SFL Chapter 69

Not long after, the envoys from the Long Queendom bid farewell and left, and naturally, the prince was also unable to stay.

When he first left, Feng Yuning still missed him a little, but as the young men from her backyard began to show signs of pregnancy one by one, she quickly suppressed her feelings.

At this time, Mo Ziqing had already stopped experiencing the early-stage morning sickness, and the child in his womb suddenly became well-behaved.

As the months passed, Mo Ziqing became increasingly lazy. Pregnancy made it unsuitable for him to engage in intense physical activities, so he could only watch helplessly as the muscles he had worked so hard to build slowly faded away.

When the prime minister’s husband came to the palace, he brought Mo Ziqing a box of crisp and refreshing sour plums. These sour plums, though too sour for a normal person, were quite popular among the pregnant men.

Mo Ziqing lay lazily on a reclining chair, his long hair untied, wearing a loose robe. He listened to the gossip from outside the palace that the prime minister’s husband had brought him.

“Since the banquet, the Wangye Courtyard has received a continuous stream of good news, and more and more people have turned their attention to Wangye. When they took a closer look at Wangye’s courtyard, they realized that all the sons-in-law they had once favored have now become…”

“If it was only one or two, it might not have caused too much anger, but Wangye has swept up all those outstanding young men. Now, those families whose daughters can’t find husbands are filled with fury towards her.” The prime minister’s husband sighed. “This move has angered the masses, and I heard that many of them are from her in-laws.”

“So what are they planning to do?” Mo Ziqing asked. After all, the young men who had already entered Feng Yuning’s backyard could no longer return home to marry, and with the marriage market short on men, the original balance had been broken.

“I don’t know about that,” the prime minister’s husband said. “Our family didn’t get involved this time.” He recalled how, when he first arranged a marriage for his daughter, he had heard ridicule from other families about her future husband. But now, those same families couldn’t even secure a proper match for their daughters.

If he hadn’t received information from his own son, he would have surely ended up as one of those unable to find a suitable match.

This matter wasn’t as slow-moving as expected. After the morning court session, Feng Yuan spoke to Mo Ziqing about what had happened in the court, where the officials had criticized Feng Yuning.

Although Feng Yuning was a princess, she didn’t have the right to attend court, so by the time she learned of it, the officials had already finished confronting her. It all depended on how the empress, Feng Yuan, would judge the situation.

The officials’ demands were simple—they wanted to reduce the royal family’s current number of eligible husbands and consorts. Those already married were exempt, and the goal was to prevent another person like Feng Yuning from emerging from the royal family.

Naturally, the royal relatives were unwilling, as this cap on numbers was, in a sense, a symbol of their power. They weren’t willing to make concessions.

Both sides had their reasons, and in the end, only the Queen, Feng Yuan, could make a decision.

In court, Feng Yuan hadn’t given a clear answer. When she returned to the palace, she casually mentioned the matter to Mo Ziqing.

Mo Ziqing smiled and said, “They didn’t consider that when they could marry off their daughters, there were others who couldn’t even find a husband.”

The officials’ eyes were fixed on the ones who harmed their interests, but they failed to see the people who were hurt by their own actions.

“So I thought, why not reduce the number of royal family members eligible for marriage and consorts, and let everyone share the cut,” Feng Yuan said. After all, in her harem, Mo Ziqing was the only one, so no matter how many they reduced, it wouldn’t affect her.

“I didn’t expect Wangye to have such an effect,” Mo Ziqing said with a smile. His earlier concerns had come true, and they had erupted so quickly.

When it comes to personal interests, the officials weren’t foolish. From what they could see now, Feng Yuning’s actions had mostly affected their children’s generation, but she was still young. Who knew how many children she would have in the future? By then, their granddaughters and great-granddaughters… the situation was almost unimaginable.

The young men who had entered her courtyard could no longer come out, but at least they could stop the damage in time.

However, Feng Yuning disagreed with the accusations against her. After all, she had never used her position to force a man into anything; every relationship had been mutual.

“Sister, why should their useless daughters be blamed on me?” Feng Yuning said to Feng Yuan in front of Feng Jun.

She subconsciously feared that Feng Yuan might side with the officials, so she went directly to Feng Jun’s side. With her biological father present, Feng Yuan would never lose face in front of him.

Feng Jun also spoke, “Ning’er has made a mistake, but that doesn’t give those officials the right to use it as an excuse to accuse her.”

“Ning’er’s only mistake was taking in too many consorts, but to blame her for their daughters not being able to find husbands is simply absurd,” Feng Jun said.

“These two matters are indeed separate, but Ning’er, have you thought about how this might affect you in the future?” Feng Yuan looked at Feng Yuning and asked.

“What impact could it have on me?” Feng Yuning responded instinctively.

“Once your children grow up, they’ll also need to marry. Have you considered who they might marry in the future?” Feng Yuan asked.

Feng Yuning’s heart skipped a beat. Sure enough, in about a decade or so, her children would become the main participants in the marriage market.

However, if half of them were her own relatives, the pool of potential partners for them would be significantly reduced.

