The group of four arrived at the palace and the physician immediately fixed her up.
As for the reason the female lead couldn't take care of herself despite being a master of medicine and acupuncture, it was obviously because she was too weak and injured at the moment.
As Li Feifei, Li Yun, and Long Zheng hadn't bothered to be low-key about taking care of the female lead's injuries, her lover, Li Hao the Third Prince and male lead of this world obviously got wind of her condition and hurriedly rushed into the lavish room that Li Feifei had set up for her to stay and recover in.
He didn't seem to mind revealing their ambiguous relationship in front of these half-siblings of his or the young general as he pulled a nearby chair and sat beside the female lead.
"Ping-er, who did this to you?" He was undoubtedly filled with killing intent thinking about the culprits behind this attack on his beloved!
For the first time, Li Feifei had seen this half-brother of hers. She inaudibly let out a sigh of relief that her hubby hadn't transmigrated into her half-brother. That would've been weird, but then she remembered about how he had no sense of shame and felt that it wouldn't have mattered anyway.
The teenager in front of her was only fifteen, but Li Feifei had to admit that he took after the Emperor's features much more than Li Yun, who took after the Empress. The male lead's eyes were fiercer and more golden than both the emperor's and Li Yun's. As he busied about outside more than the Crown Prince, his skin was also a healthy bronze and his muscles more prominent than Li Yun's.
Apparently, he was in the middle of training his secret forces as he was garbed in the black garments with golden embroidery of soaring dragons that were too small to make out how many claws they had. But, if Li Feifei had to take a guess she would be one hundred percent certain that they possessed six claws because of his obvious ambition.
As for how he could carelessly wander into the palace in such dead giveaway clothes, it was because the Third Prince was only ever seen wearing black clothes anyway so nobody found it weird. Only Li Feifei and the female lead knew about the truth behind his clothes; the former because she was aware of the plot and the latter because she was the lover he entrusted all of his secrets to even though they hadn't even been together for more than half a year
Even if the emperor and her older brother were aware of the Third Prince's ambition they wouldn't stop him but would probably throw him up onto the throne with large smiles and happy laughter as neither of them really valued the crown. Unfortunately the only reason they wouldn't be able to do that even if they knew of the male lead's ambitions, was because the male lead was not fit to rule over the Li kingdom as he was now--a bitter teenager who only wanted the throne to prove his worth as the Emperor's "abandoned" son. He obviously cared little for the citizens.
Thinking of the plot again, Li Feifei couldn't help but let her eyes drift to the female lead's flat belly. When the physician had checked her injuries moments ago, he obviously didn't see any signs of pregnancy so either she was already pregnant but it was still too early to tell or she wasn't pregnant yet.
Well, Li Feifei truly didn't care as the female lead had nothing to do with her--even in the original plot the Second Princess never once met, spoke, nor thought about this General Bai's "pitiful" legitimate daughter. So, instead of letting her eyes rest on that area thoughtfully, her penetrating gaze drifted away back to the doting male lead that was her Third Imperial Brother.
This brother of her was always cold and scornful towards his older siblings and disregarded his youngest because of their maternal families' conflicts with each other as the Left and Right Prime Ministers of Li.
Li Feifei and Li Yun weren't bad people. Actually, one could say that the Li Kingdom's royal family were the hard-to-come-by miraculously stable and kindhearted royalties.
Li Yun still treated Li Hao as his precious younger brother despite knowing the younger's hatred towards himself. Actually, the Crown Prince knew of the reason why his was disliked by his younger brother and he had spoken to his Imperial Father about it on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, even though the Emperor really did try to treat all of his children equally, the male lead's mother would always take that as her gaining some favor and stepping all over his beloved Empress.
In the end, since he couldn't treat the male lead with equal love and care as his first two children due to the concubine's interference, he ended up keeping his two younger sons' positions equally at a distance.
The male lead, as smart as he was, was still a young man who craved for the love of his father and couldn't understand why he and his younger shu-born brother had to suffer injustice like so. It didn't help that his concubine mother continued to shower him with lies regarding his older siblings deliberately monopolizing the Emperor's love.
The ironic thing was that he never blamed his loving mother who was the root cause of everything because she was the only one who outwardly showed her care for him. In fact, he didn't even realize that she was the underlying cause because he felt that the Emperor didn't deserve all of the love she had for him.
He always questioned the Emperor internally, Mother loves you so much, yet you don't even spare her a single glance. Same for me, I too...want a loving father.
Towards this younger brother of theirs, Li Yun and Li Feifei could only smile wryly at how they would always be met with emotionless and cold eyes. But never once did it cross their minds to scorn him back as he wasn't to be blamed.
The original Li Feifei, although sheltered and spoiled, was aware of the schemes going on within the palace--she did stay inside for the majority of her life after all. Therefore towards her Third Brother she only felt pity for having such a poisonous mother who forced herself onto a man with no respect for herself.
If she could hear her younger brother's thoughts, she'd retort with, Just because you love someone doesn't mean they have to love you back, ah. Who do you think you are? As for father's love, maybe you should try to control your mother more before crying injustice.
As for her youngest Fourth Brother, they got along well since he was just a child and his concubine mother was actually very understanding and held no real feelings towards the Emperor as she was forced into her marriage by her own father in order to balance the powers within the harem.
Back to the current situation, the female lead's face flushed red in embarrassment at how the male lead disregarded the audience around them in the room and overbearingly flaunted his affection for her.
As a 21st-century assassin she had no qualms about the ancient customs concerning propriety, but the male lead was her first love, ah! She wasn't sure how to interact with him, and seeing as the Second Princess had taken an obvious glance at her belly she somehow felt that the little princess was already aware they had taken that last step in their relationship and couldn't help but feel flustered. Even if their first time was due to the effects of her being drugged, the following times...she blushed even harder.
