The Devil Snare Amry had made its camp fifty kilometres away from the Imperial Capital. No garrison could come within fifty kilometres of the Imperial Capital without His Majesty"s personal edict read by the Head Eunuch.This was an ironclad rule of the army.
A few days later, after accepting the edict, Unit Commander Ning Fu entered the city along with a few high-ranking and middle-ranking generals and was currently, standing outside The Heavenly Hall to await his turn to pay homage to the new ruler under the heavens.
Ning Fu could discern that most of the old wily foxes inside were waiting for the axe to fall on his head. However, he had a faint premonition that everything was about to turn on its head and when the dust settled, none knew which way the coin would land.
The other generals were worried over the question as to whether they would be able to keep their heads and body intact for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, inside The Heavenly Hall, Su Li sat and listened to all the ministers with a distracted mind. She would nod slightly if a question was sent in her direction. She was in a trance.
She recalled her conversation with the system a few days ago.
This time she didn"t receive the plotline from the system.
No, no.
That would have been too easy and how could the system allow it"s host to be at ease? Right?
Su Li understood less and less of what the system wanted her to achieve.
She was given to understand that the Late Emperor had killed all the mamas and eunuchs present at the time of her childbirth and hadn"t allowed anyone to come in close contact with her afterwards.
Ergo, she wasn"t in the danger of someone exposing her ident.i.ty. She just had to be careful not to slip that fact to anyone from here on out.
At least, that took care of her gender ident.i.ty problem which was quite a relief.
The problem was the later part of the conversation.
It was peculiar and unfathomable.
Su Li had begged and pleaded, "What is the original plotline? Send it to me."
System : [Host doesn"t need to know the original timeline of this world. The host should just concentrate on completing their task.]
She had been irked by that laissez-faire response until she had realised that the system had never said that she would be given the relevant original plotline in every world.
It had just been her own a.s.sumption.
Su Li had acknowledged her lapse in judgment and inquired about her task.
Atleast, she had a right to know that, didn"t she?
The indeterminate voice had requested - more like ordered - that she had to focus at both the primary and secondary tasks this time.
She was further informed that she would be told about the primary task at a later date but the secondary task was for her to determine appropriate guardians for a person called Zhou Shen.
The system had also given her the constraints for the secondary task :
No one could know that she was providing any kind of a.s.sistance to Zhou Shen.
Su Li felt her head throb thinking about it all, even now.
n.o.body could understand her pain.
No one could understand her plight.
She wasn"t being dramatic here, she really was in a quandary.
See, she had no clue about the original plot.
Furthermore, the only memories she received from the original soul of this body, were that of being ridiculed by the royals of the place where the original version had been taken to in her childhood, which wasn"t going to be of great help to Su Li.
Also, Su Li had no idea of what was the primary task she had to accomplish here.
To add a cherry to the cake, she had to be a certified baby sitter for a person she had no freaking clue about.
The insensitive system hadn"t given her any further information, which was enough cause for her to throw a fit.
Now, one would question that with so many unknowns, was there even something that she knew and she could answer with a clear conscious that she knew a few things.
However, the information she did have, wasn"t going to make the said person feel any better for her situation.
Why?
To answer that question, Su Li enumerates the information that was available to her :
She was impersonating a monarch with all the wrong physical bits required to take on the job.
Her mother, The Empress Dowager couldn"t wait to pimp her out to as many girls as she could hold wink in order to help her child spread their branches and leaves. Again, Su Li would like to stress and reiterate the point that she didn"t have the essential physicals bits for that.
Zhou Shen - she couldn"t randomly ask around about the said person when she didn"t even know where to begin.
Su Li felt that not only her head and heart but even her kidney and liver also ached from all this.
Back to the present, to compound on all these troubles, there was a so-called G.o.d of War Ning Fu waiting to meet her just outside the hall.
Sighing to herself, Su Li addressed the hall, "Let Unit Commander and the other generals come in."
"His Majesty summons the Unit Commander Ning and generals into the hall." A eunuch proclaimed in a loud voice.
The war heroes entered The Heavenly Hall and gave her the grand greeting of a subject to a sovereign.
A young man in his late teens was at the front of that group. He had deep charcoal black eyes which radiated a fierce, dominant aura, though he tried to curb it, some of it still leaked from the corner of his eyes.
This person was Ning Fu.
Su Li smiled pleasantly, gestured to the teenager and allowed them to get off the floor.
She really had to marvel at these ancient people. The floor was hard marble and all these people had knelt with such resounding thumps while giving her the three bows and nine kowtows.
Didn"t their knees feel any pain?
Maybe, they had something similar to knee pads to protect their knees?
Wouldn"t all these ancient people have arthritis in old age from all the knocking and wear and tear their knees received throughout their lives?
They knelt to their parents, the monarch and even knelt in punishment in some cases.
Su Li thanked her stars that her current ident.i.ty exempted her from that horror.
Meanwhile, Ning Fu was worried.
Why was the monarch looking at his lower half of the body with such a keen gaze?
Was His Majesty planning to punish him on some trumped-up charges?
Was his punishment to be beaten by staves on his calves?
Otherwise, what reason did the emperor have to stare at his legs?
Well, if it was so decreed, he would follow through with the punishment but wouldn"t place his trust in His Majesty henceforth.
Ning Fu had privately thought that since His Majesty had no doubt suffered greatly at the hands of those Northern barbarians, it would have instilled in him a sense of benevolence.
However, it seemed that he was like a thorn in His Majesty"s heart. After all, his reputation preceded him and the ruler wouldn"t be able to sleep peacefully with a person such as him residing in the Imperial Capital.
When his mind reached this line of thought, Ning Fu lowered his head in an even more reverent gesture. He"ll wait for His Majesty"s move patiently.
If he and his people weren"t threatened overtly or covertly, he didn"t have any problem with bowing his head and bending his knee to this exalted existence sitting on the throne.
On the other hand, if he even sensed a sliver of danger, he wouldn"t mind making the city flow red with blood. He would overturn heaven and earth to protect his people.
Ning Fu was pragmatic enough to realise that in such a situation, even if he allied with some other prince, it couldn"t guarantee his safety.
After all, how many people would keep a dog that had outlived its usefulness?
His best bet was the present monarch. He hoped both of them could co-exist peacefully.
Su Li felt that these military officials were living in such harsh conditions as it was - withering all kinds of weather and spilling their blood on the battlefield. Therefore, she didn"t want to make things difficult for them by enacting any petty court politics with them.
These people served the country with their flesh and blood in her name. She wouldn"t give them a single reason to think that she doubted their loyalty towards her.
In a feudalistic society, these military men were motivated by their loyalty towards whoever sat on the seat of power. She didn"t have any right to cast her suspicious eyes at them without reason and play at being their supreme ruler.
His Majesty didn"t put The Unit Commander on the spot and rewarded the war heroes generously.
The travel-worn generals knelt and gave their thanks, their eyes filled with undisguised happiness.
Meanwhile, the court officials were once again puzzled.
His Majesty had looked at Ning Fu with furrowed brows for a stretch of time and hadn"t praised The Unit Commander for his victory. It clearly showed that His Majesty wasn"t pleased with this sand in his eyes.
However, His Majesty had generously rewarded Ning Fu and the accompanying generals. Even the middle-ranking military officers were lavished with rewards far above their pay grade.
This showed that His Majesty was benevolent and didn"t hold any grudge against Ning Fu or his subordinates.
It seems that the new monarch was either playing the long game and was a shrewd, deep person or he was truly a simple-minded person.
The court officials levelled another gaze at the monarch"s smiling face and decided to believe that His Majesty was the first type - a really shrewd monarch.