Chapter 181: The Despicable Transaction

“By now, King Ming, you have increased the strength of your army and strengthened your artillery beyond what was our agreement. What do you think if I want to cut your army down to 50,000?”

The Queen said with a calm, yet authoritative voice.

King Ming could feel cold sweat seeping through the back of his clothes.

If not for the death of Ming Yue, the Queen would not have this issue exposed to King Ming earlier than she had planned to.

King Ming’s mind went into a struggle instantly.

Should he persist in his demand for justice for Ming Yue? Or should he retreat now and let the Queen make the decisions and arrangements?

After a long pause, King Ming breathed a sigh and weakly replied, saying, “Since Your Highness the Queen has already made up your mind, I will obey your instructions. However, my children must not die in vain.”

The Queen had guessed as much that King Ming would respond in this way.

With a faint smile at the corner of her mouth, she said, “Rest assured, King Ming, I would surely give you an account. As for the matter regarding your army, given that I’m a woman ignorant of military matters, what do you think should be done?”

Fixing his eyes on the Queen, King Ming had a sudden realization of the reason Dajin was still in a harmonious state even though the Emperor had been ill for a long time.

This woman was a hundred times more capable than her son.

“This is my fault. I’m happy to reduce the strength of the army by 50,000 and increase this year’s tribute payable to Dajin. What do you think, Your Highness?”

The tribute the western vassal state paid to Jin State constituted a third of their overall production in a year.

Using two-thirds of the tribute in exchange for 50,000 valiant soldiers was still an advantage to King Ming.

“100,000 valiant soldiers? Do you, King Ming, despise us, the mother-and-son pair just because His Majesty the Emperor is ill?”

The Queen shot King Ming a chilling look.

Even King Ming was taken aback by the forcefulness in the Queen’s eyes.

The two looked into each other’s eyes for a long time.

Eventually, King Ming was the one to back off first.

“In that case, what would be a good number of valiant soldiers, Your Highness?”

The two had actually gotten into a negotiation, which made the Queen smiled. She lifted a cup of fragrant tea to her mouth, took a sip, and then said, “It’s not impossible for King Ming to maintain an army of 100,000. However, I have a request. Of the 100,000 soldiers, I want 30,000 of them to be free for my deployment anytime.”

King Ming’s countenance changed when the Queen raised the condition.

“Your Highness the Queen, this would be difficult. The western vassal state is so far away, how would the Queen deploy our troops?”

The Queen set her eyes on King Ming and in an unhurried manner, she said, “I will send one general of mine to go over to you to take control over the 30,000 soldiers. However, not to worry. The troop will still be under your control on usual days. I will only ask for them when in need.”

Little did King Ming expect that the Queen would think of such an idea.

His countenance fell instantly.

However, he was certain that the Queen would ask him to reduce the strength of his army immediately if he did not agree to her proposal.

On the other hand, if he were to agree, the general sent by the Queen would be like a spy planted by the Queen.

Those 100,000 valiant soldiers would be his elite soldiers.

Although he could subsequently make the general sent by the Queen a puppet, yet again the Queen would have guessed his intention.

She might well have thought of a contingency in that case.

He had started off as the party demanding an explanation for the death of Ming Yue, but ended up being taken advantage of by the Queen.

“Your Highness the Queen, my son, Hu Lunan and Ming Yue had lost their lives within the boundaries of Dajin. Your condition to have access to my best soldiers would have to commensurate and account for my loss.”

King Ming could only keep reminding the Queen of Ming Yue and Hu Lunan for his negotiation and transaction with the Queen.

“This matter is of serious concern. King Ming is also making things difficult for me if you keep persisting in your own way. Alright, I won’t pursue the matter if King Ming get rid of 20,000 soldiers of your elite troops.”

In that instant, King Ming knew that he had been tricked by the Queen.

In fact, the Queen had no intention to have any of the soldiers from King Ming’s elite troops in the first place.

The Queen’s scheme was to lure King Ming into negotiating with her in this way, so it would eventually seem like the Queen was simply going along with his proposal.

A pair of his children was given in exchange for 300,000 soldiers.

King Ming thought that this transaction was pretty worth it.

“Alright, we will take up the Queen’s proposal. However, please give us an account with regards to my children’s death as soon as possible,” said King Ming, and then turning to Hu Tianbei, he said, “Let’s go, Bei.”

Both sides had achieved their objectives and their transaction completed.

King Ming thought that it was pointless staying on.

He indicated to his son to leave with him.

“Take care, we won’t see you out.”

The elegant Queen did not betray any emotions in her expressions.

She watched the Hus as they left, after which she finally relaxed from the forced smile on her face.

The Crown Prince looked towards his mother with anxiety on his face. After all, the failure in this attempt was due to his miscalculation.

He was keenly aware that his mother utterly hated people who were incompetent.

He had failed on many occasions. Moreover, this time, his plan had been approved by her.

Not only did he fail again, but he had also upset his mother’s plan.

The Queen had been reserving that folding notebook for his use.

“This is all because of my incompetence. Please forgive me, mother,” said the Crown Prince with a trembling voice.

He had gone down on his knees as soon as King Ming walked out.

The Queen, seated on her seat, did not even look at the Crown Prince at all.

“Sigh, you may rise. You are not to be blamed for what happened.”

