Qu Fuer was woken up by the maid early in the morning and asked to wash and dress up.

  She was taken to the East Palace where Jasmine lived in a horse-drawn carriage. After seeing Jasmine, who was dressed in her best, the two exchanged greetings and then rode together through the Xing'an Gate into the huge palace.

  Qu Fuer had only seen the Pope's Hall before, a towering building that was so high that it was out of reach in the imperial city. However, she could only describe her feelings at the moment as dumbfounded - the endless red walls and the rows of golden eaves, no wonder some people say that the East is the land of gold - the golden roofs alone were so bright that people could not open their eyes under the sun.

  Jasmine told her not to worry, it was just a family dinner. The girl was wearing a red and black gown, but her hair was not tied into a double bun like an ordinary girl, but she wore a gilded crown. She was the emperor's daughter and the future heir of Mingxia, so she was naturally different from others.

  But a girl is a girl after all. Qu Moli couldn't sit still after sitting for a while. She held the gilded crown on her head and said to Fu'er, "I asked my father to call Brother Jin and Brother Xiang, as well as Uncle Yalan, so that you may not be so restrained. Sister Fu'er, you must not be nervous."

  However, the more she said this, the more nervous Qu Fuer became. She felt as if someone was clenching her stomach.

  The carriage stopped and someone came to pick them up. Qu Fuer followed Jasmine and walked slowly along the corridor. She stared at Jasmine's golden crown but had no time to pay attention to the scenery in the courtyard.

  "Father, Emperor, Mother."

  Then she heard Jasmine say that she had learned some Mingxia language along the way, and she could understand some simple words. Qu Fuer quickly looked at the middle-aged man and woman standing in the room. They were both wearing bright yellow robes. Was that the emperor of Mingxia? Fuer stared at the man blankly, but forgot to salute. If Jasmine hadn't gently pushed her, she would have quickly saluted the man according to Mingxia's etiquette, and then saluted the woman next to him.

  She opened her mouth, but didn't know how to greet him. She had completely forgotten the Mingxia dialect that Jasmine had taught her on the road.

  "Look how nervous this child is." The elegantly dressed woman came forward and pulled her hand. She spoke the language of the Casfania continent that Fu'er could understand, "You are Fu'er, let me see you."

  "Your Majesty, look at this child. He looks so much like my elder sister back then..." The woman sighed, tears welling up in her eyes. "When I first met my elder sister, she was about this age."

  However, the man called His Majesty just stared at Fu'er. He did not say a word, and his eyes were particularly sad.

  Qu Fuer thought of Yalan. Yes, when Yalan saw her for the first time, he looked at her like that, as if he was tracing someone through her.

  How can she tell them that I am not Qu Moli, not the Princess of Shanbei County that you knew back then?

  They took their seats, Jasmine wanted to sit close to Fu'er, and then Alan and his two sons came. The emperor and the queen sat on the couch in the first seat, Jasmine and Fu'er sat on the right, and Alan, A Jin and A Xiang sat on the left. The maids brought the food one after another, which was very exquisite. Fu'er whispered to Jasmine, didn't you say it was a family banquet?

  "This is a family banquet." Jasmine secretly told Fu'er, "If it's a big banquet on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month, the scene will be much grander than this!"

  Qu Fuer looked around, the musicians sitting in the corner playing stringed instruments, looking down as if they were just the background. And those fair-skinned flatterers also stood in the corner in a proper manner, but when their masters had a slight need, they came forward to serve as if they had telepathy. This huge and complicated palace system made Qu Fuer feel uneasy, but the protagonists present seemed to be particularly accustomed to it.

  "Fuer, your name is Fuer, right?" The most sacred man in the Mingxia Empire finally spoke. His voice was unexpectedly ordinary and unrecognizable, Qu Fuer thought.

  "Yes, Your Majesty." Qu Fuer replied quickly.

  "Are you used to life here in Mingxia these few days?" the man asked calmly.

  Fuer quickly responded, "Everyone around me is very nice to me."

  "Yes." His Majesty didn't seem to be a talkative person. Instead, the Queen beside him saw this and took over the conversation, "If you need anything, just tell us. By the way, Your Majesty, you see Fu'er has come from afar, and I guess she doesn't know much about our Mingxia affairs. Why don't you arrange a few teachers for her?"

