao#4 became happy very quickly again.
Done playing around, Li Yu changed into his human form and placed the fish babies inside the crystal bottle to go see Jing-wang.
Jing-wang was currently handling official business. Li Yu would bring the fish babies to come visit the other daddy at work everyday. Even though everyone all lived in the same room at night, Li Yu still diligently cultivated the relationship between the fish babies and Jing-wang.
Upon seeing them, Jing-wang put down his brush. Discovering that Bao#4 had changed into a small black fish, Jing-wang was very delighted. Bao#4’s personality was a bit like Li Yu. Now that he had changed into the appearance of a small black fish, Jing-wang could see the shadow of Li Yu’s original appearance in Bao#4 and liked Bao#4 even more.
Li Yu placed the crystal bottle on the table, sat down, and accompanied Jing-wang to look at the reports for a while.
There were too many traditional words in the reports, and it was the old language; some words were also written rather illegibly. Li Yu struggled for a while but couldn’t read anything, so he started to fall asleep again.
Reading books has always made him drowsy, head nodding repeatedly, again and again. The fish babies inside the crystal bottle followed his movement, anxiously moving up and down.
…… too noisy.
Jing-wang glanced at the fish babies inside the crystal bottle and made a shush hand gesture. The fish babies all stopped moving obediently, plastering against the wall of the crystal bottle and looking with wide eyes.
Jing-wang took off his outer robe and covered the sleeping Li Yu. Then he wrapped Li Yu and himself up, creating a warm and comfortable place belonging only to the two of them.
Jing-wang gently pressed down on Li Yu and kissed his lips. The marriage request he wrote was already sent to the Emperor. Everything was going according to plan. He still needed to wait patiently.
Seeing his fathers’ outer coat shake for a while, Bao#1 turned around. Although Bao#2 and Bao#3 didn’t understand why, they also copied Bao#1 and turned around.
Bao#4 knew he was a bit dumb; Bao#1 must be correct. Therefore, although Bao#4 was a beat slower, he also followed Bao#1 and turned around.
However, Bao#4 still remained slightly twisted, looking curiously at his fathers.
Because Li Yu couldn’t recognize much of the words, he became drowsy. After sleeping a while, he woke up and was more clear headed. He suddenly remembered what some of those words were.
It was the word ‘locusts’, as well as the word ‘disaster’.
— Locust plague.
Li Yu jolted: “Your highness, is there a locust plague somewhere?”
This was an extremely serious insect pest! Locusts ate a lot of vegetation. There’s a phrase called Locusts Migration, which describes this scene. A swarm of locusts flying by, the farm crop that the common people toiled over for an entire year gone in an instant.
Jing-wang told Li Yu that some towns near the West Frontier have discovered locusts lately.
Li Yu’s expression changed subtly.
Jing-wang mistakenly thought he was scared and showed Li Yu the entire map of the West Frontier, pointing out the position of Maple’s Landing.
Maple’s Landing was still very far from the towns encountering locust plagues. They were definitely safe.
Don’t be scared.
Jing-wang consoled Li Yu. With him here, he will definitely protect Li Yu and the fish babies.
“No, your highness. I’m not afraid. I want to help the commoners and try to stop this locust plague.” Li Yu suddenly raised his head and said.
Translator’s notes:
Thank You for the chapter ( ꈍᴗꈍ) ❤️
thanks for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter ❤️
The children are so cute omg
yessssss !! use your modern knowledge!!! hahaha!!
aww the babie QAQ!!! they’re just so cute!! their cutness will make my heart explode!!
don’t worry baby 4, me and you are one of the same T^T! and don’t worry, your are pretty as you are but one day you’ll turn beautiful like your brothers, okie?
baby 1 please look after all of your brothers!!
do you think they got to choose their own colours? the system just showing them a screen full of colours when it thought they were ready?
if something happens to bao #4 im gonna stab god in the face
same i would protact him with my life
so cute!