The court officials knelt on the ground, only daring to get up after he was gone. They glanced at each other in bewilderment.
What abnormal behavior from the Emperor!
Both parties had turned red in the face from arguing, but now they huddled together for discussion, all feelings of animosity forgotten.
What was wrong with the Emperor?
Based on their understanding of the Emperor, after Wanyan Jin’s repeated attempts of aggression at the Great Shang Kingdom’s frontier, they thought he would definitely send out troops to intimidate the opposition. This time, however, he let the court officials argue furiously but did not make any decision in the end.
It was truly puzzling. After the wedding, the Emperor’s mind seemed to have become even more unpredictable.
Ji Qingyuan was also baffled. He walked over to Lu Hetian and asked in a low voice, “What do you make of this, Brother Lu?”
To his surprise, Lu Hetian continued to stand there as if he had not heard him, and he had no choice but to repeat his question.
However, Lu Hetian’s reaction was still the same.
Ji Qingyuan was curious.
What was wrong with Lu Hetian?
Had he been daydreaming like this and heard nothing when everyone else was arguing just now?
He was in disbelief.
Lu Hetian had always been loyal to the court and had never s.p.a.ced out during court meetings. Today, however…
Then he remembered Lu Liangwei marrying into the palace a few days ago. Realizing the truth, he patted the man on the shoulder and rea.s.sured him, “It’s only natural for a girl to get married when she’s grown up. No matter how much you dote on Weiwei, you can’t lock her in the house forever, right? Get over it, at least Weiwei’s the Empress and won’t get mistreated. You shouldn’t worry about her so much. She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”
After he had finished babbling, Lu Hetian finally came to his senses, but he only shot him an indifferent glance and left the meeting hall.
Seeing this, Ji Qingyuan quickly followed. He caught his arm and said, “I say, you’d better not do anything stupid. You still have a seventy-year-old mother back home…”
Lu Hetian yanked his arm away and glared at him contemptuously. “Your last name is Ji, not Chicken!” [1]
Ji Qingyuan was stunned.
What did he mean by that?
His last name was Ji and not Chicken, that was obvious. Had Lu Hetian gone mad out of worry for his daughter?
When he finally collected himself, Lu Hetian was already out of sight.
Ji Qingyuan shook his head empathetically and muttered to himself, “This is the burden of raising children.” When children were young, parents worried that they would catch a cold if they dressed lightly or starve if they ate less. When the children had finally grown up and gotten married, the parents would worry about their wellbeing instead.
Sigh!
After exiting the meeting hall, Lu Hetian wanted to leave the palace, but he suddenly thought of Lu Liangwei. He paused for a moment, then continued walking.
He was actually not worried about Weiwei. Although he disliked the Emperor being his son-in-law, he could not deny that the Emperor was a reliable person in terms of his character, and he trusted that he would not mistreat Weiwei. Moreover, now that the Emperor had recovered from his illness, he had nothing to worry about anymore.
His previous disapproval was only because he found the Emperor too old compared to Weiwei.
However, now that Weiwei had married him, he could only bury his feelings of dissatisfaction deep down.
Since his daughter had settled down, he no longer had to worry about her. The one he was concerned about was Lihua.
Lihua was back, and even though she refused to see him, he… still wanted to get her back.
However, when he thought of the man beside her named Wu Hongming, he felt uncomfortable.
He could not help but wonder if that man had been by Lihua’s side all these years.
Whenever he thought about it, he would go mad with jealousy, and he longed to dispose of that Wu fellow.
[1] In Mandarin, the word for chicken is 鸡 (jī), p.r.o.nounced in the same way as Ji Qingyuan’s last name. In Chinese culture, calling a person chicken can mean that that person is very nosy.