Seeing his love's face flushing red while she was in her injured state, the male lead panicked, "Ping-er! Are you okay?"
When he lifted his palm to her forehead to take her temperature, he was terrified to find out that she was burning up! He immediately thought she was running a fever and called for the Imperial Physician again, but was immediately stopped by the female lead who grasped his arm frantically,
"NO, DON'T! Just, I'm tired."
When she thought of all the times they had done that in the past without a care for protection, the female lead's face turned pale as she finally remembered that she was currently in the body of a thirteen-year old! Not in her former 24-year old one!
This swift change in her facial expression only caused the male lead to become even more worried as he yelled out in frustration, "Where is the Imperial Physician! Wait until I sort you out for being negligent!"
But little did he know that the female lead had just resolved to make the man abstain until she was of the appropriate age...and she couldn't help but internally thank the princess for reminding her--even if Li Feifei hadn't meant to do anything, really. As a doctor herself, the female lead knew that early pregnancies were extremely detrimental to her health and truthfully she could even die in labor with the current lack in technology.
Seeing such an outward display of affection for the first time from his usually cold and stoic younger brother, Li Yun had on an understanding expression as he pulled his "curiously dazed" younger sister out of the room shortly, receiving a thankful glance from the female lead which the male lead noticed and consequently felt jealous. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to "punish" her in that way for the next five years or so.
General Long silently followed the royal duo out as he had to leave to report to the Emperor anyway.
"Oh!" Li Feifei exclaimed as she turned from the one being pulled to the one doing the pulling, dragging her brother with her along to the throne room to accompany her fiancé to report to the emperor.
Long Zheng's heart felt inexplicably warm that his fiancée was accompanying him to meet with her father. But he remained outwardly stoic.
When they arrive at the hall, Li Yun and Li Feifei continued on their way to the throne to sit beside their father while General Long knelt on one knee with his palm and fist brought together in salute.
"General Long pays respect to His Majesty, the Emperor."
Emperor Li Yunzhi gently smiled, "General Long may rise. Zhen has told General many times not to kneel. General Long is like zhen's own son, after all."
And even if the Emperor felt sad at the thought of his daughter being stolen away from him, technically, the young man before him was going to be his son in law.
Was.
Unfortunately, he wasn't her devil so Li Feifei couldn't just go through with the marriage or she'd be stuck in bed for the rest of this world.
General Long rose to a straight-backed stand, and his face turned especially solemn as he reported, "Your Majesty, this General has news to report regarding Hua."
The Emperor put his smile away as he also got serious, "En, continue."
"Hua covertly enthroned a new emperor two days ago. The previous monarch had passed away, and his youngest son, the Sixth Prince, took the throne."
He only found out by accidentally overhearing some of the Hua border guards whispering amongst each other about the coronation two weeks ago right before he departed for the capital of Li. They stated that the childish Sixth Prince was to be crowned as the next Emperor of Hua in two weeks--which he was two days ago--as Long Zheng had ordered his hidden forces to investigate.
The hall fell silent as not only was the emperor trying to digest the new information but so were his two favored children beside him.
While Li Yun's eyes sharpened at the news, Li Feifei looked thoughtful.
There were three other kingdoms aside from Li. The mission details focused entirely on Li kingdom so she really didn't know what else went on in the other kingdoms. Maybe her hubby was in one of those three kingdoms. When she thought of it, that seemed to be the most likely scenario.
She initially didn't feel the need to take note of the other three kingdoms because her own share of memories had nothing about them so even if she knew of their situations Li Feifei wouldn't be able to tell what was wrong or different anyway.
Li Feifei wasn't even sure if this enthroning of the youngest prince happened in the original timeline so she couldn't guess if the new Hua emperor was acting out of the plot or not.
When she thought of it even more, maybe there were multiple plots in this mission world--one for each kingdom? As from what she had alone, her plot only dealt with the Li Kingdom but what if there were other hosts in their respective kingdoms having to take care of their own share of missions and scenarios?
Thinking of that made her internally groan as the path to pregnancy seemed to be a long and harsh one.
Because, it was all too obvious that they all shared the same main mission--to rule over the Four Kingdoms.
Before she could get even more lost in her thoughts she was brought out by the emperor's deep voice, "Then zhen will be expecting an ambassador soon."
And if not, then he would be expected to send one to congratulate the young emperor in order to maintain peaceful relations. While he was in power, he preferred to keep his citizens happy and living good lives rather than conquering the world and causing the deaths of his people.
General lowered head, "Yes."
While General Long wanted to reign above the four kingdoms, he knew that now was not the right time. And, there were many ways it could be done whether covertly or flauntingly.
He knew the emperor was not the materialistic nor paranoid type. Nor was he ambitious. All the emperor wanted was for his people to be happy.
This kind of emperor was easy to make use of, and General Long wasn't the only one whose head was full of deeply laid schemes in order to conquer the continent.
Li Feifei knew the emperor would give up his throne at the drop of a bat if someone worthy was offering.
But the most pressing matter was after all, her engagement.
The general also seemed to remember the reason he was called back and initially intended to annul his engagement with her but thought otherwise at the moment.
He hadn't fallen for her yet but felt the need to keep close tabs on her as she seemed to be the sly fox type with many hidden tricks up her sleeves. Look, even her ge and father weren't aware of her dual persona.
And he felt that even if they were they definitely played along with her wants as they sure didn't show that they were aware.
Unfortunately for him, Li Feifei had no desire to keep the play going, "Fei-er has a request to ask of Imperial Father."
That, and making this move would only draw more interest from the almighty general before her so she didn't hesitate,
"Please annul Fei-er's engagement with General Long."