Chapter 69 The Third Deadly Intent "We must kill Anne in Belle..."
Time seemed to accelerate for Enlin, and in this life, Eleanor held nothing back.
She extended an olive branch to every talented person worthy of her recruitment, even if they were still young and even if it would attract attention.
Eva did not intervene, because Eleanor was busy with her own affairs during her first year, and had the medical team set off directly to the capital to provide the king with comprehensive medical care.
Mother, they will continue their research by your side. I would stake my life on it; they are the group of people in the world most likely to develop a cure.
In the first year, the little princess's guarantee was weak and ineffective.
She seemed to have simply managed to gather a group of people together to play around with her.
No one knows how they met, no one knows why the little princess made such strange promises to win them over, and no one knows why they all agreed.
The princess remained silent, focusing solely on infrastructure construction.
She opened a brick factory to fire large quantities of bricks, using the square bricks to build new houses.
Besides factories, she also built many strange and unusual facilities, among which mills and blast furnaces were the easiest to understand and were quickly promoted to the surrounding city-states.
The young princess had so many things to do that even the spies couldn't keep up with her pace.
The subjects being observed are doing strange things every day, so which one should they report first?
In this era, delivering messages was time-consuming and laborious, and their masters did not build special post stations like princesses.
The spies didn't want to get hurt on the way, so they simply continued to accumulate long letters at the same pace as before, sending large rolls of parchment without caring whether they would be intercepted: after all, Her Highness the Princess had never hidden what she wanted to do.
They sensed a fast-paced rhythm in the princess's actions, but couldn't quite articulate what that rhythm meant.
Her Highness seemed to simply strike here and there, and then one building after another, one miracle after another, sprang up from the ground.
Wasting manpower and resources? Of course it is.
In the eyes of many city lords and their strategists who were gathering information, the princess's behavior was truly extravagant and wasteful.
She did not hold banquets, but instead set up literacy classes for commoners and slaves.
Instead of purchasing jewelry, she recruited a large number of craftsmen to forge high-quality farm tools and improve existing ones, which she then rented or sold at low prices.
Instead of building magnificent palaces, she fired countless bricks and constructed workshops of dubious function everywhere.
At first, there were even rumors of tax cuts in Enlin, which made them nervous for a long time, fearing that an order would cause everyone to rush to Enlin.
Later, they learned that Her Highness the Princess had not reduced taxes, and they only breathed a sigh of relief after she had thoroughly raised the taxes.
Of course, some spies also indicated in the bamboo slips they passed that Her Highness the Princess strictly forbade tax collectors from demanding fire tax for any reason, and that a small portion would be allowed during tax settlement, for which she would personally pay bonuses to these people.
Her Highness also distributed simple tools free of charge to those who participated in the labor service, and these tools were not taken back after the labor service was completed.
Even draft cattle can be rented by each affiliated village or designated unit in the name of the collective through loans, and the fees are not high.
Because Eleanor introduced a large number of oxen and new farm tools, farming efficiency improved dramatically. She provided the laborers with two good meals a day, making them highly sought-after laborers in subsequent years.
The bamboo slips from the first year were full of satire. Everyone thought the princess would soon go bankrupt, that her mouths would eat her out of house and home, and that the commoners' praise was worthless!
By the time the second year of planting arrived, many of these comments had disappeared, and people began to question the princess's new farming methods and her ways of making money.
By the second harvest season, no one questioned it anymore; the abundant harvest silenced all dissent.
Even the spies' bamboo slips were replaced with a type of paper that was of higher quality than papyrus, which was lightweight, flexible, and easy to carry.
Two years later, the first batch of students had indeed learned to read through the classes, and Her Highness began to issue interest-free loans to honest commoners.
It's hard to say what caused the city lords to feel such a great sense of crisis that they stopped paying attention to the talents the princess recruited each year and her endless new creations, and instead began to slander the king.
But it was no use. When Eva was determined to save someone, others could only feel a deep sense of powerlessness.
At the beginning of the third year, the Marigold Chamber of Commerce, which had been dormant for three years, swelled into a behemoth in everyone's eyes.
