Chu Yue instinctively knew that something serious must have happened!
"A'Yue!" Duke Chu relaxed his furrowed brow when he saw his daughter. He walked over to her and asked, "Are the rumors about you and the Marquis of Jining from the Central Plains true?"
County Princess Chu Yue was stunned. She hadn't expected her father to ask her this question and immediately felt embarrassed.
"Some are true… some are false…" she said, her little eyes darting around as she cautiously answered.
After the big scene in the jewelry shop, the gossip about her and the Marquis of Jining, Wei Tingyu, had spread like wildfire through the An capital's noble circles. The scene of the two of them affectionately talking and being close on the street had been seen by many people, and of course, those stories were embellished and became the talk of the town. Some of the rumors were truly outrageous, with some even claiming she had kissed Wei Tingyu in the street. Although not many people believed it, Chu Yue had still heard it.
So now, she couldn't figure out her father's intentions. Was he happy that she had found a man she truly liked? Or was he angry that she had broken her engagement with the Marquis Changqing?
"Does the Marquis of Jining truly like you?" Duke Chu shook his head faintly at his daughter's expression and asked directly.
Faced with her father's frank question, Chu Yue was momentarily stunned. Did Wei Tingyu like her? Chu Yue thought he did. She had seen it clearly in his eyes before. But ever since they parted on the street that day, Wei Tingyu had never sought her out again. This made Chu Yue feel a little uncertain, unsure of what he was really thinking!
Of course, she understood. After all, she was still betrothed to the Marquis Changqing. If they became intimate before her Imperial betrothal was annulled, it would give others a reason to attack them and would cause the An Emperor to lose face.
"He… likes me, I think…" Chu Yue said, nodding her head, feeling there was no need to hide it from her father.
"Then what about you?" Duke Chu nodded again upon hearing his daughter's words, then asked, "Do you like the Marquis of Jining?"
"I… I like him…" Chu Yue was still a young lady. Admitting to her father that she liked another man was difficult. But seeing her father's serious expression, which was not a joke, she steeled herself and nodded.
She wasn't lying. The night after she parted with Wei Tingyu on the street, she dreamed of him. And as time went on, her longing for Wei Tingyu did not fade; it grew more intense. Last night, she had tossed and turned, unable to sleep because her mind was filled with his image, and she was annoyed that he hadn't come to see her. She finally fell asleep in the middle of the night.
"Good!" What Chu Yue hadn't expected was that her father not only wasn't angry but also looked relieved when he heard her answer.
"Father… why are you…" Chu Yue was confused. She blinked her innocent, big eyes and looked at her father.
"If I can entrust you to the Marquis of Jining, I can rest easy!" Duke Chu unexpectedly nodded and said to his daughter, "I will go to the palace now to make things clear to His Majesty and ask him to annul your engagement with the Marquis Changqing!"
"Then you can go with the Marquis of Jining to the Central Plains!"
Chu Yue was completely shocked. Her eyes widened in disbelief. In her memory, her father had never even met the Marquis of Jining! How could he so easily entrust her to a man he hadn't even vetted?!
Moreover, this matter would require him to go to the An Emperor to dissolve an Imperial betrothal, which was a huge risk! How could her father, who had always been cautious and sought to avoid mistakes, suddenly make such a reckless move?
"Yue'er! Listen to your father!" Duke Chu looked at Chu Yue, knowing that his daughter was filled with questions. He also knew that if he didn't explain, her personality meant she would never obey him so willingly!
"The An Kingdom is likely to fall into chaos!" Duke Chu said, his brow furrowed, revealing a shocking piece of news to County Princess Chu Yue.
"You know about the recent infighting between the First and Second Princes, right?"
"The First Prince was beheaded by an unknown person and offered to the late Empress!"
"The Emperor, unable to bear the shock, even sent the Second Prince to guard Tianmen Pass!"
"Then, he unexpectedly added another three million taels of gold to the ransom price for Emperor Wu!"
"Following that, he ordered the Commander of the Vermilion-Robed Guard, Deng Hui, to personally execute over a dozen innocent men outside the South Gate!"
"He has gone mad!"
"Now the country has no Crown Prince, and the An capital's oldest remaining Prince, the Third Prince, is still too young to take on the position!"
"I have a feeling that there is an unseen hand controlling all of this!"
"I'm afraid chaos is not far off for the An Kingdom!"
"At that time, the best thing for our Xisha tribe to do is to stay out of it and not get involved!"
"And as the shining jewel of the Xisha tribe, leaving this chaotic place is the safest plan!"