  "Oh, mother, why are you arranging a teacher for Sister Fu'er just after she arrived in Mingxia? I want her to play with me more. Can I take her around?" Jasmine said quickly.

  "Nonsense, you are getting married soon, why are you still so disrespectful?" the queen said lovingly.

  Jasmine glanced at Ah Jin, her cheeks flushed, and she said shyly, "Who said I'm getting married..."

  The emperor looked at Jasmine and Ah Jin and said with a smile, "Ah Jin and Jasmine's marriage can't be delayed for too long. I'll have someone choose an auspicious day to get it done."

  Yalan clasped his fists to thank the emperor for his grace, while the man who was going to be the future consort winked at Jasmine mischievously, and the other party responded with a face. Qu Fuer, who was sitting nearby, saw this and felt that it was such a joy that lovers in the world finally got married.

  The emperor looked at Ah Xiang who was sitting on the side as if he remembered something, "Ah Xiang, you will be old enough to get married in a few years, but unfortunately I don't have another daughter to marry you off."

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  A Xiang quickly waved his hands. He looked at A Jin, then at Jasmine, and said with a smile, "I don't want to marry a wife to take care of me, so Your Majesty, please don't worry about it." Everyone just thought he was still a young boy who didn't understand the things between men and women, so everyone laughed it off.

  "Ah Xiang is still busy robbing bird nests and hunting rabbits every day. How can he think of getting married?" Jasmine pouted and said. She was the happiest person today and the most proud person. The marriage with Brother Jin was finally brought to the table, and she was very happy.

  The dancers came out at the right time, performing the lively Hu Teng dance. The leading dancer spun and spun in the middle of the stage, dancing charmingly and enchantingly. This was an exotic dance that the late emperor brought from another country after unifying Mingxia.

  Alan looked at the harmonious crowd in the room. He picked up the wine bowl and sipped it gently, but his thoughts drifted to an unknown year.

  The late emperor was undoubtedly a great man. He had the great talent and strategy that a king should have, and he also had the ambition and ambition that a king would have. He had the capital to be ambitious, Alan thought, after all, he ended the days when the Mingxia continent was torn apart. He narrowed his eyes in intoxication and looked at the current emperor. He was undoubtedly lucky, because he naturally inherited the peace of this country.

  The late emperor finally chose his most beloved youngest son, who was born out of wedlock, not the eldest son. The late emperor's stubbornness laid a hidden danger for his future succession. And who could have thought that the one who stood up to support the emperor's ascension to the throne was Princess Jasmine, whose fiefdom was Shanbei County?

  Qu Fu'er didn't know the past, and she didn't need to know. Ya Lan thought that the emperor would definitely treat her well and find a good marriage for her so that she would have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of her life.

  Or maybe it was because of his guilt.

  Or maybe it was because of something else, Alan didn't know.

  Is the truth important? Alan looked at the dancers spinning rapidly on the dance floor. He felt that he might be too happy. In this peaceful and prosperous era, he was a little drunk. When people are drunk, they tend to think about random things. He hated the weak emperor. He accepted all the glory too easily. He had never experienced military service, but he inherited his father's temperament of being ambitious.

  He ordered people to build palaces and gardens, and to collect precious and beautiful objects from all over the world and transport them to Shanbei County, thus this luxurious palace came into being.

  But he indulged in the lie of loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, and grew old like this.

  Ah Xiang drank and looked at his father calmly.

  There was that expression again, he thought, an expression he was all too familiar with from his father.

  As the scene around him became more lively, the loneliness on my father's face became more obvious.

  He is different from his brother. Ah Jin is active, so he naturally doesn't notice the vicissitudes and helplessness on his father's face. But Ah Xiang is not like that. He knows that there is always an emotion in Yalan's heart that has nowhere to vent. Even though he doesn't know what it is, he feels that if that emotion explodes one day, it may burn everything out like a raging fire.

  He vaguely felt that the matter was related to Qu Fuer, and the Princess Moli of Shanbei, whom he had never met, but his father never told him, so he naturally didn't ask.

  Qu Fuer looked down at her wine glass. The wine in it was sweet, but if you drink too much, you will get drunk easily. She was drunk, and seeing that everyone was having fun, she stood up and walked out. She was hot, perhaps because the music was too lively and made her feel noisy.

