Rena Moon

Ever since Minho had a talk with the Empress, he had to devise a plot to get Yuna to give up on becoming Princess Ara’s teacher. The marriage between Princess Ara and the Miyon Nation’s prince needed to happen for the Empress to give him her support. He could then continue his plans on getting rid of both his father and brother.

The best course of action would be to force a marriage between Yuna and him. Once she became his wife, he could easily stop her from becoming Princess Ara’s teacher. He only believed that he could stop her because he knew that in this society, the husband’s words became law to a wife.

He also didn’t mind having Yuna as his wife. He recalled the scene of her playing the harp. She was so angelic and beautiful, he wanted to keep her for himself. He noticed Prince Jimin’s affectionate gazes that were directed towards her. Minho knew in that instant that he didn’t want anyone to have her, but him.

There were many obstacles in his plans of attaining Yuna’s affection. Unluckily for him, it seemed that Yuna’s father wasn’t too keen on letting them meet. It would be difficult to get her father’s approval for marriage. The only way he would back down is if the emperor made the decision to arrange his marriage to Yuna.

The only problem was that his father and him had an estranged relationship. He would have to come up with a situation where his father had no choice but to follow his wishes. The only solution to this problem was for him to gain enough power to rival the emperor’s power. The empress would play a key role in him attaining that power.

He could gain the support of all the nobles aligned with the empress. As long as they were on his side, the emperor would have to approve of their marriage. Minho had an idea of what was going on in their country. The three questions the emperor asked of Yuna at Princess Ara’s birthday party made it clear to him.

The emperor had plans on getting rid of all the corrupt officials. These officials played a major role in supporting the empress. They were at a slight disadvantage at the moment, because the Emperor was in the works of implementing a new system in their government.

After Yuna’s solution for preventing corruption was revealed, The Emperor immediately sent out fliers through the city to hire people to become the new accountants and auditors. It would be a matter of time before the corrupt officials would become criminals and execution would follow.

Minho devised a plot to avoid this from happening. If he got most of the nobles and officials on his side, he could then find a way to prevent the Emperor from following through with his plans to get rid of the Empress’ hidden power. It was easy for many to view the Emperor and Empress as a loving couple, but that was all a performance.

Minho knew from a young age that the Emperor did not truly love the Empress. Although he had no feelings for her, he could not easily get rid of her. The reason was simple. The Empress had a massive support network that ranged from nobles to foreign officials. Her family was known throughout the world for their limitless wealth and power.

The Emperor had no way of getting rid of her because she was so powerful. Whenever he was in the presence of outsiders, he acted out the role of an Emperor that doted on the Empress. Only the princes and princess knew the true reality. The Emperor hardly spent time with the Empress which was the reason why the Empress had no children of her own.

During the next few days, Minho obtained a list of all of the Empress’ supporters and arranged a meeting. In order to prevent spies from listening in on their conversation, Minho chose a location that would be difficult for spies to get into. He chose a building that was exclusively used only by the Empress.

Minho had a suspicion that there were still spies within the Empress’ palace that could potentially belong to the emperor or the crown prince. Therefore, the Empress and Minho worked together to get rid of them behind closed doors. The Empress killed off nearly half of her staff just so there weren’t any spies. Luckily for them, they were successful in getting rid of the spies.

During their meeting, the nobles and corrupt officials came to a decision to stop the Emperor from implementing Yuna’s ideals. The Empress made it clear to everyone that Minho would be the new ‘figurehead’. He would become the new emperor after the current emperor passed. If majority of the citizens agreed with their cause, the emperor would not be able to follow through with his plan.

After their discussion, the crowd of nobles and corrupt officials marched alongside Minho and the Empress in protest towards the main gates of the King’s Residence. Upon their arrival, they were stopped by the royal guards. Regardless of position, no one was allowed to go into the King’s Residence without the Emperor’s approval. Even if that person was the Empress.

The Empress spoke, “Let us meet with the Emperor. We have something important to discuss with him.” The guard shouted towards the main door to the King’s residence for a request to allow them to enter. The king approved and they all walked in together.

The Emperor’s throne room was arranged for the unexpected visitors. When he saw the Empress and all her supporters, he knew why they were here. They were going to defy him now that the Empress’ power was being threatened. He planned ahead of time for this meeting. The Emperor greeted the Empress, “The Emperor greets his Empress. What is the reason for your visit?”

The Empress responded, “Greetings to the Emperor. I’ve come to discuss with you about the ideas of the General’s daughter. I’ve become aware of the happenings within the city. The citizens have suffered a grievance due to her ideas.”

The Emperor was shocked by her remark, “What do you mean the citizens are suffering? All I’ve been doing is hiring for the new positions. Yuna’s ideas have yet to be applied to our society. I am in the works of implementing her brilliant ideas into our society. Don’t you think that it would improve the livelihood of the citizens?”

