After dinner, there was still an hour before he had to return to the palace, so Zhou Yun Sheng deliberately called Zhao Bi Xuan’s younger brother, Zhao Ji Dong, over to ask about his schooling. Zhao Ji Dong was very knowledgeable, and his personality was impeccable, even though it was his first time facing a holy figure, he was neither overly humble nor overbearing, his attitude calm. Zhou Yun Sheng remembered that in the last life, he came third in the Imperial examinations, and with the Emperor’s support, he climbed all the way to the top of his career. Although he didn’t get the Marquess Wen Yuan title, he used his own abilities to become a high ranked official. However, while working for Zhou Yun Sheng, he also served the Gong Prince, even the order for the Gong Prince to send troops to the capital to rescue the king were his writings. Written with stunning rhetoric and enlightenment, he attracted a large number of literati followers.
In this rebirth, Zhou Yun Sheng intended to raise him up, directly giving him the Marquess Wen Yuan title. The title that should belong to the first wife’s youngest son was snatched away by a common born son, and a concubine that was promoted to second wife was also openly suppressing the first wife, the arrogant Marchioness Wen Yuan would certainly not be able to take this lying down.
With abnormal treatment of sons of the first wife and common born sons as the source of family strife, Zhou Yun Sheng just needed to have the Wen Yuan March cut their interests from one another, brewing mutual hatred, then Zhao Xuan would naturally choose the best team. Zhou Yun Sheng didn’t want to deprive his lover of his military power or suppress him, and although he currently didn’t know the relationship between the Gong Prince and Zhao Bi Xuan, the man was smart, he would find out sooner or later. If he still insisted on supporting the Gong Prince afterwards, Zhou Yun Sheng would really have nothing more to say, he could only admit that he was his true love, and directly leave this world to save on embarrassment.
The more he thought about this, the more sullen he felt, Zhou Yun Sheng simply glanced over Zhao Ji Dong’s schooling and ordered the imperial carriage to be prepared.
“Your Majesty the Emperor, how is Ji Dong’s learning? Is he very undisciplined?” Zhao Bi Xuan walked up to his side and probed. Her younger brother would soon participate in the Imperial examinations, if he could get one or two compliments from the Emperor, it would definitely be an asset.
“Ji Dong is very knowledgeable and talented.” Zhou Yun Sheng forcefully pulled up the corners of his mouth.
During their chat, the imperial carriage was prepared, Zhou Yun Sheng lifted a foot to step onto the raised steps then paused slightly, beckoning to Zhao Xuan, who was kneeling in front of the door, “Duke Yu Gou, come here.”
Zhao Xuan frowned and walked over, bowing, “Your Majesty, is there something you need?”
“I am aware of my confused behavior today, my dear courtier has no need to agonize over this matter, forget as soon as possible.” Zhou Yun Sheng lifted a hand to the man’s shoulder and lowered his voice, “Do you understand?”
Zhao Xuan pushed down the anger in his heart and respectfully replied, “Yes, this small official understands.”
Zhou Yun Sheng put on a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and turned into the imperial carriage. Was Zhao Xuan really a virtuous person? In the past lives, before the two even expressed mutual love, the man would get hard as soon as he saw him, even while playing a virtuous character. In this ‘virtuous’ life, his indifferent reaction to his seduction made Zhou Yun Sheng almost bleed out while comforting himself with his own hand. This debt was written in stone, sooner or later, he’d make Zhao Xuan taste this torment!
“Back to the palace.” He snapped out an order.
———–
Openly promoting a concubine to a second wife, this was a challenge to the clan’s system of rites, many officials wrote letters of admonition, but Zhou Yun Sheng suppressed them with his power, and things finally calmed down half a month later. Zhou Yun Sheng has always been industrious and hard-working, in his past life as the Emperor of Da Qi, he’d wanted to carefully manage the country, but he was helpless against the villain system, which only gave him outlandish tasks such as ‘Summon Zhao Bi Xuan to wait upon you in bed’, ‘Send assassins after Qi Jin Yu’, ‘Provoke the Empress Dowager’s hatred’ and so on. Unexpectedly, time to manage the country’s affairs were never set aside for him.
