They arrived at the party right on time. All of the officials of Li were present as well as their families. Even the concubines and shu children of the lower officials were invited since it was a farewell party.
This meant that the female lead was accompanied by her bratty step-sisters and lecherous brother who was always away guarding the eastern border between Li and Shi.
In actuality, even though the trio's mother was a concubine at the time of their births, currently she had already been elevated to the status of General Bai's second first wife. This only made Bai Ping's position in the family even more curious but as she had deep ties with the royal family, General Bai didn't dare to lower her status either. He treated her situation as if her birth mother had died back then.
General Bai's attitude was lukewarm towards Bai Ping as she did have some uses with her connection to the royal family. However, he valued her sisters more as he believed that they had the potential to aim even higher.
For example, he obviously wanted to pair one with Li Yun and the other he wanted to send off along with Li Feifei to Hua as Hua Shen's concubine. Even though he didn't explicitly say it, the gazes that the trio had sent out were conveying their intentions clearly for all to see.
Of course, they were ignored by both Li Yun and Hua Shen. If anything, the trio had to personally go up and try talking to Li Feifei if they wanted to get anywhere with these two men who doted on her to the extremes.
But as Li Feifei had just arrived, they had enough sense to wait until the right moment to bring up the matter of Hua Shen taking up a concubine and Li Yun taking up his first wife.
Regarding both men, neither of them had any prior scandals with women. At least, if they had then no one was aware of it. For one, Hua Shen was only fourteen and if he wasn't the emperor then he normally wouldn't have had to marry for another two years. That didn't mean he didn't have a former fiancée. In fact, he did and they were reportedly childhood friends, but she was never heard from again after he stepped onto the throne.
In Li Yun's case, no one could spark his interest. His existence was like that of an immortal amongst mortals. While all the women in Li would love to have him as their husband, at the same time they felt that no one was truly worthy of his hand in marriage.
The Emperor and the Empress left it up to their own sons to choose who they wanted to marry.
As for Li Feifei's arranged marriage, they practically raised Long Zheng. Even though it turned out to be a wrong decision on their part in the original timeline, none of that really mattered to the current Li Feifei. If anything, such a connection with her task target was a godsend.
Speaking of Long Zheng, he was currently seated directly across from General Bai's position as they were of the same rank and status. The party was not segregated by gender as opposed to the typical ancient customs.
In the first place, while the world's setting was similar to ancient China's in many aspects, the customs were all over the place. The propriety between men and women were less strict, women had slightly more freedom overall but it was still highly limited, and the age of consent was obviously lower.
Men could get married once they reached the age of sixteen. In Hua Shen's case it wasn't good to leave the Empress's seat empty so he was an exception to this. Women could only marry after they turn fifteen.
On the original timeline, Bai Ping was only thirteen when she stepped up as Li Hao's Empress. Because he was the Emperor, it went without saying that the rules and regulations certainly didn't apply to him nor to those he didn't want them to apply to. So, although he was only fifteen at the time he was also an emperor. And, even though Bai Ping was only thirteen, she was the only woman he would allow to become his Empress. In fact, she was the only woman he'd wed in his lifetime.
Back to the party, as the guest of honor, Li Feifei's appearance garnered much attention. There was appreciation and lust from the male guests and envy from the females.
Thankfully for himself, Hua Shen had insisted accompanying his wife for the entire duration of the party so everyone knew to keep their eyes to themselves after remembering whose woman she was. They couldn't afford to offend another country's emperor ah!
Hand in hand, with Li Feifei practically leaning towards Hua Shen's taller and built body as he dragged her along to her spot at the highest spot beside Emperor Li's currently vacant seat, Hua Shen huffed in irritation.
But he remembered his goal for the night, and that was to make sure Long Zheng coughed up mouthfuls of blood by the end of the night with his overflowing display of affection towards his wife!
The unmarried daughters couldn't peel their eyes away from the younger yet valiant emperor in front of them. They completely ignored the existence of their own lucky princess in his arms who was not only born with a status that they would never be able to reach in their lives but also lucky enough to snag up a man as peerless as Hua Shen! It really made one want to tear her to shreds and pick up all the pieces to take for themselves ah!
How could General Bai and his second daughter, Bai Yiyi, be the only individuals with ambitious thoughts? Emperor Hua may have his Empress now, but everyone knew that it was only a political marriage and thus he'd most likely favor his concubines greatly in the future.
While the status of concubine was surely not appealing to most of the high-ranking officials' daughters normally, but Hua Shen was an emperor! Imperial Concubines and normal concubines were on a whole other level from each other and they couldn't help but to imagine how luxurious the life of a favored Imperial Concubine could be like.
