Chapter 432 - 239: His Majesty the Emperor Has Betrothed Yue’Er to Me
Fortunately, the Emperor was no mediocre fool. Have you ever seen a founding emperor who was an idiot?
With capable ministers like Liu Ji to assist him, all the difficulties he currently faced could be resolved one by one.
Being the ruler of a nation was never easy. If a family of three can barely manage their daily necessities, the difficulty of governing a country was exponentially greater.
Emperor Gu Yuanzhang addressed the matters presented by his ministers one by one.
After about an hour, the various issues brought forth by the ministers had all received the Emperor’s decisions and instructions.
Just as the morning court session was about to end, Emperor Gu Yuanzhang spoke, "Today, aside from official matters, I have a private matter of the Royal Family to resolve. Lu Yuan!"
Hearing the Emperor suddenly call his name, Lu Yuan flinched. He then took two steps to his left, stepped forward, and clasped his hands, saying, "Your humble servant is here!"
"Come forward!" the Emperor said, beckoning with his hand.
Lu Yuan walked from the very back to the very front, bowing with clasped hands in a show of deep respect.
Lu Yuan could feel the eyes of everyone in the great hall focused on him.
The Emperor’s stern demeanor was gone. He leaned against the side of the Dragon Throne and looked at Lu Yuan amicably. "Yesterday, you won first place in the martial tournament. What reward should I bestow upon you?"
"Grand General of the Far North? Provincial Inspection Commissioner?" the Emperor asked tentatively.
All the ministers were astonished. They had never seen such a young man appointed to such a high office.
’If we give him a few more years, won’t he be shitting on our heads?’
’He just won a tournament. Why would His Majesty the Emperor grant him such a high position?’
Lu Yuan clasped his hands and said, "I will defer to His Majesty the Emperor’s arrangement."
Lu Yuan appeared calm and composed, but inwardly he was already grumbling, ’What happened to marrying your daughter to me? Are you trying to trick me? What’s so great about being an official anyway?’
Emperor Gu Yuanzhang laughed heartily and said, "Lu Yuan, I have decided! I will marry my daughter—the Thirteenth Princess—to you."
Before Lu Yuan could even thank him for this great honor,
someone shouted out, "Your Majesty, this must not happen!"
An official in a formal robe and cap stepped forward. It was the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, a Second Grade Official.
The Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites clasped his hands and continued, "Your Majesty, protocol must not be abandoned. We have heard that Lord Lu is already a married man. How can the Thirteenth Princess be married to Lord Lu as a concubine?"
Upon hearing this, the Emperor’s expression instantly turned cold, and he sat up straight.
The Minister of Rites looked at his subordinate and secretly wiped away his sweat. ’This idiot! How could he contradict His Majesty so bluntly in front of all the civil and martial officials? Where is the Royal Family supposed to put its face?’
The Minister of Rites felt despair at having such a subordinate. ’What’s the deal? You think you, a mere Vice Minister, know something that the Emperor’s Jinyi Guard doesn’t? Are they paid to do nothing?’
Lu Yuan stood at the head of the ministers, thinking to himself, ’Well now, old man, I don’t think I’ve ever offended you. Are you really this stupid, or did someone put you up to this?’
The Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites kept his head down, not daring to look at the Emperor, and awaited his response.
A deathly silence fell over the great hall, and a chilling aura filled the air.
"Drag him out and administer thirty strikes of the imperial punishment!" Emperor Gu Yuanzhang said without further explanation.
From outside the hall, two towering Imperial Guards entered. They immediately seized the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, one on each side, and began dragging him out.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty..."
A Second Grade Official, dragged out just like that.
The Emperor’s gaze swept over the assembled ministers, his powerful aura pressing down on them. He said, "What? You don’t want to be my Prince Consort?"
Once the Emperor had made up his mind, it was unlikely anything could change it.
Lu Yuan hurriedly said, "Thank you for your immense grace, Your Majesty!"
Seeing that there were no more objections, the Emperor’s tone softened considerably. He continued, "I will have someone find an auspicious date, and then I will marry my daughter to you. You must treat her well!"
To Lu Yuan, the Emperor’s words sounded like the plea of an old father before marrying off his daughter—not asking for anything from Lu Yuan, except that he treat his daughter well.
The reason the Emperor had ultimately chosen to marry his daughter to Lu Yuan was that he could no longer stand her constant pestering. Coupled with the fact that Lu Yuan had won the tournament, he could only give his daughter his blessing.
Lu Yuan said with a sincere expression, "Please rest assured, Your Majesty. I will definitely treat the Princess well."