The Crown Prince was taken by surprise by the fact that his mother did not fly into a rage.

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Stealing a wary glance at his mother, he realized that the Queen, though looking displeased, did not look severe.

“Do you know why you’ve failed this time?”

The Crown Prince pondered for a moment but shook his head.

“It was because you’re not as ruthless as her. Are you able to do to Ming Yue what she did to her?”

A nauseating feeling came to the Crown Prince at the mention of Ming Yue.

When the guards carried her body away, he merely had a glimpse of one of her arms.

The sight of the exposed bones and the bloody, mangled flesh and skin had sent a chill up his spine.

Not to mention the Crown Prince, even the coroner who had seen many corpses almost threw up at the sight of Ming Yue’s body.

One could imagine what a wretched state the body was in.

“I… I…”

The Queen glanced at her son and sighed.

“The way to being an emperor had always been a journey through much bloodshed. If you wish to succeed, you need to be ruthless. In this aspect, that daughter of the Lins far surpasses you.”

The Queen’s words had shaken him up.

A wave of emotions was stirred up in the Crown Prince.

“Mother, you mean…”

“If you wish to defeat your enemy, the means by which you achieve it is not important. More importantly, you must never be burnt by the fire. Secondly, you have to give it your all in order to achieve your goal.”

The Queen went up to the Crown Prince and helped him up.

Under her watch and protection, the Crown Prince had all along been able to succeed in all his endeavors.

This was the reason the Crown Prince panicked at the appearance of Lin Mengya, who did not go according to the rules.

However, all of these did not matter anymore.

Now, Lin Mengya had ruthlessly gotten rid of Ming Yue and this had served as a wake-up call for the Crown Prince.

To the Queen, the fact that someone was able to create a stir before her was becoming something interesting.

It appeared that it was time for the Queen to face the daughter of the Lins, the princess of Prince Yu, head-on.

“I get it now, mother.”

The eyes of the Crown Prince seemed to come alive.

The Queen nodded. It was time for her to act against King Ming and Long Tianhao.

Lin Mengya had fallen asleep on the horse carriage on the way back to the mansion.

Long Tianhao carefully and gently carried the girl in his arms back to the Liuxin Courtyard.

“Your Highness, is our mistress alright?”

Baiji was standing at the gates of the Liuxin Courtyards, carrying a lamp, while waiting for Long Tianhao and Lin Mengya to return.

Baisu went into the Liuxin Courtyard first to inform the people inside of their return.

As for the other three maidservants, they had come to right up to them the moment they arrived.

“Mengya’s hand is injured. Go fetch some medicinal herbs for wounds and clean water.”

Long Tianhao instructed with a soft voice, fearing that he would wake the girl in his arms.

The four maidservants could only look on at Lin Mengya, whom Long Tianhao was carrying in his arms, and followed his instructions.

He carried Lin Mengya into her room and carefully laid her down on her bed.

Although she had fallen asleep, from the frown on her face, she was obviously still in pain.

“Bad things happen to her whenever she is with you.”

A voice which sounded like a complain, echoed from behind Long Tianhao.

Long Tianhao straightened his back as he rose, and just as he expected, Qinghu was looking at him with displeasure.

He strode up to Long Tianhao with his hands full of small boxes and bottles.

“Get up, I’m going to put medication on her wounds. How could you still shamelessly claim to be a man if you couldn’t even protect a woman?”

Qinghu’s mockery caused Long Tianhao’s countenance to fall.

However, he held back his frustration when he saw Qinghu carefully changed the dressing on Lin Mengya’s hand.

“You can get out after changing the wound dressing.”

Every other day, Ye would go to Qinwu Courtyard to give an account of Lin Mengya to Long Tianhao.

He would often talk about Qinghu, the cunning fox.

Long Tianhao could not fathom how Lin Mengya could be so comfortable around this sly fox.

Although Long Tianhao was aware that there was nothing going on between them, he just did not feel good about their intimacy.

It felt as if someone had been peeking on his prized treasure.

Somehow, this guy had won Lin Mengya’s trust.

If it were any other person, he would have gotten rid of him, lest he remained an eye-sore.

“Are you alright, Elder sister?”

Before Qinghu finished changing Lin Mengya’s wound dressing, Lin Zhongyu’s anxious voice sounded.

The two men standing by Lin Mengya’s bed put their pointer finger to their lips in unison, indicating for Lin Zhongyu to keep quiet and not wake Lin Mengya.

Immediately, Lin Zhongyu shut his mouth, but like Qinghu, he began taking out little boxes and bottles from inside his clothes.

“These are some medicine for wounds. Please put them on Elder Sister so she could get well soon.”

Qinghu raised his eyebrow in surprise. Lin Zhongyu was actually so generous.

The medicine he offered were of the highest quality. Some of them were even secret recipes which were hard to come by.

Qinghu took over the medicine from Lin Zhongyu without hesitation, and then gently poured it onto Lin Mengya’s wound.

“Hiss— who did this to Elder Sister?”

There was a mix of pain and rage in Lin Zhongyu’s eyes.

He had been picking up and practicing martial arts with them over the last half a year and he was progressing fast. At the same time, he had gradually learned to carry himself with poise and maturity.

However, he almost felt that he could not contain his emotions at the sight of Lin Menga’s injury, which was so deep that he could see her bones.