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"Princess Consort, aren’t you going back?"

On the bustling streets of Lyuzhou, the palace maid Yun Niang followed closely behind Siao Mingxue. Siao Mingxue looked like a curious baby, wandering here and there. It was almost dark, and the palace maid couldn’t help but urge her to return.

"Time really flies..." The radiant Siao Mingxue looked up at the sky. Although it was winter, with shorter days and longer nights, and darkness fell rather quickly, she had come out to stroll before noon. How did the time seem to fly by so fast?

The palace maid couldn’t help but roll her eyes, "With Princess Consort like this, spending a good while inquiring about every new curiosity, there’s so much novel stuff in Jiangnan, how could there be enough time for Your Highness to use?"

"Just curious....." Siao Mingxue playfully stuck out her tongue in a smile, which caused the palace maid to pause in surprise.

After awakening her bloodline, the ancestor became incredibly cold-hearted. However, these past few days in Jiangnan seemed to have melted the ice and snow, soft as spring rain, occasionally revealing the playful side expected of a young girl.

The palace maid’s heart softened.

She had originally intended to follow the princess to Jiangnan and then find a local scholar or colonel to marry, hoping to leave her position as a servant early.

But after a few days, she found herself increasingly reluctant to leave. How could she bear to part with such a bright jewel exuding such soft light?

It’s no wonder Her Highness’s mood has been so good day after day...

The palace maid looked at the sky as if it had been washed anew, took a deep breath, and thought that compared to the ghastly Capital City, this place was the complete opposite.

She had lived in Royal City for many years and had never seen such a place where even the street vendors frying scallion pancakes were jolly every day.

The people here... they always wore a smile.

Almost without having to investigate, she knew the people here... were living well.

Only those who live well would have such vibrant spirits, such gentle smiles. Such a place with very little hostility, with picturesque bustling scenes—it wasn’t just some utopia. This was genuinely a paradise in a time of prosperity.

"Your Highness, there’s plenty of time ahead. You can come and stroll every day if you wish. If we don’t go back now, the old grandmother will start to worry."

As soon as she heard ’old grandmother,’ Siao Mingxue laughed embarrassingly.

Before coming here, she had been thinking about how to get along with Chen Qing’s mother.

According to the intelligence, Chen Qing was raised single-handedly by his mother, making her position naturally very high.

If she were not easy to get along with, she wondered how she would endure and compromise.

But as it turned out, she had been overly concerned.

The old grandmother did not have so many formalities; she was even quite enthusiastic, asking after her well-being warmly as if she was afraid Siao Mingxue would run away.

It might have been exaggerated, but Mingxue quite enjoyed interacting this way.

It was merely the relationship between an elder anxiously hoping for her son to have children soon and a newly arrived, shy daughter-in-law.

"That’s true... Mother said she would make old duck soup tonight, I can’t keep her waiting." Saying that, she hurried back the way she came.

The palace maid followed behind, smiling faintly. Without her mother, Her Highness had become much colder. The old grandmother’s warmth and concern were sincere, filling the void in Siao Mingxue’s heart. The grandmother played a significant role in her current happiness.

Such a lucky girl...

What neither of them noticed was that a white-clothed young man had been following them all along. This young man was none other than the Lyuzhou Hell City God, Wei Gongcheng.

Watching Siao Mingxue hurry home, Wei Gongcheng nodded slightly, and with a step, he suddenly arrived at the Lyuzhou Prefecture Government Office.

He wasn’t stalking on purpose; he had just happened to see them, so he observed for a bit.

Frankly, when he heard that Siao Mingxue had awakened the Golden Crow bloodline, he had been quite concerned.

Whenever a member of the Siao Family awakened their bloodline, they were usually ambitious, and with the sensitive climate of Lyuzhou, if the new master wanted to legitimately interfere with matters of power, it could cause unnecessary trouble.

Especially in the case of Chen Ying...

It was impossible with the military, and the easiest target was actually Chen Ying’s position and resources at the academy.

However, in Wei Gong’s view, Chen Ying was doing an excellent job.

Moreover, the fact that the head of the academy was a top magician was very important.

If Siao Mingxue had ambitious intentions, that could really cause trouble.

It’s difficult for outside officials once family affairs of the ruler become involved in political matters.