Many scattered merchants suddenly raised their flags, making various explicit and implicit statements that they belonged to the Marigold Merchant Guild.
Since hiding under the princess's wing doesn't require any extra financial loss, they can easily make more money by trading the princess's trendy creations. They only feel the pinch when paying membership fees and post station fees.
The wealthy merchants and nouveau riche, like veins, eventually converged into a formidable river.
The city lords were jolted awake from their dream of making money.
It's really not their fault. How many years has it been?! Now it's clearly an era where one skill can sustain a person for a lifetime and then take their apprentice for the rest of their life!
They initially thought the Marigold Merchant Guild was a tool the princess used to lull or please them, but they never expected it to turn out this way.
They were terrified, but no one could bear to part with the enormous benefits brought by the new spinning machines, brewing techniques, bricks, mills, and farm implements.
The creations, big and small, come together to be more than just small money-making gadgets; they are like a divine touch from the god of prosperity, a great miracle of forging gold coins!
Things have gotten out of control.
Since His Majesty is pretending not to see this, then don't blame them for sending more assassins, driving away more refugees and thieves for the princess!
They waited for Eleanor to send someone to apologize and offer them more concessions. But Eleanor remained silent and released Andra.
At first, the city lords laughed loudly, claiming that Her Highness had raised a good hunting dog, letting the little wild dog run all over the mountains and fields.
In less than six months, they were cursing through gritted teeth, "May the filthy Hetuya people with their brainless slaves die in the mountains!"
It turns out that Andra's fists and swords are simpler and easier to understand than Eleanor's gold coins and wisdom.
When she patrolled the surrounding territories under the princess's banner and took care of a few "smuggling teams" along the way, the lively city lords learned to shut up.
By the end of the fourth year, no city lord dared to close their gates when Andra came to "diplomatically" visit.
They would open the city gates and sweep the streets clean, then respectfully invite her to sit in the seat of honor, sending off the plague goddess amidst flattery and various concessions.
One winter day in the fifth year, the little princess sat in front of the fireplace holding a letter.
The letter came from the capital; scholars had made new progress in drug research, slowing down the rate of Eva's physical deterioration.
However, they were much more honest in front of the princess than in front of the king, expressing themselves very frankly.
[Your Highness, if you wish to develop the medicine before the King's death, you can only hope that the gods will cause a miraculous medicine to grow from the ground, one that will cure all ailments with a single dose.]
The king was terminally ill, and they lacked the time.
In the lower right corner of the letter, a small "8" was written in the pattern using a pre-arranged symbol.
The number 8 represents eight years. Doctors believe Eva can live for another eight years, which is about five years longer than originally thought.
Eleanor frowned. This little bit of time wouldn't be enough to buy time until the Froststorm began. It seemed she couldn't rely on Eva to deal with Attila.
Fortunately, in this life she never intended for Eva or even Andra to deal with Attila.
However, if the Great Cold had occurred at the end of Eva's reign, perhaps she could have actually managed to succeed to the throne as a princess through some miraculous maneuvering...
"Eleanor~" Someone pushed open the door.
The announcement of "His Highness Andra has arrived" came almost simultaneously with the long legs that strode in.
Eleanor turned to look.
The boy has shed his last trace of immaturity and is moving towards a mature young adult, with only a hint of childishness remaining in his eyes.
She stared blankly into Andra's eyes: this childlike quality had remained in her first life, but it had quickly disappeared in her second.
Is it because of me... or is it because of love?
"What's wrong?" Andra blinked innocently and cupped Eleanor's face in her hands.
"It's nothing." Eleanor's confused look vanished in an instant, replaced by renewed energy. She wrapped her arms around her lover's neck, nestling against him like a little bird.
Andra kissed the girl's forehead.
In her eyes, Eleanor exuded the sweet fragrance of ripening fruit, a fragrance that was refreshing and delightful.
Her lips slid from her forehead to her ear, only to be gently pushed away by the shy princess.
"Alright, come and see the new jewelry I made for you~" Eleanor straightened her collar and shook a bell. Heidi and a slave servant slowly walked into the study carrying a large gift box.
