The doctor suffers from amnesia, but not complete amnesia.

"Bad news—you were right. There are rumors circulating that Edward is Draco, and Victoria has sent a diplomatic note to Lungmen, asking me to explain."

"What's so bad news about Victoria's diplomatic note? Do you think Victoria still has the power to put pressure on you? Those grand dukes have already effectively divided the country—maybe only a few individuals will be nervous about this?"

The man's voice sounded lazy.

"Let me guess, is it Cavendish or Scafford? Only these two are obsessed with taking over Londinium. The other families are making a fortune in silence, while these two idiots keep their armies stationed outside the city every day."

"...It is the Duke of Scafford."

"Then there's even less to worry about. This guy will only argue with you. As for the impact of this matter on our Lungmen Coin project, it's basically zero—the Duke of Custer has always maintained good business ties with Babel, while the Duke of Normandy has revealed some interesting signals."

“The Grand Duke of Normandy guards a section of the Letanian border, so as long as he and the Grand Duke of Caesars can smooth things over, our trade route can bypass Londinium and enter Colombia and Bolívar.”

Wei Yanwu remained silent, Qiao Yelan's abilities once again astonishing him.

"We've gone off-topic. Let's get back to Edward—I don't think a mere questioning by a Grand Duke should be enough to make you this nervous, do you?"

"Yes, I don't care about Victoria, what I'm really worried about is... the capital of Da Yan."

The former Crown Prince of the Great Yan sighed. His relationship with the current emperor was very strained, and the emperor was watching him all the time. This time, when news of Edward leaked out, the emperor immediately caught wind of it and came to investigate.

"What does that have to do with you—wait a minute, do I remember you married your sister to Edward?"

"Yes—that's where the problem lies."

Wei Yanwu said with great helplessness.

Edward Atrias has the right to claim the Victorian throne, since Aslan used the guise of "co-rule" when he seized power, but unexpectedly, Aslan himself was overthrown.

So if Edward and his wife have a child, that child will have the blood of both the Victorian royal family and the Great Yan royal family. The most ridiculous thing is that, in addition to having the right to inherit the Victorian throne like his father, he can also enjoy the right to inherit the Great Yan throne from his mother!

Because the rules of the Great Yan royal family stipulate that as long as you are registered by the Imperial Clan Court at birth, you are qualified to take this position as a member of the royal family.

Regardless of whether you can actually sit on it, having one or not is a completely different matter.

As for why the emperor was so nervous...

In his view, this was not a matter of two love-struck individuals falling for each other—it was a marriage alliance between the Victorian royal family and the Wei Yanwu lineage!

The essence of a marriage alliance is that the weaker party grants the stronger party the right to claim legitimacy—just like Princess Wenyue, whom Wei Yanwu married, she represented the Eastern Kingdom's marriage alliance and submission. Conversely, if Wei Yanwu's sister was married to Edward Atrias, could this also be considered a marriage alliance and submission of the Victorian royal family?

Wei Yanwu is qualified to sit in the Great Yan royal family, his and Wen Yue's child is qualified to sit in the Eastern royal family, and his sister and Edward's child is qualified to sit in the Victoria royal family—so is this guy definitely not using a retreat as a tactic to fight for a path to the world for Great Yan?

Wei Yanwu still has many cronies in the court, and even the Grand Tutor, one of the Three Dukes, was once a cronie of Wei Yanwu, and his attitude remains ambiguous to this day.

If Wei Yanwu were to reclaim the throne of the Great Yan Emperor, the civil officials in the court might not be able to oppose him much. As for the military officers, led by the Grand Commandant, not to mention that they have never participated in the political parties surrounding the throne, they might not be able to resist the temptation when faced with the legitimacy that Wei Yanwu brings them.

As the old saying goes—when the emperor suspects you of plotting a rebellion, you'd better actually have the ability to do so.

Wei Yanwu had the ability, so the emperor didn't dare to really break ties with him.

Conversely, did Wei Yanwu have this idea?

“I—I really have no interest in that position.”

"So we can only keep retreating."

"Yes, that's why I wanted to find you. I'm caught up in this situation and things are getting a bit out of control. Plus, it involves two of the three people I care about most, so I really am—willing but unable."

Qiao Yelan's lips curled up.

Wei Yanwu has entered the game again.

When Kosichrie withdrew from Lungmen in an unexpected manner, Wei Yanwu suddenly realized that Qiao Yelan and Babel Tower had not been of much help to him in this matter, and that in the future, Adams' Swire family would be able to completely replace Babel Tower—especially since this "sick tiger" was much easier to deal with than Qiao Yelan.

Therefore, he allowed Adams to test Qiao Yelan, while he himself minimized his communication with Qiao Yelan, in order to completely sever his own power from the other party.

Despite not fully understanding Qiao Yelan's character, the former crown prince keenly sensed danger.

This is common in politics and business, so Qiao Yelan wasn't really angry, because these were just tactics within the rules of the game, and he had no intention of breaking them.

After all, playing within the rules allows others to better recognize one's own weaknesses.

Therefore, when Qiao Yelan was in Letania, he took the initiative to reveal Edward's identity to Koschei. On the one hand, he needed Koschei's abilities to help the twins, and on the other hand, he was well aware of the chain reaction this would trigger, which would lay a solid foundation for his plans in Lungmen.

