… … …

Qu Feiqing was in a sour mood on one particular day.

A group of influential people in the top of the imperial court protested that she must at least accept a male concubine to continue the royal bloodline1.

Curdled anger pounded on her head and the desire to hit these people right on their spots was a very inviting thought at the moment.

Imbecile fools, she thought. They didn"t understand the gravity of what they were asking for.

If it was those male concubine who would become pregnant, then she might have given it a second thought. But expecting her to be touched by a male then later on suffer being crippled for months by the protruding womb of his offspring?

Utterly inconceivable.

Putting aside her hatred of men touching her, it couldn"t be denied that she would be physically weak if she ever really carried a child, leaving her vulnerable to threat and danger for the next months.

With her one foot already deep in mud from all the frequent a.s.sa.s.sinations, it would be too easy for her enemies to kill her by then.

Qu Feiqing didn"t need a child to rule the Qu Liu country, contrary to what these fools would believe. These people were also just one of the inconveniences in her way while ruling the throne.

Taking the t.i.tle of the emperor was for the sole reason of giving a profound lesson to those who berated and oppressed her and her imperial concubine mother. And to achieve her own ambition of dominating the future, nothing more.

However, as an emperor, she was expected to produce an heir one way or another. This world still wanted that the person who would sit on the dragon throne to bear the surname Qu.

Those who are loyal to her hoped that she would produce heirs for the reason of having someone who will inherit the country in legacy of her, and those who wished her demise also hoped that she beget a child so that they could bring her down.

However, she found a remedy to this by bringing up her younger brother"s child, Qu Xingchen, as the next in line for succession.

Still, those people really didn"t know shame. They have been promoting their own sons to Qu Feiqing as if it was a compet.i.tion on whoever sells first. They would persuade her at every chance they got, flaunting their son"s achievements.

What made it even more ridiculous was the internal strife between both parties. They were blindly ignorant to the fact that Qu Feiqing would never give them the chance to sit on the throne. Dream on.

They liked to act as if Qu Feiqing was naive in this subject and that what they were doing were acts of counsel.

But Qu Feiqing knew better—people will always have something to say on the matter regardless if she agrees or not.

People would say concubines bring romance, yet for Qu Feiqing who doesn"t easily fall prey to feelings such as love, it was just like buying a prost.i.tute and dressing it up in a n.o.ble status to hide the filth.

These male concubines don"t produce money for her, instead she has to be the one to spend for them. Thinking about that made her face scrunch up.

When she imagines how ent.i.tled these people could be, all she could feel was to be thoroughly disgusted.

Hundreds of years has pa.s.sed and there is still an ongoing oppression of feminist ideas. Even as emperor, Qu Feiqing is powerless to change it.

Her being emperor is already considered an eccentricity, the subject of much debate.

Yet they could not deny that she is the most dazzling existence among the four kingdoms.

The squabble has finally ended and Qu Feiqing retreated from the royal court in a bad mood.

She changed into her less extravagant clothes to spend the rest of her day inside the royal study and lose herself in numbers and parchments, as what her schedule dictates. But when she looked at the mountain of court memos in her study, she felt even worse.

For a change of heart, she decided to leave for a breath of fresh air, and so, she sauntered her way out to the royal garden.

As she reached the royal garden, she heard a burst of laughter.

In the pavilion surrounded by flowers, two people sat close to each other, almost snuggling. As if they were best friends.

One person"s face was masked with sheer silk and laughing her heart out, whereas the other one was very familiar person.

Su Xin was sitting with a wooden face.

In her heart, she doubted the sanity of the princess at her side who would literally laugh at everything she said.

She was just taking a stroll when she came upon another person of the royal family. They got along fine until Su Xin soon discovered that this princess was actually a bit off in the head.

Quite an outrageous situation.

Su Xin"s cheeks were already hurting from the effort of keeping a forced smile, when she heard an unexpected voice.

“My younger sister must be so happy that I could even hear your laughter from outside the imperial garden.”

Qu Feiyun heard Qu Feiqing"s soft, distinct voice. Like a mouse seeing a cat, she immediately stood up and saluted.

"Greetings emperor sister! The emperor
lives ten thousand years!"