  She walked around to the garden outside the building. The flowers had already withered, leaving only strange and rugged rockery. She had never seen such a garden in Elima before, so she curiously went forward and touched the stone, which was a bit prickly.

  "Haven't you seen it?"

  But suddenly she heard someone say behind her, and she quickly withdrew her hand, as if she had been caught doing something bad, and then turned around, saw the person coming, and hurriedly said respectfully, "Your Majesty the Queen."

  The woman who was the mother of the country sent the others away and came to the garden alone, looking at her.

  "Fu'er, come and talk to me."

  She smiled gently at Qu Fuer and stretched out her hand.

  Qu Fuer walked with her in the garden. She thought that if her mother was still alive in the next summer, she might be so elegant and graceful. She took a deep breath of the woman's fragrance. Even though she grew up in a house full of women, no one was as beautiful, gentle, and graceful as her.

  "...Sister is also a person with little luck..." The Queen said softly, "When I first met Sister, she was about the same age as you are now. She was already the Princess of Shanbei County, and the Emperor had just been made the Crown Prince."

  Fu'er listened quietly. She didn't understand why the queen suddenly wanted to say this to her.

  "The late emperor had five sons, Fu'er, do you know what five sons mean?" the queen asked her.

  Fu Er shook her head, "I don't know."

  "It means that since you were born, there have been four people who are destined to compete with you for the throne." The queen smiled gently and said, "But your majesty is the most beloved son of the late emperor, so what can we do? The late emperor wants to make him the crown prince, so what can we do?"

  That woman cleverly attributed all this to the willfulness of the late emperor, Fuer thought. And she and her husband relied on this willfulness to become the king and queen of this country.

  "Your mother stood on the side of His Majesty. His Majesty was her only brother. Who else could she stand on if not His Majesty's side?" The Queen gently stroked Fu'er's hand. "But my sister was so unfortunate. She disappeared while traveling. The people sent by His Majesty to look for her came back and reported that the bodies of the companions were found in the southern desert, but my sister was missing. We all thought that my sister was swept into the quicksand or lost her way in the desert and died."

  "Why would she go to the southern desert?" Fu'er asked suddenly. She noticed an unexpected look in the woman's eyes.

  "No one knows, maybe because Shanbei County is too big, and your mother has loved to patrol around Shanbei County since she was a child." The queen's face returned to a smile again, "Did Yalan take you to Tingfeng Tower? That was my sister's favorite shop back then."

  Fuer nodded, but she felt more and more strange. She asked Yalan and the queen, but their responses were all hesitant. They spoke of their respect and love for their mother, but were vague about what happened after she disappeared.

  Is this reasonable? Fu'er thought, although she was a young girl who had not experienced much of the world, from the perspective of normal people, this was not reasonable.

  "Fu'er, since you have returned to Mingxia, you should treat this place as your home." The Queen said seriously, "Shanbei County was once your mother's fiefdom. His Majesty missed my sister so much that he moved the imperial city here—" The Queen looked around, "His Majesty is really good to my sister, you must believe this."

  Qu Fuer looked at the woman with sincere eyes and nodded, "Yes, Fuer understands."

  "Your Majesty ordered me to select a few teachers for you. Let me think about it. We need to learn our language, and what else?" Seeing that Fu'er was quiet and sensible, the queen laughed again, "Do you have any ideas?"

  Qu Fuer suddenly said, "I want to take General Yalan as my teacher." She saw the queen's surprised expression. She probably didn't expect that she would have to choose a military officer as her teacher.

  "Why would a young girl want to take a general as her teacher?" asked the queen.

  Qu Fuer said, "I don't have any other abilities. The only thing I practiced every day in Elima was a dragon spear. I don't want to waste it. Please allow me."

  For some reason, she vaguely felt that in this huge Mingxia, only General Yalan was truly happy about her return. The silent emperor and the talkative queen made her somewhat uneasy.

  The queen stared at her for a while, then suddenly smiled lightly, "Is this your request?"

  "Yes." Fu'er replied.

  "Then I will grant your consent." said the Queen. She looked at Fu'er with some pity - she was just a wild girl who had returned from a foreign land.