To reiterate, Qiao Yelan is very good at selling one thing at two prices.

The chain reaction is that His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Yan Dynasty will never ignore this matter.

If the emperor of the Great Yan Dynasty gets angry, the pressure will fall on Wei Yanwu.

Therefore, Qiao Yelan waited for Wei Yanwu's final reaction.

If Wei Yanwu could no longer tolerate it and wanted to confront the emperor, he would definitely try his best to gain all the power he could, which would inevitably involve Qiao Yelan.

Now the phone rang, and Wei Yanwu said he could still endure it and back down.

So before making that call, he only had two options left—either hand Edward over to the state or let Edward commit suicide to quell the situation, both of which would resolve the matter.

The second option is to seek help from Qiao Yelan and the Tower of Babel.

Therefore, Qiao Yelan had already blocked the first path for him when he visited Longmen.

He chose to tell Adams about his suicide plan, knowing that Adams would definitely tell Wei Yanwu, and that Wei Yanwu would do everything in his power to prevent it from happening.

So when things reached the point where the emperor questioned them, this method was completely blocked.

Since Wei Yanwu already knew about this method, whether Edward's suicide was voluntary or forced, the blame would inevitably fall on Wei Yanwu's own head.

If only Wei Yanwu knew about this method, he might have been able to steel himself and put it into action, and he could have kept the situation completely under wraps.

—The problem is, Wei Yanwu wasn't the only one who knew about this method.

Wei Yanwu was once again faced with a choice: should he make Adams his accomplice and conceal the truth of the matter, or should he silence Adams completely?

But in reality, both options ultimately lead to the same outcome.

If Adams chooses the former, he will see that Wei Yanwu would even drive his sworn brother and his brother-in-law to their deaths for his own sake—as a speculative businessman, would he still have any loyalty to Wei Yanwu?

Adams is bound to lead the Swire family to fully side with Qiao Yelan, while Wei Yanwu in Longmen is in danger of being sidelined by the Swire family and the Tower of Babel.

Choosing to silence Adams completely would inevitably lead to the disintegration of the Swire family, something Wei Yanwu could not stop—because the Swire family's patriarchal ring was currently in Qiao Yelan's hands.

The survival of this family will, of course, be decided by Qiao Yelan.

Without the Swire family, Wei Yanwu would need a new business ally to sponsor him, and previously, besides the Swire family, he seemed to have only one other ally who could help him control the business world.

Tower of Babel: Hello.

So setting up a scheme is very simple: just give others a choice, only the options are "YES" or "yes"—but with this choice process, others will be willing to participate.

"I'm confirming again, you're not planning to use Edward as a tool to get by?"

“I don’t plan to—and my sister is already pregnant. Given the choice, I would never do such a thing.”

In other words, if you had no other choice, would you still do it?

Qiao Yelan nodded slightly. After all, he had been the Crown Prince before, and if he really wanted to be ruthless, he could do it.

“I have a plan. You announce that Edward is a fraud and that he escaped before you can arrest him. Then you can find someone to marry your sister in a grand ceremony, have a child, and then divorce her.”

"Put out that the man is just a gigolo, and that the princess only wants to give the child a proper status. It's a good way to tarnish her image and prevent the emperor from thinking about bestowing a marriage upon her—I, a pure-hearted war god, can't stand this kind of thing."

The man immediately came up with a complete and feasible plan.

"By the way, remember to be quick, and don't let anyone find out that your sister is pregnant—otherwise, I can't guarantee that the emperor won't set his sights on your sister's protruding belly."

"It's all over—those two love-struck guys thought that Wen Yue and I couldn't have children, so they wanted to keep it from me and give us a surprise."

Wei Yanwu's voice was filled with obvious despair.

what?

Qiao Yelan was stunned for a moment.

"how old are you?"

"It's been six months—these two were probably in such a rush to get married because they were worried about being exposed!"

The man's mind raced, and he immediately began to find ways to remedy his plan.

"It's still the same—this guy cheated her out of money and her body, and as a result, the princess was so heartbroken that she didn't see any guests for the next few months, became obsessed with finding male lovers, and then got pregnant and had a whirlwind marriage and divorce with her male lovers."

"—Then you fucking turn my sister's baby back to the way it was when she was just born when she gets divorced for the second time?"

Wei Yanwu's tone was full of the irritability of an old father.

Chapter Sixty-Five: The Bystander Sees the Best

"I can't conjure it up—but you can."

"What the hell are you talking about—"

Silence fell on the other end of the communication.

“When I said I would let your sister ‘be obsessed with male lovers’ for a few months, I didn’t just mean I would let her secretly give birth to the child. I was also giving you an opportunity, Wei Yanwu.”

Qiao Yelan chuckled softly.

"Even if the emperor is watching from the capital, even if you've tacitly agreed to this deal, even if Princess Wenyue wouldn't mind—you and she both want a child, right?"

The other end of the communication remained silent.

But the unsteady breathing was enough to tell Wei Yanwu's current mood.

One of the prices Wei Yanwu paid for his swift withdrawal from the struggle for the throne, while still securing the position of Governor-General of Longmen, was that he and Princess Wenyue could not have any children—a condition imposed by the current emperor.