"Otherwise, no matter who you marry, our Xisha tribe will have to choose a side in this internal conflict…"
"If we choose the wrong side, then… in any case, finalizing your engagement with the Marquis of Jining as soon as possible is the only way for our Xisha tribe to avoid disaster!"
Duke Chu was incredibly anxious at this moment and didn't hold back, pouring out all his worries. This massive amount of information nearly overwhelmed County Princess Chu Yue's mind! She was completely ignorant of politics, but after hearing her father's analysis, she instinctively felt that it made a lot of sense.
Could it be that the An Kingdom was really about to fall into chaos?! And the matter between her and Wei Tingyu had become the key to whether the Xisha tribe could stay out of the conflict?
"Alright!" Chu Yue already liked Wei Tingyu and disliked that Marquis Changqing! Now, not only could she follow her heart and be with the man she truly loved, but she also had the righteous duty of saving the Xisha tribe on her shoulders. This made her even more determined, and she nodded in agreement without hesitation.
"Tomorrow, I will go and find Marquis Wei myself!" Having understood everything, Chu Yue made up her mind. You, Wei Tingyu, won't come to see me? Then I'll go see you! With the greater good of the Xisha tribe's future at stake, she wasn't afraid of being laughed at.
"When you see the Marquis Wei tomorrow, give him this gift!" Duke Chu saw his daughter agree so readily and nodded, handing Chu Yue an official deed.
Chu Yue took the deed, opened it, and a look of shock and bewilderment appeared on her face.
"You're giving the Marquis Wei all the fortified manors, tribesmen, and horses of Fengyuan?" The contents of the deed were so shocking she couldn't help but be stunned! When she saw her father simply nod silently, she believed that she had not misread it! Her father had not made a mistake; he had truly made this decision!
"This was Grandma's most important dowry!" Chu Yue blinked and said to her father, "Big Brother has asked you for this many times, but you never gave it to him!"
Chu Yue was completely bewildered. No matter what, her father wouldn't give a gift that he wouldn't even give to his own son to Wei Tingyu, right?! Even if he had high hopes for his future son-in-law, this was a bit too much.
"Because only this can prove the sincerity of our Chu family to him!" Duke Chu shook his head, turned to face Chu Yue, and said.
"But…" Chu Yue was now truly confused. In her eyes, Wei Tingyu was a man she liked. His status wasn't low; he was a Marquis of a great Central Plains nation! He also had some interesting skills, like being able to silence someone from a distance! But that was all. Even if she married into the Marquis's manor, she would simply be another gem from the Xisha tribe in the noble circles of the Central Plains capital!
The Wei and Chu families would be connected through an international marriage, which could help maintain friendly relations between the two countries! But that was all there was to it! Yet, it seemed as if her father was entrusting the future of the Chu family to Wei Tingyu. Even if her father had somehow preemptively sensed the coming chaos in the An Kingdom, what power could Wei Tingyu, a foreign Marquis, have in the An Kingdom? How could he possibly protect the Chu family?
"You don't understand!" Duke Chu saw the confusion on his daughter's face and shook his head. "In fact, I have been secretly watching this Marquis of Jining ever since the rumors started that he accompanied the Prince of Li from the Wu Kingdom on his diplomatic mission to our Great An!"
"This person is far from simple! According to the intelligence from our spies in the Wu Kingdom, he has done many great things on this journey!"
"The Prince of Li is nominally the Wu Kingdom's envoy to retrieve their Emperor, but in reality, the entire delegation is completely under the command of Wei Tingyu!"
"How is it that the Prince of Li listens to every word of a foreign official?"
"Furthermore, there are rumors in the Wu Kingdom that the Prince of Danyang sent a thousand soldiers to ambush the envoy delegation, but all of his private soldiers died in the Tianxing Gorge!"
"And after that, Wei Tingyu hid the one hundred thousand taels of gold and the other members of the delegation, only taking the Prince of Li and a few men with him to the An capital on horseback!"
"So secretive! So cunning! So unpredictable! The more I think about it, the more I feel there is something wrong here!"
"But no matter what, it can only mean one thing: the Marquis of Jining, Wei Tingyu, is far from as simple as he seems! His true power, compared to what he shows the world, is probably a hundred or even a thousand times greater!"
After hearing her father's words, Chu Yue's face became more and more shocked! She had no idea that her father had been secretly investigating Wei Tingyu for so long!