The ministers’ attitudes toward Lu Yuan before the court session and after it were like night and day.
Many ministers sidled up to Lu Yuan to strike up a conversation, offering their congratulations.
Lu Yuan didn’t know any of them but had to respond to each one. They were all shrewd characters.
Only when you were truly powerful would others look up to you.
Conversely, if you were not powerful enough, others would hardly give you a second glance.
After leaving the Imperial Capital, Lu Yuan got into his carriage and said to his confidant, "Let’s go. Back to the Post House!"
"Yes, Young Master." The confidant turned the carriage around and headed out of the city.
Lu Yuan’s convoy once again passed the site of yesterday’s battle.
Lu Yuan glanced out the carriage window. A large patch of trees had been chopped down and lay strewn about haphazardly. Many common folk were gathering firewood, and a few crows circled in the sky...
The carriage Lu Yuan rode in was quite fast, and the scene outside flashed by in just a few seconds.
After Lu Yuan’s convoy was far in the distance,
the common folk who had been gathering firewood dropped their branches and assembled.
The peasants, who had just been shuffling about unsteadily, now stood tall with their chests out, resembling an honor guard awaiting inspection.
A middle-aged man in coarse cloth clothing emerged from behind a tree trunk by the main road, clutching his rear end. He said to the group, "Take these little thieves back to the Northern Town Patrol Department and interrogate them thoroughly."
"As you command!" the group, all dressed as commoners, replied in unison, clasping their hands.
The group then hauled the tightly bound thieves up from the ground one by one, shoving and kicking them. "Hurry the fuck up!"
The middle-aged man in coarse clothes followed at the very back, shuffling along gingerly. "HSSS HSSS HSSS~"
Outside the Post House, Lu Yuan had just stepped out of his carriage when he called out, "Wifey, I’m back!"
Hearing Lu Yuan’s voice, Su Liyan popped out from her mother’s room on the second floor of the Post House. Dressed in a cyan robe, she stood on the second-floor corridor, waving her hands back and forth and happily calling back, "Honey, I’m over here!"
Inside her room, Su Liyan’s mother was smiling and shaking her head. ’Ah, this daughter of mine. Her eyes are filled with nothing but my son-in-law. I won’t go out. I’ll let the young couple have some time together.’
The two showed no restraint at all, stunning the passersby in the first-floor hall.
The onlookers sat in the first-floor hall, gazing up at the bewitching beauty on the second floor. Several of them wiped drool from the corners of their mouths.
"What a sensual beauty! A real knockout!"
"I wonder who’s the lucky guy."
The onlookers weren’t wrong. Ever since Su Liyan took the Beauty Pill Lu Yuan had given her, her looks had been skyrocketing.
Su Liyan was already beautiful enough to outshine the moon and make flowers blush. Before, she was the beauty of the surrounding villages, but now she was one in ten thousand.
Her fair skin was especially flawless, so delicate it looked like it would break at a touch—an effect that couldn’t be achieved no matter how many injections of hyaluronic acid or skin-whitening treatments one got.
Su Liyan was just twenty years old, in the prime of her youth, the age when a flower is in full bloom. The effects of the Beauty Pill weren’t even at their most obvious on her.
The most dramatic results were on Lu Yuan’s mother-in-law. The thick calluses on her hands from years of farm work had long since fallen off, as if she had shed a layer of snakeskin. She looked much younger and possessed the air of a noble lady.
Su Liyan’s mother, who once looked a bit like a village woman, was now the very picture of a matriarch from a great family.
When the onlookers followed the voice and looked toward the entrance of the Post House, they saw Lu Yuan in his Official’s Robe. They all immediately lowered their heads and fell silent, no longer having the courage to peek at the beauty on the second floor.
Lu Yuan gathered his Official’s Robe with both hands and jogged up the stairs to the second floor, his steps making a THUMP THUMP THUMP sound.
Seeing that he had recovered well, Su Liyan was filled with joy. She rushed forward to meet him and threw herself into his arms, whispering sweetly in his ear, "Honey, you’re back."
Lu Yuan lifted Su Liyan, spun her around once on the second-floor corridor, and then gently set her back down.
Lu Yuan squeezed Su Liyan’s small hand and said, "You feel much lighter when I hold you. Have you lost weight?"
Su Liyan looked down and said coyly, "Honey, you left me all alone at the Zhao Mansion. How could I not lose weight?"
Lu Yuan took her hand and said, "You’ve really been wronged, wifey."
Su Liyan looked up and blinked. She asked, "Honey, what did the Emperor say today?"
Lu Yuan replied, "His Majesty the Emperor has betrothed Yue’Er to me!"