The powerful, high and lofty Princess Meng Qingqian.

Not only does she have an endless amount of documents to deal with every day. She also has various meetings to attend. She even had to help officials in the Meng camp deal with conflicts between themselves.

Most of the time, she had to work late into the night, reading the various folds and writing down her opinions. Whether to pass, amend, or reject them for reconsideration, all had to be carefully considered. There were many times when Han would deliberately mess with her. A single paperwork stuck in a major matter could cause the whole thing to go haywire.

It was already late at night in the palace, so Meng Qingqian walked to her mother’s bedchamber and quietly said, “Is mother asleep?”

At this hour, the Empress Dowager was naturally asleep. However, the Empress Dowager knew of her daughter’s character, and that nothing was going to happen, so if she came over at this time, there must be something big.

“Qingqian, come in quickly. Is there something to discuss with the Empress Mother?”

Meng Qingqian nodded and said, “Tomorrow morning at the court, I would like to ask Empress Mother to arrange for a reliable palace maid, dressed nicely, to sit in my place.”

“Why?”

“Mother, I intend to leave the palace and go to see Fan Yu.”

Although the Eldest Princess had various meetings of various sorts throughout the day, the most important, without a doubt, was the daily morning court.

It turned out that when the Empress Dowager was overseeing the kingdom, she sat behind a curtain behind the emperor’s dragon chair, and later, when power was delegated to the Princess, she sat behind the curtain beside the Empress Dowager.

The curtain was not thick, and two figures were faintly visible, in order to give the ministers an invisible sense of oppression.

The Empress was diligent and never missed the morning court after she had taken charge of the government.

This time, when she went to see Fan Yu, Meng Qingqian naturally had to find a double to sit there for her in order to be concealed. Not only would this not break her rule of not dropping the morning court, but it would also confuse Prime Minister Han’s forces.

It was not difficult to find a palace maid, except that the Empress Dowager did not understand why her daughter had to go and see a general who had resigned from his post for a long time.

“Qingqian, what did you go to see Fan Yu for?”

“Mother, my Meng clan is most in need of military power. If General Fan Yu, can rejoin the mountain, gather the Chu family army and serve my Meng clan. Then in three years’ time, when the Han surname and I hand over power back to His Majesty, there will be no danger of a mutiny.”

Meng Qingqian added after a pause, “Moreover, Nanzhu would not have to marry He Yunxiao in exchange for Marquis’s help.”

The Empress Dowager froze for a moment and blinked, “Don’t make a decision for Nanzhu just yet, what if she wants to marry He Yunxiao?”

Meng Qingqing said, “Empress Mother, Nanzhu is innocent by nature, how could she like a bastard like He Yunxiao?”

The Empress Dowager said, “I see that Yunxiao is very sensible, so how can he be of bad character? If you didn’t need to oversee the state and couldn’t marry someone else, how could the Empress Mother let this marriage fall on Nanzhu’s head?”

Marrying He Yunxiao is considered a good thing

Empress Mother’s character was something that Meng Qingqian knew best.

Sometimes, she even felt that Nanzhu was the mother’s own daughter.

Mother liked to rely on her feelings and intuition when she looked at people and did things.

When she heard that He Yunxiao was handsome and extraordinary, she was likely to make a rash decision just by looking at his face again.

Meng Qingqian understands that it is absolutely unreliable to rely on face reading for a marriage.

The matter of marrying someone, especially a royal princess, requires multiple considerations, and personal factors like facial features and feelings are the last things to be considered. In which dynasty does a princess marry for the benefit of the entire royal family?

Meng Qingqian asked herself if she still cared for her sister Meng Qingrou, but if Fan Yu could not be invited, she would not be able to solve her predicament. At that time, she would not hesitate to throw her sister to He Yunxiao.

The descendants of the royal family enjoyed privileged treatment in normal times, and when it mattered, they should naturally put the royal family first.

As for herself, Meng only hoped that after she handed over her power to His Majesty, she could become a nun and be at ease from then on, never to bother with worldly affairs again.

As for getting married and becoming a woman, and raising a husband and children, she had not even considered it.

Having been in a high position for a long time, she had seen a lot of so-called human beings. The more she saw, the more disappointed she became with them.

Meng Qingqian did not believe in Buddhism and became a nun only because she was disappointed. Because in this world, there is no man who is qualified to be close to her, or even to share a bed with her.

……

This time, Meng Qingqian did not bring her personal guards, and female attendants with her, but only Jianling.

With her protection alone, she could stand up to a whole army of female guards. There were too many female guards and they were too flamboyant, and now they were acting in secret, which was inconvenient.

As the Antler Academy was basically full of men, the two of them had to disguise themselves as men and blend in to meet Fan Yu in order not to attract attention.

The reason for Meng Qingqian’s caution was that the meeting with Fan Yu must not be known to the Han family.

It was difficult to ask one person to come out of the mountain, but it was very easy to keep one person out of the mountain. If Han knew that she had gone to see General Fan, the matter would be almost hopeless.

