RWNEFE -Chapter 446 The Yue Kingdom’s Arrogance and Their Unreasonable Demands!

All day long, Zhou Ruyuan argued with the Yue Kingdom’s envoys. His throat felt scorched and his lips were nearly worn raw from talking.

He had no mood to return home at all. When the Yue envoys went to dinner, he dragged his exhausted body to eat a few bites at random and then rested at the relay station.

News from the palace was strictly sealed off, so the people of the Zhen’nan Prince’s residence naturally did not know that Shen Lanxi had spent the entire day in the imperial palace. They only assumed Zhou Ruyuan had once again spent the whole day with her and was enjoying himself so much that he did not even bother to send a message back to the residence.

Bai Qingling and Shen Yuantang were burning with jealousy, and several of the concubines also harbored deep resentment toward Shen Lanxi.

Before dawn the next day, Shen Yuantang could no longer sit still and hurriedly ordered a sedan chair to be prepared, heading straight for the Duke Protector’s residence.

Emperor Renxiao had been unconscious for an entire day and night. At dawn, he finally opened his eyes weakly.

“Uncle, you’ve finally awakened!”

The first thing he heard was Shen Lanxi’s voice, followed by her calling the palace attendants to come and serve him.

Had he fainted again?

“Your Majesty, you’re finally awake. If you hadn’t woken up, this old servant would have been worried to death!” Wang Bao wiped away tears in excitement.

The emperor felt thirsty. After being helped up by the attendants, he drank a few sips of water.

“Lanxi, no one outside knows, right?” His physical condition absolutely could not be known by the court officials or the harem.

Shen Lanxi replied, “Uncle, I took the liberty of telling the officials that you had gone to the ancestral temple to offer incense.”

Emperor Renxiao felt relieved. He was still in his prime; with some recuperation, his health would recover.

“You handled it very well.”

Looking at Shen Lanxi in her official robes, he felt deeply moved. Even his own children had never attended to him with such care. She had noticed the moment he awoke, which clearly meant she had stayed up all night taking care of him.

“Lanxi, I’m much better now. Go back and rest at once. Come see me again after you’ve recovered.”

Shen Lanxi withdrew as instructed.

After she left, the emperor spoke quietly:

“Wang Bao, summon Mr. Song.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Before noon, Shen Lanxi received word that Emperor Renxiao had asked Song Daoxi to use medicinal materials from the imperial stores to refine pills for him.

Clearly, her uncle had not put the Ghost Valley heir to proper use.

…

“Uncle, I have already ordered the arrest of all those suspected of spreading rumors, and all the papers containing rebellious statements have been burned,” Shen Lanxi reported respectfully.

The emperor had already sent people to handle the matter as well, but Shen Lanxi had resolved it ahead of him, which pleased him greatly.

Lanxi truly anticipated his thoughts and addressed his concerns.

No wonder he had allowed her, a woman, to enter the court.

“Such rumors must be connected to the people of those two rebels!”

Shen Lanxi deliberately asked in puzzlement, “They should have come to apologize to you, Uncle. Why haven’t they?”

Emperor Renxiao said darkly, “They no longer take me seriously.”

Shen Lanxi replied, “Uncle, I was worried that if something happened to them now, public opinion might turn against you, so I did not take action.”

The emperor had already heard this from Wang Bao.

“You did the right thing. Although they speak nonsense, we must still be wary of public opinion.”

Shen Lanxi nodded. “I understand. Uncle is nothing like what they claim. They have wronged you terribly.”

Then she added, as if unable to restrain herself, “Uncle, why not send troops to attack them?”

The emperor sighed. “Although their intentions deserve death, now is not the right time to deal with them—especially with the matter of the Yue Kingdom.”

Then he asked, “By the way, has the Yue Kingdom matter been resolved?”

Shen Lanxi paused, then answered, “I have been in the palace guarding Uncle, and afterward rested for a while. I haven’t had time to go to the relay station yet.” She put on a slightly guilty expression.

