Time travel is risky, and love requires caution

The Spring Festival has been going on for several days and is about to end. During this period, the three countries not only signed a number of economic cooperation agreements, but also reached a number of friendly consensuses to work together to build commercial channels between countries to maintain long-term and stable trade exchanges, achieve common prosperity and win-win results, benefit the country and the people, promote prosperity and development, and create a peaceful and prosperous era.

Wishes are beautiful and goals are great, but the reality is always unsatisfactory, and even has ulterior motives.

The Northern Emperor naturally hoped to lay the foundation and guarantee for future cooperation between countries through marriage, but he could not lower the status of a great country and condescend to propose a marriage. If the other party refused again, where would he and his daughter save face? So he had to think of other ways.

Therefore, the Northern Emperor held banquets every now and then to entertain the envoys of the two countries, and invited the princesses to attend as well.

Ling Qiqi knew that the meeting would be a good meeting, but the banquet might not be a good banquet, so she had already declined it several times.

The fifth and sixth princesses, however, seemed to be enjoying it.

Especially the fifth princess, who dressed herself up all day long, like a male peacock in heat, and walked around the world with her tail erect, but in Ling Qiqi's eyes, she was just a free-range chicken dressed up in a more gorgeous way.

Ling Qiqi really didn't understand where this sense of superiority that was waiting to be sold came from.

The leaders of the two countries' delegations, Lu Chengzhi and Pei Chufeng, are both royal descendants of marriageable age, but their positions are rather awkward. One is likely to have the right to inherit the throne, but is already married and can only be a concubine.

The other one is not married yet, but she is unlikely to have the right to inherit the throne. Moreover, she is a sickly woman and may become a widow if she is not careful.

Neither of these two people can be considered a good match for the Fifth Princess.

But then again, looking around the countries, there really isn't much that can be a good match for the fifth princess.

Except Lu Cheng.

Ling Qiqi felt that the value of the Sixth Prince of Ximo, who had been ignored as a hostage, needed to be re-evaluated.

A few days ago, the second prince of Ximo had publicly conveyed to the Northern Emperor the wish of King Ximo to bring the sixth prince back to the country. Although the Northern Emperor did not give an immediate reply at that time, it would probably be difficult for him to refuse later.

After all, if the Northern Emperor wants to make peace with Ximo, he should show some sincerity. It is not a good idea to always hold someone else's son hostage. Instead, it gives Ximo and Beiwei an excuse to break up. The Sixth Prince has been in Beiwei for so many years, and King Ximo and his brothers have no feelings for him. If they really abandon the Sixth Prince, not only will they have raised someone else's son for nothing, but they will also become a laughing stock in the world.

It would be better to take this opportunity to let the Sixth Prince return to Ximo. Not only can it give an explanation to the King of Ximo, but it can also save the Sixth Prince's dignity. In the eyes of others, the King of Ximo and his son should be grateful to the Northern Emperor. If they betray their trust and are ungrateful in the future, they will definitely be despised by the world.

What's more, the Northern Emperor has always treated the Sixth Prince very kindly, like his own half-son, and has never let him suffer any grievances in Beiwei. Moreover, the Sixth Prince has been very respectful to the Northern Emperor over the years. Although he has done things that overstepped the boundaries, he cannot be said to be blindly obedient to the Northern Emperor, but at least he has been able to reciprocate the Northern Emperor's orders.

If the Northern Emperor supports the Sixth Prince to return to Ximo to fight for the throne, the Sixth Prince will definitely return the favor to the Northern Emperor. Regardless of the final result, at least it can disrupt the internal situation of Ximo for a certain period of time, and the Ninth Prince's plot will be forced to be postponed or even stranded.

It can be said that the reason why the Sixth Prince was sent to Beiwei as a hostage was fate.

He and the fifth prince of Ximo were twins, born to one of King Ximo's concubines. This concubine was the daughter of a chieftain of a small tribe. She was beautiful and extremely favored by King Ximo, which aroused the jealousy of King Ximo's Queen Consort.

Later, the concubine became pregnant. King Ximo was delighted, but he did not expect that the children turned out to be twins.

Unlike today, twins were considered unlucky in ancient times. Coincidentally, this concubine did die due to complications during childbirth of the twins. The twins were really hardworking. They completed the cabinet's KPI as soon as they were born and killed their mother, which confirmed the rumor that twins were unlucky.

King Ximo was heartbroken over the loss of his beloved concubine, and he transferred all his anger to the two newly born little princes. Not only did he ignore the two little princes, he even gave them very perfunctory names, one named Lu Chengzuo and the other named Lu Chengyou.

Although the twin princes were not favored by King Ximo, they depended on each other and grew up until they were almost six years old. The sixth prince's talent also gradually emerged, which attracted the attention of King Ximo.

Ximo's eldest son was born to the Queen Mother and was extremely precious. There was no room for other princes to have the opportunity to threaten the eldest son's succession to the throne in the future.

In order to extinguish any small sparks that could turn into a big flame, the queen consort, who was eager to protect her son, took a two-pronged approach.

On the one hand, they colluded with a wizard to perform divination, saying that twins are unlucky to begin with, and the fate of the sixth prince is even worse, as it will harm his parents and the country's fortune. The twins must be sent out of the palace and raised separately, and the farther the sixth prince is sent, the better, so that some of the problems can be resolved.

On the other hand, during that period, Ximo and Beikui frequently had frictions on the border, which gradually escalated into a dispute between the two countries. Under the lobbying of the Queen Mother, King Ximo actually allowed his only son to go to the front line to establish military merit. The eldest prince was 20 years old at the time, full of vigor and enthusiasm, eager to make merit, and enthusiastically led the army to garrison the border to resist the invasion of Beikui.

The Queen Mother originally thought that the border war was not serious, and the eldest prince was protected by a group of guards, so there would be no danger. It was nothing more than going to the border to gild himself, get military merits, and thus establish prestige in the army and the royal family.

Unexpectedly, during a skirmish with the Beiwei army, the eldest prince, due to his youthful vigor and greed for merit, was accidentally ambushed and eventually died at the border.

When King Ximo received the news of the death of his eldest prince, it was like a bolt from the blue. The queen was heartbroken and fell ill.

However, Beiwei's army took advantage of the victory and successively captured several cities in Ximo, showing a trend of continuing to expand westwards.

King Ximo was originally skeptical about the divination regarding the Sixth Prince, but the things that happened one after another forced him to believe it.

The Queen Dowager vented all her grief over the loss of her son on the twin princes and asked the all-powerful wizard to cast a spell to exorcise the evil spirits on them.

The wizard was too cautious in his attack. The two young princes were dragged to the altar and knelt to recite the sacrificial text for seven days and nights to eliminate disasters and usher in blessings. The two princes were born with deficiencies and were not well-fed. As a result, after seven days, the fifth prince died on the altar. Although the sixth prince was also dying, he survived tenaciously.

Therefore, the saying that the Sixth Prince had an extremely difficult fate was spread to be more than just a myth.

King Ximo lost two sons in just a few days, one of whom was the eldest son and the future heir to the throne. In addition, the dispute with Beiwei on the border was still ongoing. Beiwei was now in full force, and King Ximo was at a loss and suddenly looked much older.

As the saying goes, when one is desperate, one will try any possible means. This time, King Ximo himself invited the all-powerful wizard to use the ancient secret technique of divination to help the country of Ximo again.

The result of divination is: the disaster in the west will lead to the crossing to the east, and there will be reunion after a long separation.

The hexagram was concise and somewhat obscure, and it was difficult to understand for a while. However, the wizard told King Ximo that he had found a solution to the fate of the sixth prince.