Jian Ling’s face was not feminine, so she was very suitable for a woman dressed as a man, and hardly felt out of place. In addition, she is a natural swordsman who travels the world.

But Meng Qingqian was a disaster.

Not to mention the other things, the disobedient pair on her bust alone was very difficult to handle.

It was only after wrapping them in several layers of loose clothing that she was able to look normal.

Even so, her feminine and pretty features could not be changed when she wore men’s clothes, and with her fair and delicate skin, she felt completely deceptive.

She had no choice but to put on a little more yellow powder to make her face less pretty and white, which made her look somewhat like an ordinary gentleman.

The two of them sat in the carriage that the palace maids would normally sit in when they went out for shopping, and secretly went to the Antler Academy.

In the carriage, Meng Qingqian asked, “Jian Ling, do I look like a man?”

“No.”

Meng Qingqian frowned, “If I don’t look like a man, then I can’t be too flashy. After we enter the academy, I will find a quiet place to wait while you find Fan Yu to meet me.”

“Okay.”

When they arrived at the entrance of the Deerstalker Academy, Meng Qingqian didn’t dare to stay too long as she was worried about her exposure, so she got out of the car and walked towards the academy.

Just as they entered the gate of the academy, they heard the academy’s children start talking about He Yunxiao.

Even though she had heard about He Yunxiao’s extraordinary handsomeness, she did not intend on turning around to take a look. Even a handsome face was only skin and bones.

She seized this rare, unnoticed opportunity and said quietly, “Jian Ling, someone has distracted attention for us, let’s go.”

“Good.”

The two of them quickened their pace and soon disappeared into the quiet lanes of the academy.

After finding a secluded and deserted place, Jian Ling bid farewell to the Eldest Princess and went alone to ask General Fan Yu to come.

Meng Qingqian stood alone on the deserted path. Even though it was a rare opportunity to leave the palace. She did not dare to relax at the moment, and was still thinking about the situation on the court.

The time had only gone by for a moment before Meng Qingqian felt exhausted.

She had developed a bad habit of eating something sweet when she was thinking. If not, she would not be able to do her best in her scheming.

And this time, she was in too much of a hurry to take some sweets with her.

Luckily, the Lord had never let anyone down.

The trees beside this path were just bearing sweet fruits.

After looking around and finding that no one was there, Meng Qingqian walked under the tree and stood on tiptoe to reach the fruit on the tree.

It was just that she had overestimated herself a little.

Even on tiptoe, she was only able to grasp the branch.

She was not short by any means. Her net height was nearly 1.7 meters, and with her shoes on, she was even taller. It was just that the trees in the academy grew well and were much taller and bushier than those elsewhere.

But it was not hard to beat her. The ripe fruit, which always cannot be shaken, would fall regularly when the wind blew.

Meng Qingqian shook the branch, but found that it did not give a damn. Not even a single fruit could come down.

After confirming once again that there was no one around, she became a bit more daring.

She simply shook it harder.

This time it did the trick and the fruit fell like rain.

One of them fell straight onto her bare forehead.

“Ouch! It hurts.”

Meng Qingqian rubbed her forehead and scolded the fruit tree, “You dare hurting me. You’re a bad boy, aren’t you?”

As this was not the palace and no one was watching, she simply played with her childish temper and picked up some broken fruits and buried them under another tree.

After doing this, she felt much better. The knot that had been piling up over political matters for a long time had also dissipated a bit.

Meng Qingqian simply stopped thinking about family and national affairs and did whatever she wanted to do.

She picked up a fruit like a girl from an ordinary family, wiped it briefly, and then put it in her mouth.

Feeling the sweetness in her mouth, Meng Qingqian’s mood improved a little more.

Let’s eat another one.

She thought.

So she ate another one.

Another one.

Until an unwanted fruit core appeared where it shouldn’t have.

A choking sensation that took over all her senses for a moment.

Cough cough cough!

So uncomfortable

I haven’t met General Fan yet …… I can’t

Even at this time, she was still weighing the dynastic situation of Qi.

Just as Meng Qingqian was falling into confusion, and despair, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her waist, then pulled her back from the road to hell in an instant.

A male voice like heavenly music, came.

“Si… Brother… I’m fellow student, are you all right?”

Meng Qingqian’s heart, which had been running wild just now because she was in a life-threatening situation, had not yet calmed down at this point.

Meng Qingqian looked up, and He Yunxiao’s handsome and stunning face, as well as his caring demeanor instantly caught her eye and was firmly engraved in her mind.

For some reason, her racing heart still had no intention of stopping.

At this moment, the subconscious mind defeated the rational mind and briefly prevailed over Meng Qingqian’s consciousness.

This kind of handsome, upright and reliable feeling was something she had only ever felt in two men in her life. So subconsciously, she thought that the man who had saved her was the same late emperor who had been able to bear the burden of the Qi state for her, but had passed away.

Meng Qingqian’s mouth involuntarily murmured, “Father….”

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