“It’s not your fault,” the emperor said. “You don’t have three heads and six arms; you can’t handle everything perfectly.”

Shen Lanxi replied, “Prince Zhen’nan is handling it. I believe he will manage it well.”

The emperor, however, had already heard about the situation at the relay station from Wang Bao, and his face creased in displeasure.

“He disappoints me more and more. He can’t even handle such a small matter.”

Shen Lanxi deliberately spoke in Zhou Ruyuan’s defense. “Perhaps Prince Zhen’nan is not skilled at handling such trivial affairs. His talents may be better suited to the battlefield.”

The emperor subconsciously recalled the successive defeats in Dongchuan and the northwest, then thought of the foolish things Zhou Ruyuan had done for Bai Qingling. His expression darkened further.

“You need not speak for him. I know very well what he has done.”

Shen Lanxi fell silent.

“The Yue Kingdom matter—I will leave it entirely to you to handle,” Emperor Renxiao said, weary, delegating authority.

“Uncle, this is a major matter. I fear I may not handle it well.”

“It’s fine. I will support you in everything.”

A gleam flashed in Shen Lanxi’s eyes as she accepted the order. “Yes.”

At the relay station, Zhou Ruyuan awoke already overwhelmed.

The Yue envoys kept insisting on the fact that the incident had occurred on Great Zhou territory, seizing every gap in his words to shift all responsibility onto Great Zhou.

Fortunately, Jiang Wuya was present and would step in whenever there was a verbal opening.

For the first time, Zhou Ruyuan experienced how difficult verbal disputes among civil officials could be. Every sentence seemed to contain a trap, leaving him exhausted in responding.

So when he saw Shen Lanxi arrive, the thought of seeing a savior flashed briefly through his mind.

He immediately suppressed it.

How could he be inferior to Shen Lanxi?

How could he be inferior to a woman?

“Lord Shen, has something happened in the palace?” Zhou Ruyuan had already received some intelligence, though he did not know about the emperor’s fainting.

Shen Lanxi replied vaguely, “Something did occur. His Majesty was furious and has been busy dealing with it. Many people have been arrested.”

Zhou Ruyuan nodded; this matched the information he had received.

“Now that things are settled, I’ve come to see whether the matter of the Yue envoys has been resolved.”

Zhou Ruyuan shook his head. “They are extremely difficult. They are deliberately trying to use grain supplies to pressure us.”

“They want to force the price down?” Shen Lanxi asked.

“That should be their intention,” Zhou Ruyuan said wearily. It was Mr. Jiang who had seen through it; otherwise, in the back-and-forth of words—no less fierce than blades flashing on a battlefield—he truly could not distinguish what was real and what was feigned.

“What if we take a harder stance?” Shen Lanxi suggested.

Zhou Ruyuan gave a bitter smile. “What about the grain supplies for the hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the frontier next year? You’ve been on the battlefield—you understand the consequences of having no provisions.”

Shen Lanxi raised an eyebrow at him. She had never realized before that this man could be so indecisive, so weak.

When she arrived, the Yue envoys were still arguing loudly with the officials from the Ministry of Rites.

Because their weakness lay in the issue of grain, the Ministry officials did not dare respond too forcefully, which only further fueled the Yue envoys’ arrogance.

“You Great Zhou must compensate us for all the losses from this mission. The one who died was the Third Prince of our Yue Kingdom. We will send a letter back to Yue; the specific compensation will depend on our emperor’s reply.”

“You have caused our emperor to lose his beloved son. Whether grain will be supplied next year, and at what price, must also wait for our emperor’s decision!”

“You Great Zhou must also send an envoy to personally escort our Third Prince’s coffin back to Yue!”

“And the Emperor of Great Zhou must, at the birthday banquet, before all the gathered envoys, admit fault and publicly apologize to our Yue Kingdom!”