They opened the box, and a dazzling golden light shone from the stove.
A complete set of gold jewelry lay quietly inside, consisting of armbands, necklaces, belts, leg rings, and anklets. Each clasp was securely fastened together, forming a massive array of pure gold.
"Do you like it?" Eleanor looked at Andra happily, her eyes sparkling.
Well.....
Andra pressed her lips together in exasperation. To this day, she still couldn't understand why Her Highness would like such thick and clumsy gold jewelry.
She loves gold, but the thought of having to wear it all day makes her anything but happy.
Andra sighed deliberately, but didn't find anything suspicious.
After all, Her Highness had shown a fondness for bulky gold jewelry when she first went shopping several years ago; it was just that she took it to heart when she came to Enlin.
Eleanor must have known that gold was heavy and uncomfortable to wear. That's why she never wore it herself, but preferred to hang it on her lover like a doll.
"Sigh~" Andra resignedly opened her arms, letting Eleanor hang the gold up. Anyway, it would only be hanging for a day before it could be taken down and put away.
"Alright, alright." Seeing her lover's expression, the little princess smiled gently and said, "If you really don't like it... we can melt it down after we get married, and you can do whatever you want with it."
*Crack*, the latches are stuck together.
Andra shuddered; this was the first time Eleanor had explicitly mentioned marriage.
A radiant light shone on her face, and she happily hooked her right hand around the little princess's finger. "Okay, you said it yourself. I'll melt down the gold into a chain, you know?"
"Sure. But you'll have to put it on yourself."
The two started playfully wrestling, looking just like two long-haired kittens intertwining their tails.
After playing softly for a while, Eleanor was the first to stop. She nestled on Andra's lap and said sweetly, "Let's go travel to other countries next spring, shall we?"
"Are you going to Belae?" Andra asked, idly playing with her lover's long hair.
"Yes, I heard that summers there are beautiful."
The little princess's eyes were full of anticipation, and Andra readily agreed: "Okay, we'll select some elite troops to go with them."
"Hmm, it's fine to let Myrcella temporarily take over the hunting team~"
The princess smiled, but Andra could no longer smile.
She hissed for a while before finally saying, "Why don't you let Manzhu stay?"
To be fair, Myrcella isn't all that bad. At least under her loving beatings, this third princess can now be considered to have decent swordsmanship.
As for her leadership abilities... when Mysera, as the princess of Norlana, leads the Norlana army, she definitely has a morale boost.
Among the talents Eleanor recruited were many generals. With their dedicated assistance, even a pig on a horse wouldn't rot too much.
However, the long training not only instilled in Myrcella an instinctive fear of Andra, but also made Andra feel weak all over whenever he saw Myrcella, as if something bad was about to happen again.
Unfortunately, blood ties may be a deep curse. Eleanor, who is usually good at judging people, blinked and said calmly, "Well, we have to give Myrcella a chance to prove herself."
Andra gritted his teeth and thought carefully: Anyway, all the thieves in the vicinity have been killed, so those city lords shouldn't make any rash moves in the short term.
As for traveling around the world... life on the road is not as wonderful as imagined. The delicate princess will probably only last about half a year.
She nodded and cautiously said, "Okay."
"Haha~ Don't worry." Eleanor chuckled, her eyes showing no trace of gloom.
......
Half an hour later, Princess Andra saw off the jingling and clanging, and continued to while away the time by the fireplace with a book in her hand.
After an unknown amount of time, Manzhu, Jingji, and Shanhu arrived one after another and quietly sat down on the chair next to her.
The more people there are, the heavier the atmosphere becomes.
They couldn't help but look at each other's faces, and when they found that all three of them were present, they knew that the matter being discussed was definitely not ordinary.
What exactly is it that requires the three of them to work together, and why does Her Highness need to gather them in the study many days in advance with different reasons?
It's definitely not just because of "traveling abroad".
"Alright, time's up."
Eleanor didn't keep everyone in suspense. She closed her book, leaned down, and whispered in everyone's ears, "We're going to kill Andra in Baley."
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