"Your Majesty, Princess Fu'an requests an audience."
Once she became a princess, she no longer had to wait for the emperor's summons to enter the palace.
If there's anything to discuss, simply send a visiting card. If the emperor agrees, he'll naturally send someone to pick you up. Or you can come directly; after all, the emperor spends all his time in the imperial study reviewing memorials.
On the rosewood desk, Jiang Mingyun paused for a moment as he read the memorials.
"What is she doing here?" he asked, his voice full of doubt. Then he added, "Never mind, let her in."
In just a few days since she last saw the emperor, Xu Nian noticed that the bloodshot eyes were much more pronounced than usual, and his eyes were dark and swollen. It was clear that he hadn't had a good night's sleep for several days.
"Greetings, Your Majesty."
"Rise, Fu'an. Why aren't you managing your little home in your general's mansion? What are you doing here?"
Xu Nian smiled slightly, "We must take care of our own families, but we can't abandon our families either." She flicked her hand, revealing the memorial hidden in her sleeve.
She handed it to Eunuch Wang with both hands, asking him to take it up, saying, "The matter of the Fourth Prince has already caused quite a stir in the city. I dared to ask for your permission, as I had nothing to do at home, so I cast a divination."
The birth chart was obtained from Anqing, and it was just a rough calculation.
She then realized that Fukang's marriage to the Fourth Prince was truly a marriage that had to be called off.
Princess Fukang, destined by fate, is a reincarnation of the Phoenix Queen. Half her life has been one of wealth and honor, the other half of high rank and power. Such a person cannot be controlled by the idle Fourth Prince.
"It is ordained by Heaven that Princess Fukang and the Fourth Prince are not destined to be husband and wife. If they are forced into marriage, they may incur divine retribution. At best, they will grow to loathe each other and spend a hundred years as a resentful couple. At worst, it will cause turmoil in the court and the country..."
Snap!
Before he could finish speaking, the memorial was slammed onto the desk.
The force was so great that the cups and saucers on it trembled twice. Jiang Mingyun snorted heavily, "If the two of them cannot be together, do you really want my son to marry a woman from the martial world? Fu'an, do you know that this marriage was arranged by the Princess? If the engagement is broken off, how will I face her after my death?"
The eldest princess, the emperor's own elder sister.
The emperor was still very young when he was young, and the mother of the two siblings had passed away early. In the palace, where everyone could trample on the powerful and oppress the weak, it was the eldest princess who protected the emperor with her frail body.
Before leaving, he thought of his daughter's future.
The eldest princess, who had never asked anyone for anything in her life, had tears welling up in her eyes for the first time, clutching the emperor's robes tightly. Only after he promised to give his daughter a good marriage within the royal family did she close her eyes.
Xu Nian knew the emperor's feelings for her, so she didn't come rashly. "Your Majesty, please calm down. A woman from the Jianghu is naturally not suitable for marriage. In my opinion, that woman may not even really like the inner palace. We should start with her."
"However, this matter has already spread among the people. Princess Yu Fukang's reputation is ultimately not good." Her tone was gentle, giving people a sense of calm. "As far as I know, back then, the Eldest Princess only asked His Majesty to agree to a royal marriage, without specifying who it was. There are so many good men in the royal family, it doesn't necessarily have to be the Fourth Prince."
What she really wanted to say was that the eldest princess wanted her daughter to be happy even more.
But saying this would be seen as a slap in the face to the royal family, so he kept it to himself.
At that time, the fourth prince, who had been kneeling outside the palace for a day and a night, finally collapsed to the ground. The palace servants hurriedly carried him to a side hall.
I woke up to find the candlelight flickering outside.
The woman in the close-fitting clothes, with a cold expression, sat beside him. Jiang Yuanmo smiled, "You didn't leave. Don't worry, I will definitely get Father Emperor's approval for our marriage."
The woman didn't speak, she just looked at him quietly.
Having witnessed and felt the strict rules of the palace over the past two days, she wondered if it was just Jiang Yuanmo's imagination, illuminated by the candlelight.
He always felt that his beloved's eyes were slightly flickering, not as firm as when she had come before.
A pair of hands covered his eyes, their calloused texture making him frown involuntarily. "Go to sleep. We can talk about it tomorrow."
The palace was brightly lit. Xu Nian stood in front of the emperor and saw that his expression had softened.
Determined to press on, she dropped a bombshell: "The Second Prince is now twenty-six years old. Although he is frail and sickly, he is upright and gentle, and has no concubines or maids in his household. His temperament is most suitable for Princess Fukang."
"Does Fu'an mean to change the engagement?" The Emperor was tempted; after all, he was his son, even though he didn't like Consort Xian. But the Second Prince had recently come to his liking.
He had been ill for a long time and neglected other things.
Now we really need to think this over, but it's just about marrying Fukang to him...
“Actually, the Fifth Prince is also acceptable, but I have heard that he has already been enfeoffed as the Prince of Anyang, and I do not know when he will return to his fiefdom. This is far from the capital and does not align with the last wishes of the Eldest Princess.”
In the emperor's heart, the fifth prince's status was probably not as high as that of the second prince.
Xu Nian deliberately brought it up, comparing the two, and the difference in their merits was immediately apparent. "The engagement didn't need to be changed, after all, Princess Fukang's original husband was the Second Prince. It's just that everyone misunderstood and thought the Fourth Prince was more suitable."
Her quiet remark made the eyes of the other two people present light up.
That's right! He didn't let go of the imperial decree of marriage. The reason he tacitly agreed to marry the Fourth Prince was because he was the Empress's son. His status was more noble, making him worthy of Fukang.
But there was no clear way to proceed; they simply issued an imperial edict stating that the marriage was with the Second Prince.
Then put on another show in front of that woman, forcing her to flee the palace. Wouldn't that naturally preserve the royal family's dignity?
"Your Majesty, this old servant will have someone make arrangements tomorrow," said Eunuch Wang, observing Jiang Mingyun's softening expression.
The emperor nodded, the worry and melancholy between his brows dissipating in that instant. He was about to praise Xu Nian when a young eunuch outside announced, "Your Majesty, General Gu has arrived."
Looking at the sky outside, no one would think that Gu Zhan had come so late to discuss state affairs.
The emperor smiled knowingly, “This Minister Gu is finally showing the demeanor of a husband. Before, I thought he was only interested in leading troops into battle because he didn’t seem to care about women.”
She waved them away, and on the way back, the smile on Xu Nian's lips never faded.
[The host is so happy! How's it like being a matchmaker?]
I truly never expected that the Second Prince and Princess Fukang would actually fall for each other.
“The Second Prince may not necessarily really like Princess Fukang.” Looking at his wife’s happy expression, Gu Zhan sighed. “He may also feel that it doesn’t matter who he marries.”
Xu Nian froze. "But he clearly agreed... Ah." The scene of their conversation at noon earlier that day flashed uncontrollably through her mind.
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