Chapter 333 - Petty Urges (2/2)

{...Is it truly nothing?... Why am I feeling so worked over nothing then?...}

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It was very late at night when the Emperor finally returned to their palace. He had spent a long time thinking about how to best proceed with everything. He had a long meeting with the ministers about the revelation of the day, which yielded little. And after that, he had just hung around in the royal study thinking alone for a long time.

The head physician gave a dubious verdict on Princess Nalan's pregnancy. Apparently, according to Princess Nalan's own admission, the encounter only happened about two weeks ago. Therefore, he announced that it was too early to be certain, all he could say was that it was possible that she was pregnant. This news naturally made the Emperor angrier as it made it clearer that Prince Yi's sole intent by making that announcement was to manipulate the situation.

Regardless of her pregnancy status, Princess Nalan's reputation was now ruined thanks to that announcement. To avoid her becoming an object of ridicule, the natural and most ”reasonable” solution was for them to get married...as they wished. Still, doing this left a bad taste in everybody's mouth given Prince Yi's calculative manner.

Therefore, neither the Emperor nor his advisors were keen on the idea of simply obliging. But some other peaceful solution was fleeting. If the Emperor refused the marriage, then it would likely mean war with Zou kingdom which was not ideal, especially considering the fact that even the people of Long country were likely to condemn the Emperor's decision. After all, the average person may not understand why granting a marriage would ever be a problem.

In the end, the meeting devolved into an argument sparked by Prime minister Zhao's callous remark about how if the Emperor ever listened to him this would not have happened as he had long advised the Emperor to get rid of Prince Yi as his father would have wanted him to. An ambitious Prince should not be left alive to grow wings. Even though he was right, Defense minister Lei and did not like his insulting tone and told him to mind himself. Prime minister Zhao then basically accused him of being the Emperor's bootlicker because his daughter was the Empress. From there, the two and their supporters began talking over each other.

The Emperor had let them run on for a bit, too occupied with his own thoughts and irritation at the situation, his brother and himself to be bothered with their bickering. Eventually, he shut them up and sent them home so he could think peacefully on his own.

At this point, even if he wanted to, the Emperor could not ”deal” with Prince Yi the way Prime minister Zhao had been advising, killing him now would only create more problems right now. The main problem being what would happen to the possibly pregnant Princess with a ruined reputation. For now, the two problems will remain locked up in their respective ”homes” until he decided what to do with them. Of course, they had already sent out a message informing the Zou king of this new development as nicely as he could put it.

There was also Monk Du's request to consider and the Emperor has acknowledged that Eunuch Li was somewhat correct. But at the same time, he was concerned that the siblings who bore an obvious deep grudge might still come back to attack later if let free to roam.

But...then again, the Emperor also had to admit that he was probably being a bit too petty here. Now that he knew where their mysterious disappearing power had come from, he now understood why they had not simply used it to attack them in the palace. It was simply because they could not. According to Eunuch Li, Monk Du had also assured that they no longer had access to it and would be absolutely no trouble anymore.

If Monk Du was to be believed, the siblings were absolutely no longer a threat... And the Emperor had to admit to himself that he did believe it, he had believed it the moment he heard Monk Du had asked to see him.

The Emperor sighed as he lightly c.a.r.e.s.sed Lei Xing's cheek with the back of his fingers. He had come in to find her sleeping at her desk. It appeared she had been waiting up for him to return and had chosen to take a quick nap at her desk, a quick nap that had sent her into a deep sleep.

She must have been really tired too because she did not stir when the Emperor carefully took her in his arms and carried her over to the bed. Not even when he laid next to her and wrapped his arms around her, a bit too tightly.

Although the Emperor preferred to think that it was because she was too comfortable with his touch to bother to wake up. He let out another long sigh and gave her a light kiss on the lips, before resting his forehead on hers and closed his eyes to drift off to sleep.

Today he had discovered that he apparently had a stubborn petty side, one that he was not aware of. The Emperor frowned as the image of Lei Xing ”comfortably” being in Prince Yi's arms cropped up in his mind again. He opened his eyes and knit his eyebrows at Lei Xing's sleeping face as he stifled the renewed urge to go cut off Prince Yi's arms along with that mouth and tongue of his that dared him. He had not even been this angry when he was informed of that stupid kiss back then. Obviously, hearing about it and witnessing it first-hand were two very different things.

But the Zou Princess and her people would definitely not appreciate a husband with no hands or tongue… It was quite unfortunate and still very tempting.