Flowers Bloom from Battlefield

After several rounds of retorts from both parties, Jun Zhenxian finally calmed down. He had decided to stay within the room to help Nanglong Souka with the work. He had just finally got away from his previous work, but now he had to work for free. He really felt that the emperor needed a good thrashing from him sometimes, so he won't overuse old men like them.

"That emperor gets the bad side from Soujin," Jun Zhenxian muttered.

Nanglong Souka smiled, "Are you sure it's not Jun Hua?"

"My granddaughter is the best in this entire world! There is no way she would teach how to be shameless to the emperor."

"…" it's possible from either of them since both of them gave influence to Ming Yan very much. Nanglong Souka decided to not think about it anymore as he knew how much this friend of his dote on the little girl. Telling a grandfather that his granddaughter did something bad would be harder than telling a grandfather that his grandson did something bad.

"What? You don't want to admit that Soujin gets all the bad side from you?"Jun Zhenxian smirked. "He's a shameless man like you."

Nanglong Souka's face scrunched in annoyance. "You say that Jun Hua is not like that?"

"Of course not!" Jun Zhenxian snorted. "There's no way a good girl like Jun Hua can be shameless like me."

Nanglong Souka recalled the interaction of the couple when they were alone. From what he saw, he still felt that Jun Hua did inherit her grandfather's attitude. Although it was not too obvious, she was quite similar in some ways with this old and annoying man in front of him.

"Jun Hua is the best granddaughter that one can have in this world. No one can compare to her…"

Hearing Jun Zhenxian practically bragged about Jun Hua, Nanglong Souka got the urge to toss this old man out of the workroom this instant. He knew that this old man loved his granddaughter very much, but was there any need to brag them to him?

"Stop bragging so much!"

"What? I can only brag to you, so I'm using this chance to the fullest," Jun Zhenxian answered with a laugh.

Nanglong Souka looked towards his best friend as he shook his head lightly. He recalled something as he nudged his best friend. "Old pal, do you want to have one last bet?"

Jun Zhenxian smirked, "Sure why not? This shall be the conclusion of all our clashes all these years."

"Nah, not really that way," Nanglong Souka shook his head, "I just want to have one last fun with my friend-enemies." 𝐟𝓇ℯ𝐞𝚠𝚎𝒃𝑛𝒐ѵe𝚕.co𝚖

"Just don't cry when you lost."

"You're the one who's going to cry!"

The two old men soon finished their banter with a bet. The last bet that they would ever make in this world.

…

Palace

Yan was staring at the workload on his table with a dark expression. He had the feeling that the work would be never-ending at this rate. Right now, he truly wondered how his father could be so at ease every single day to the point that he had the time to visit all of his wives.

"Your Highness, we have delivered the work to Prime Minister Nanglong Souka," Shu came in and reported to the Emperor.

Yan nodded his head. He leaned back on his chair. "Shu, is there no way to lessen the work that I have to do? I feel like there's always tons of workloads every single day."

"As the ruler, it is the Emperor's duty to read them all and give his opinion," Shu answered flatly.

"I know that too, but I feel like my father always relaxes every single day. I never see him work at all with him spending so much of his time visiting the ladies," Yan's face scrunched when he recalled that. Even though he rarely roamed around, it was pretty easy for him to see that father of his walked around with different women every day. After all, there was a lot of beautiful gardens in the palace.

Shu also knew about that matter since he spent his time in the palace a lot to deliver the message and the likes. Seeing the Emperor abandoning is work was pretty common during the time of Yan's father's reign. No one ever questioned him about that because they were afraid that they would lose their head.

"He has a lot of people who are willingly taken over his work," Shu answered after a slight pause.

"Can't I be like that too?" Yan recalled that he had Soujin, Ming Hui, and a few others who would willingly come over to help him.

"They can help you, but the most important work still has to be finished by the Emperor or you won't be able to familiarize yourself with the task in hand, Your Majesty."

Yan sighed at the answer. He played with the brush on his hand when Lin Hong came in to deliver another stack of paper to him. The sight of paper has become his nightmare right now.

"You can place them on the table, Lin Hong."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Lin Hong did as Ming Yan told him. After placing them, he turned towards Ming Yan once again. "Your Highness, Princess Meng is coming to visit for a talk about the trade again."

"She comes again?" Yan's eyes lit up when he heard about Princess Meng coming. The sight of beauty was surely far better compared with the paper in front of him. The only problem was the topic she brought up would surely be about trade and the condition of the river.

Standing up, Yan dressed up properly before walking towards the hall. As it was uncomfortable, he usually wore his dress a bit loose.

In the middle of the hall, he could see Xiao Meng and Tang Xuan standing. Xiao Meng was wearing a light beautiful blue dress with some hairpin decorated her hair. She was not dressing so extravagantly, but her appearance alone exuded the elegance a royal would have.

'She reminds me of Ming Hui when that man dressed up as an elegant lady.'

Yan tried to push his thought to the back as he greeted the two of them.

"Is there anything wrong with the trade again, Princess Meng?" Yan asked politely.

Xiao Meng shook her head. "It's not there's something wrong, Your Majesty, but I want to make sure that everything is clear for the two of us."

"I believe we already go over the detail for over 10 times."

"The importance of this trade is far more than the others, so I believe that talking about it more is surely very beneficial. Don't you think so, Your Majesty?"

Yan forced a smile out on his face. He could say that he liked to see her beauty, but her tendency to go over the detail over and over again irked him. Not that it was not important, but she was too meticulous in her action.

However, he knew that he too once was like this young princess. Because he had just started to deal with things in a big trade, he bothered his partner a lot of times and reviewed them again and again.

Really, interacting with this young princess made him recall his youth very much.

On the side, Tang Xuan acted as if he was air in front of them. He didn't want to disturb either one of them. It would be better to let them talk about the trade again by themselves as he stayed on the background.