The battle of Tianxing Gorge had happened a long time ago. No matter how foolish the Prince of Danyang was, he would have known that Zhou Jian and his thousand private soldiers were in trouble! And after such a large-scale battle, with so many corpses and severed limbs, the traces on the battlefield could never be completely hidden! So, the situation in Tianxing Gorge was gradually uncovered by various intelligence-gathering forces, and some clues were discovered. Of course, those who were thoughtful came to a general conclusion in their hearts…
"From now on, all of the Xisha tribe's assets, including the riding slaves, will be divided into two halves!" At this moment, Duke Chu gave his daughter an even greater shock. He slowly said, "One half for your Big Brother! And one half for the Marquis of Jining!"
"What?!" Chu Yue was even more shocked. Even if her father's speculation was correct, giving half of the Xisha tribe to Wei Tingyu was something she could not comprehend.
"Because the Marquis of Jining's future… is boundless!" Duke Chu now had a very clear vision in his mind. The nations of the world had been at war for so many years. It was time for a true hegemon to appear and unify the world! The more he investigated Wei Tingyu, the more he felt that he had seized a great opportunity!
Therefore, he had to quickly align himself with Wei Tingyu before he truly rose to power! And half of the Xisha tribe's wealth was the "certificate of allegiance" that Duke Chu was offering! This, of course, included his own daughter, County Princess Chu Yue, the jewel of the Xisha tribe!
"Of course, the Marquis of Jining is an official of another country, so this matter must not be made public!" Duke Chu said, "So, on the surface, that half will be your dowry! Even after you marry, it will still be your property!"
"But how you dispose of these assets must be according to the Marquis of Jining's instructions! You must never act on your own whim!"
"Yes!" Chu Yue nodded in agreement.
But the next moment, she realized something was wrong. She looked at her father with a bewildered expression and asked, "Father just said his future is boundless… what does that mean?"
In County Princess Chu Yue's mind, a Marquis could at most be promoted to a Duke, even if he made great contributions! After all, he wasn't a Prince or a descendant of the Emperor; he couldn't be made a King, could he?! Even a Duke was only the same rank as her father, but her father's tone seemed to suggest…
"His future… is not limited to just the Central Plains!" Duke Chu sighed, then looked out at the clear blue sky and said, "It's laughable that the Princes of our Great An are still fighting among themselves. The Marquis Changqing seems intent on controlling the court, but alas…"
"When a true dragon descends, all the games of the false dragon will become a laughingstock!"
Even with her lack of political knowledge, Chu Yue understood her father's words! Her eyes widened, her face filled with disbelief! But when she saw that her father was not joking, a look of nervousness appeared in her eyes.
It was clear that in her father's eyes, Wei Tingyu was the true dragon who had appeared! And even the Emperor of Great An was now a false dragon in his eyes! This meant that Wei Tingyu would one day rule the world? And not just the Central Plains, but every corner of the north, south, east, and west would be unified under him!
"News from the palace today, after your aunt confirmed the First Prince's sudden death and the Second Prince's exile, Li Tongguang is the one who has benefited the most!" After finishing his instructions, Duke Chu turned to look at his daughter, who had not yet recovered, and said, "He is now planning to support the Third Prince, born of a palace lady, and make himself the Regent?" Chu Yue immediately understood this. "What a cunning plan!"
But at this moment, Chu Yue was not shocked by Li Tongguang's scheme. If her father's earlier speculation was correct, then all of Li Tongguang's calculations were a waste of effort and nothing more than a joke.
"The most important thing now is to quickly annul your engagement with Li Tongguang!" Duke Chu's eyes darted around, then he said.
"Right! A moment of carelessness in this matter could lead to the demise of our entire clan!" Chu Yue also nodded repeatedly. Although she now believed, like her father, that Wei Tingyu would one day rule the world, it was still uncertain when that day would come. At least for now, the An Emperor was the one who held the power in the An Kingdom, and her nominal fiancé, Li Tongguang, was playing with fire! If the Emperor punished him for his meddling, she, as his fiancée, might also be implicated! Of course, the entire Chu family and the Xisha tribe would also be in trouble!
"I must annul this engagement with him immediately!" County Princess Chu Yue frowned in thought, then said, "I... I should disfigure my face!"
"A'Yue!" Duke Chu was speechless when he heard this and quickly turned to scold his daughter.
How could she disfigure her face? Even if she annulled her engagement with Li Tongguang for that reason, what about the Marquis of Jining? Wouldn't his hope of aligning with the true dragon be ruined? If his daughter was truly disfigured, even if she still entered Wei Tingyu's household, she would never be favored!