The Empress knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy discussion. He was bent on destroying her support network, how could she just sit around? If she could, she wanted to be real with him. She despised his act. He wasn’t fooling anybody. She knew that he wanted to get rid of her, but she refused to let him go because she loved being Empress too much.

Despite her hatred towards him, she knew that acting as the loving wife would be the best course of action. She put on her white lotus smile and batted her eyelashes, “I understand that nothing has begun, but I wanted to let you in on a little more information. My servants have been busy helping our citizens. You should already know that I’m involved in helping the poor and bettering our society, right?”

She continued to inflate her ‘image’. It was her intention to let everyone believe that she was worried about the citizen’s well-being, but in reality, she was the opposite. She didn’t truly care about them nor did she bother helping them. He scoffed at her pretense. Was she trying to play it off like she was a benevolent empress? He was smart enough to notice that the Empress was far from being a benevolent empress. She was the cause for corruption, but he had no way of stopping it.

He decided it was best to let her continue with her pretense to see what she had planned. The Empress put her phony gloomy face on, “My servants have informed me that our citizens aren’t being treated fairly. If the ideas of a little girl like Yuna become reality what would these poor people think? They would despise both you and me for being ill-advised and thoughtless. How could we possibly listen to a little girl’s ideas?”

The Emperor was speechless. Was she trying to claim that people would care about who came up with the idea? Regardless of if a kid came up with the idea or if an adult man came up with the idea why would it matter? If the solution to the problem worked, no one would care.

The Empress knew his thought process, so she changed up her reasoning. She continued, “I don’t want you to misunderstand and think that this was the only reason I oppose her ideas. Although she is young, she does seem to be quite intelligent. I only believe that once her ideas are put into place, our citizens will suffer.

It doesn’t seem right to invade everyone’s private family records just to get rid of corrupt officials. Don’t you think that it’s unfair to all the poor citizens in our society? They would have to reveal their personal finances to the world. It would be humiliating. Do you know how many people would commit suicide? I would not be able to watch our citizens suffer such a grievance! What would happen if some of them didn’t record their finances? They would have to be punished, no?”

The Emperor knew that she was being overdramatic, but she was right. Some of the citizens would have a hard time with Yuna’s ideas of recording their finances. Most of the peasants in their society weren’t able to record their finances like nobles did. The majority of their citizens were illiterate.

It didn’t seem right for the government to only record the finances of nobles. It seemed unfair and there could be cause for strife. He didn’t consider that the nobles and peasants would have such a great divide. There was no middle class in their society.

Yuna’s ideas were the correct answer to getting rid of the corrupt officials, but she didn’t keep in mind the structure of their government. It was completely different from the modern world. The Emperor had no way of knowing that. He assumed that it was because the ideas were from a little girl that didn’t know any better. He regretted listening to the girl.

He asked, “Then what should I do? It seems that I didn’t account for various things when it came to implementing her ideas into society. It seems that her ideas may not be useful in the real world.” The Empress grinned, “It only means that you would have to punish her for almost causing a rebellion. You do realize that either the nobles would protest, or it could be the peasants.”

The Emperor did not expect that he would have to punish the General’s daughter for a simple question he chose to ask. He was unwilling to punish her, especially when it regarded the General. The General would not stand by and let him harm his daughter. This could cause a civil war to happen during his reign.

Although he had power over the General now, he knew the consequences of being the General’s enemy. There would definitely be a civil war if he harmed Yuna. Minho stepped in at the right moment, “Father, I have a request to make.” The Emperor despised Minho, he felt disgusted looking at his second son’s face, “Why are you here? This discussion is between the Empress mother and me.”

Minho wasn’t afraid, “I’ve come to let you know of a solution to this problem.” The Emperor asked, “What problem are you speaking of?” Minho stated, “If you are to punish the general’s daughter, there would definitely be problems in the future. You understand that, right?” The Emperor agreed, “You’re right. It would be a problem.”

Minho continued with his plan, “I’d like to propose to Yuna and gain your approval of our marriage. If she becomes your daughter-in-law, you would be given the choice to forgive her. The nobles would then be willing to believe that the emperor is being sensible. If she does not get married to me, you would have no choice but to punish her.”

The Emperor frowned, “And what makes you think that I need to punish her? I could just easily forgive her since she’s young. She wouldn’t have to become my daughter-in-law.”

Minho scoffed, “That wouldn’t be a smart decision, father. You already know that our society doesn’t work that way. If you forgive her this easily, there will be many more criminals in the future that will think they can get away with anything. You should already know that a good emperor must always set examples so that there will not be any future offenses.”

Minho coerced, “Plus, there would be no harm in her becoming your daughter-in-law. I promise that you won’t regret it.”