As for him being from another kingdom altogether, in the face of status and his handsome visage who wouldn't have flights of fancy towards him ignoring the boundaries of their different origins?
Towards these girls' obvious thirst for her man and his power, Li Feifei secretly swore and regretted having made Hua Shen promise never to take in concubines. Didn't she just prevent herself from appreciating all sorts of beauties in the future?!
As for their danger level towards herself and her baby, how could they pose any threat with 001 the invisible poison detector around? Not to mention, she was confident in her ability to keep them in their places below her.
More importantly, if he was able to take in concubines then maybe the whole world domination mission could be completed even easier and faster! After all, they had basically already settled two out of four kingdoms with a simple and quick marriage alliance. If he could just take two more soft and beautiful women from both Shi and Zhao Kingdoms wouldn't that settle it all?
Then afterwards they would no longer have to worry about the main mission and could just live leisurely without a single care alongside their baby. Unfortunately, she had cut off that approach before she even knew it existed...
The men--married, unmarried, and some who even had countless concubines already--had known of their princess's beauty since young but she'd been engaged with the unmatched General Long even before she was born already. Thus they never had the chance to voice out their desires much less make them known.
It was only today that they could have a closer look at the woman of their dreams but it was too bad that while Long Zheng never cared about her and wouldn't have minded their affections for her in the past, it was all too obvious that her new fiancé was especially possessive and overbearing. They could only hang their heads low so as to not offend Hua Shen by drooling over his fiancée.
Because of this, they didn't see that their usually gentle and aloof princess was staring listlessly as if she had given up on life while she was led to her seat by Hua Shen, who had long detected the sudden drop in his wife's mood.
He was happy because he thought she didn't like how popular he was amongst the womenfolk. But, even if he felt that it was good that she was finally considering him as hers, Hua Shen also knew to constantly reassure her that his whole heart, body, and soul belonged only to her, his wife. His heart was not big enough to accommodate any others.
The moment they got to their spot, Hua Shen sat first, making the women silently sneer because they thought he was shunning Li Feifei but their smiles froze and their laughter ended when he pulled her onto his lap. Then he smilingly nipped her ear playfully with his strong arms wrapped tightly around her waist.
No matter where they went as long as Hua Shen was seated he would always make her sit on his lap ah! One would think that if they could sit all day she'd be on his lap the entire time... Did his limbs not tire from the lack of circulation?! Thus Li Feifei whose attention was forcibly retracted from her thoughts once again had to admire the endless depth of her husband's prowess.
To this show of love from the couple, Li Hao quickly glanced at his own little lover from the corner of his eye as they were seated apart from each other according to their status and felt that they were too far apart. Without thinking, he waved his personal eunuch over and whispered a set of orders into his ear.
Not even a few seconds had passed, and an extra cushion and table had already been set up directly beside him and the same eunuch pulled Bai Ping over. Her step-sisters could only glare enviously at how their pathetic sister could be so fortunate to be able to sit next to royalty! But when they thought of their own futures they couldn't help but start gloating and smiling smugly as if they'd already married.
After all, their husbands were going to be the Crown Prince and future Emperor of Li, as well as the current Emperor of Hua! What did a small Third Prince amount to? In the end, their sister would still have to bow down to them.
As for the lecherous older step-brother of theirs, he only smiled slightly but if one looked closely they would see that his fists were clenched so tightly that his fingernails dug into his palms, drawing blood.
Long Zheng didn't so much as blink at Hua Shen's flaunting. After all, it was only a momentary victory in his opinion. He had all the time in the world to get closer to Li Feifei, especially since he'd be accompanying her to a foreign kingdom. As fellow citizens of the same kingdom they would have more to talk about. He slowly sipped his tea before calmly smiling back at Hua Shen who completely disregarded Long Zheng after seeing that his first act didn't faze him.
Li Yun was speechless at all the exchanges happening around him and could only dryly laugh with a helpless expression as he stared dotingly at his little sister who appeared nonchalant throughout the whole thing. How could he not notice how Long Zheng and Hua Shen were vying for her attention? He was also a man. And, what was even funnier was how his younger brother was a hopeless case of a henpecked boyfriend.
He was also aware of the looks that the eldest Bai daughter was directing towards him, but because he felt nothing towards her he acted oblivious.
To his relief, not long after Li Feifei and Hua Shen sat down near the top of the grand hall, a high-pitched voice characteristic of a eunuch rang throughout the hall, silencing the rowdy crowd, "The Emperor and Empress have arrived!"
The Emperor and Empress, as the highest personages in the kingdom, naturally arrived last, with his two concubines and the youngest prince.