After a moment of thought, Feng Yuning said, “Sister, I suddenly feel that limiting the number of consorts might be a good idea. But considering the privileges we have, it would ultimately be unfair to many others. So, let’s take you and brother-in-law as an example and change future marriages to a monogamous system.”

She wasn’t speaking on a whim; she had considered the future of her children. She didn’t want her sons to marry into other families and share a wife with others, nor did she want her daughters to marry multiple husbands. That would place a huge burden on her.

Now it was the turn of the officials to disagree, but when they thought about the young men in Feng Yuning’s backyard, as well as the number of children they would have in the future, everyone began to feel uneasy.

Before, they had only seen the privilege of taking in consorts, while countless women at the bottom couldn’t even afford to marry a husband.

They never imagined that the issue of “difficulty in marriage” would one day affect them as well.

Although they were reluctant to accept it, they realized that the monogamous system would only be implemented after their time. At most, they would no longer be able to take in new consorts, but the number of people in their own backyards wouldn’t decrease, and the loss wouldn’t be significant. However, their descendants might face the real problem—if they didn’t curb Wangye’s influence, they might not even be able to find a husband in the future.

Between the two harms, they chose the lesser evil. After much negotiation, the Feng Queendom implemented a monogamous system, announcing it to the world. After the decree was issued, countless women rejoiced.

Of course, if under this new policy they still couldn’t find a husband, then that would be their fate.

Even Mo Ziqing hadn’t expected Feng Yuning to make such a significant contribution. However, Feng Yuning herself didn’t feel as happy as others might have imagined.

Since the new system applied to everyone from the Queen to the commoners, she, as a Princess in the middle, would naturally have to follow it.

From now on, she could no longer flirt with handsome men at will, and for Feng Yuning, this felt like losing her life’s purpose.

Meanwhile, in the Long Queendom, when they heard about the situation, they didn’t have the luxury of mocking the Feng Queendom. Thanks to the efforts of the Seventh Princess, those novel things originally belonging to the Feng Queendom were slowly making their way to their Queendom. These items brought the royal family a significant amount of wealth, filling their coffers. As the person responsible for this, the Seventh Princess’s status within the Queendom naturally rose along with it.

However, as is often the case with power and wealth, when someone gains, others lose. Before the Seventh Princess could fully enjoy the rewards of her success, her sisters began to pressure her.

One could say that, just like the collapse of the Feng Queendom in the original story, the situation in the Long Queendom was equally chaotic. Now that the Feng Queendom had gained the upper hand, the Long Queendom was scrambling to catch up.

As for the infighting among the daughters, the Long Queen wasn’t concerned. After all, she hoped her successor would be a dragon that could devour others, not a weakling.

Little did they know, while the royal family of the Long Queendom was embroiled in internal struggles, the wealth that should have belonged to them was being slowly smuggled into the Feng Queendom.

Although the Long Queendom did earn some profits, in comparison to the massive wealth the Feng Queendom had acquired, it was but a drop in the ocean.

Under Mo Ziqing’s influence, the financial strength of the Long Queendom was gradually siphoned away.

Economic sanctions might not seem as brutal as actual warfare, but in terms of cruelty, they are no less destructive. Losing access to economic resources is like pulling the rug out from under the Long Queendom, leaving those at the top unaware for the moment, but it spells disaster for the people at the bottom.

When the lower classes can no longer bear the pressure, people from the Feng Queendom will naturally move in to engage with them, leading to further collapse of the Long Queendom’s power. Without sufficient manpower from the bottom, even if the Long Queendom wants to retaliate, by the time they realize what has happened, they’ll have no opportunity to do so.

After Feng Yuan fully understood Mo Ziqing’s plan, she looked at Mo Ziqing, who appeared somewhat exhausted, and said with concern, “I’ll monitor this situation closely. Your current task is to focus on taking care of your health.”

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I won’t take any risks with my child,” Mo Ziqing reassured.

His urgency stemmed from the need to gather more manpower for the Feng Queendom, as well as to minimize the creation of bad karma. Otherwise, the balance between his good and bad merits would cancel out, and all his efforts would be in vain.

As Mo Ziqing’s belly grew, the child inside was already starting to move, signaling its presence. Meanwhile, the situation between the two Queendom was changing rapidly.

This shift caught the Long Queendom completely off guard. For some time now, the lower classes in the Long Queendom had been disappearing in large numbers, and the finances of the lower strata had become strained. The chain reaction from these events was already spreading to other regions of the Long Queendom.

It wasn’t hard to predict that the Long Queendom would soon focus its blame on the Feng Queendom, as they stood to gain the most from the Long Queendom’s downfall.

Unfortunately, the Long Queendom reacted too slowly. The Feng Queendom had already set the pieces in place, and at this point, it was like the first domino had fallen. The collapse of the Long Queendom was now just a matter of time.

Although Feng Yuning had a role in this, she couldn’t see the full scope of the situation. It wasn’t until the news of the Feng Queendom’s absorption of the Long Queendom spread that she understood what had actually happened.

At that time, the news of the Feng Queen having a daughter also spread throughout the world.