Inside the Government Office, Chen Qing had been waiting in the main hall since early on. Wei Gongcheng took one look and felt a slight surprise in his heart. All seven Great Hell Rulers were present; this meeting was probably not about a minor matter!

"Wei Gongcheng is here, have a seat," Chen Qing casually pointed to a seat.

Wei Gongcheng performed a greeting and then sat down in the spot indicated by the other party. Looking around, he felt somewhat complex inside.

Three years ago... he was still a deputy general under Weichi Peng’s command. Though called a deputy general, everyone knew he was nothing more than a household servant, especially after being disabled. When he stayed at the Weichi Clan, even the regular household servants looked down on him.

Even if he hadn’t been disabled back then, in the eyes of many important figures, he would probably still have been just a capable household servant, right?

Three years ago, this young man came to him and promised to give him what the Weichi Clan could not. At that time, all he wanted was to escape from the Weichi Clan, to not depend on others. He had planned to find an excuse to leave as soon as he reached Jiangnan, to live on his own.

Yet, to his surprise, within a few short years, this young man had fulfilled all the promises from back then.

Looking around, those who sat on an equal footing with him were once figures he could only look up to—Elder Shen San and Elder Shen Er. Weren’t all of these people of a status that could be officials in the Imperial Court?

Zi Yue and the once-imperial Ao Zhen from ancient times also never treated him with disdain. Although their gazes were indifferent, it was precisely because of this that he sat up straight, for he didn’t know when in their eyes he had become one of them...

He... was the City God of Lyuzhou Hell City, ranked first among the seven Great Hell Rulers, an existence eagerly sought after by the noble families of Capital City!

"Everyone’s here. Let’s discuss the current situation first..

." Chen Qing cleared his throat and said, "In the past six months, there has been obvious unrest in the Central Plains. The power of the demons in the world has inflated, and the control of Capital City over the Central Plains is weakening. The latest news is that Capital City has even withdrawn the Academic Commissioners from various places, and they’ve also quietly pulled back many troops, apparently planning to give up on certain regions. "

"Give up?" The others didn’t react much, but Wei Gongcheng, who grew up in the prosperity of Great Jin, was somewhat slow to grasp the situation.

He had never imagined that one day Great Jin would voluntarily relinquish territory.

"It’s quite normal. The situation now is unlike the past. The Capital City must make choices..." Chen Qing pointed to the ground, and a huge map appeared on the surface.

"The Central Plains is immensely vast. Even without the northern regions and the seas, its territory is more than ten times the size of Jiangnan.

To maintain order in such a huge territory under the current situation, you need sufficient military power and magicians.

The current Imperial Family... can no longer do it. .."

Wei Gongcheng looked at the map and after a moment of thought, he understood the reason.

He also suddenly understood why his lord had expended countless resources to maintain such a huge military force on land the size of Jiangnan!

The proportion of soldiers in Jiangnan was definitely beyond his common sense.

The War God Army’s size had now reached over a million, the Western Sea Army was approaching three hundred thousand, not to mention the Gate God’s Guards in each major city and the Mountain God Guards scattered in the countryside.

Take Lyuzhou as an example, where the resident Gate God’s Guard already numbered over fifty thousand. Daqing Mountain, as Lyuzhou’s largest granary and agricultural study base, had nearly ten thousand Mountain God Guards at full strength.

In the past, Great Jin wouldn’t even dare to think of defending a mountain with an army of ten thousand soldiers.

But yesterday, after hearing that an Insect Demon attack in Qinghe caused the deaths of a million citizens, he suddenly understood the arrangements of his lord.

In this era, without sufficient military power, how could one maintain a time of prosperity and peace?

The former military strength of Great Jin was of course enough to protect its territories, but now it was different.

The strength of demons had inflated, large-scale demon events were becoming more frequent, leading to the main cities in each province becoming unsafe, and various wealthy merchants fleeing to Capital City.

Under such circumstances, consolidating military power was a necessity for the Imperial Court, because further dispersing forces meant being unable to defend anything.

Consolidating forces could at least ensure the safety of Capital City and its surrounding key cities. But if the forces were dispersed further, even the inner parts of Capital City would lapse into chaos, leaving the Imperial Family... effectively without any prestige.

"Today I’ve called you here mainly to discuss two matters," Chen Qing spoke up. "First, whether to expand territory. Second... the Northern Wasteland, should we get involved?"