Chapter 287: Chapter 208: Civet Cat for the Crown Prince, Golden Canary Hexagram, "Dragon Robe and Phoenix Attitude" Fate Grid

Imperial Capital.

The next day, bright and early.

The newly printed issues of the Great Yan Mansion Report were snatched up by scholars and commoners alike.

Two massive headlines stood out.

The first announced that the Demon Country’s army was advancing on the border on multiple fronts, leading to the brutal massacre of many cities in Great Yan. The major powers of the Three Religions had dispatched their top cultivators to defend the Great Wall. Furthermore, Great Yan’s new Saint and Sage, Qi Xingyan, was appointed Guardian Envoy of the Celestial Profound Continent. He would oversee the governance of the six border continents and wield the Emperor’s sword, granting him the authority to govern Celestial Profound and execute any who disobeyed on the spot.

Prince Zhenbei and the Champion Marquis in the Northwest would coordinate and await his orders.

The specific casualty figures were not tallied.

Or perhaps, no one dared to reveal them.

The shocking numbers would be a harsh sting to the many people still basking in an age of peace and prosperity.

Fortunately, the most critical passes along the Great Wall had not fallen, Yulu Pass among them.

In fact, the places defended by the common folk of small border towns had mostly held strong.

Instead, it was the well-armed military garrisons that had fallen one by one, unable to resist the armies of the Underworld.

Within the Underworld, the hierarchy is strict; the weak are prey for the strong, and the powerful are revered. It contains ten great races, at least half of which were participating in the invasion of Great Yan. According to known military intelligence, many Demon Fiend and heretical cultivators have been sighted. Examples include cruel, flesh-eating male and female Rakshasas; the Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts and those who command it; floating cities that drift like phantom palanquins; profane beings whose flesh bodies are made of bone and sinew; and bizarre humanoids that continue to walk even after being decapitated.

This news undoubtedly made the situation even more grim.

The second piece of news was even more shocking to the populace.

The Great Nether Empress had proposed her sole condition for withdrawing her troops: a marriage alliance.

Prince Huai’an would have to marry into the Great Netherworld, to become a live-in son-in-law in the Demon Country?

The Grand Ancestor of Great Yan was brilliant and martial. Since his meteoric rise, Great Yan had been a nation founded on martial might, sweeping across the vast wilderness, unifying the Four Seas, and seizing the Celestial Mandate of the Central Plains. Only in the last century had the Dynasty gradually shifted to rule by Confucian principles, ushering in an age of prosperity.

In the past, it was always other, smaller nations that sent their princesses for marriage alliances to maintain stable relations with Great Yan.

When had there ever been a precedent of a Great Yan prince marrying into the Holy Netherworld as a live-in son-in-law?

Ceding territory and paying reparations was even more unthinkable.

Nearly everyone considered this an unprecedented humiliation!

By capturing the culprits and publicly beheading the Underworld cultivators who had disobeyed her orders, the Great Nether Empress was seen as giving the Great Yan Dynasty immense face. Moreover, the perpetrators were confirmed to be cultivators from the Underworld, not the Empress’s own people.

The Underworld was not entirely under the jurisdiction of the Great Nether Court; its status was equivalent to that of the Three Religions, and the two were not directly related.

Of course, it was unclear whether these actions were feigned sincerity with ulterior motives, but on the surface, she had done everything that could be expected and more.

Some astute observers noted that this Great Nether Empress’s mind and methods surpassed all previous Monarchs of the Great Netherworld.

From the moment the Holy Netherworld dispatched its troops, the Demon Country had dominated the narrative of the war, holding the initiative firmly in its grasp.

Originally, it was Great Yan that had taken advantage of the Demon Country’s internal turmoil, launching a sneak attack with its Northwest army on their southern prefectures and causing them losses.

For them to suppress the rebellion and then turn around to settle the score was, in a way, reasonable.

Moreover, the Great Nether Empress had enforced military discipline, punished her own people, and offered an apology, leaving Great Yan with no grounds to condemn the Demon Country.

She even proposed a solution to the conflict.

"As long as the Great Yan Court agrees to the marriage alliance and sends the Crown Prince to marry into my country, I will not pursue the matter of your sneak attack and will withdraw my troops immediately."

This matter became an extremely thorny issue for the Great Yan Court to handle.

Relations between great nations are all about appearances; as long as everyone can save face, everything is negotiable.

After all, no one truly wants war. There’s an old saying: to kill a thousand enemies, you sacrifice three hundred of your own. Such conflicts can easily allow other nations to profit from the chaos. It’s a matter of "you give me a way to back down, and I’ll give you one." Now, the Demon Country had indeed offered a way out, and a very generous one at that.

She had gone so far as to execute her own people. The face given was more than enough to quell most of the public’s outrage within the Dynasty.

If it all ended with a marriage alliance, then in the future, they could go their separate ways without interfering with each other.

But that single demand had forced the Cabinet into several days of meetings, with no resolution in sight.

The Imperial Palace Cabinet Hall was resplendent and magnificent.

The various Cabinet Ministers were all at a loss. Wang He’fu sat ramrod straight before his desk, a Cinnabar Brush in hand, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

’A marriage alliance?’

’It’s not that a marriage alliance itself is shameful,’ he thought, ’but the idea of the Great Yan Dynasty entering one with the Demon Country... that was something he had never considered.’

There was no precedent for the Great Yan Dynasty giving one of its own in a marriage alliance—not even a Princess or a Commandery Princess.

Other nations had only ever sent their people to Great Yan.

’Would the common people resent such a thing? That is the first issue.’

’The second issue is that the Demon Country executed its own people. The cost of doing so is immense. After all, there is a saying: side with your own, right or wrong. Unless the consequences were too great, one would never turn on their own men.’

’Wouldn’t the soldiers and generals of the Holy Netherworld feel disheartened by this in the future?’

’From the Great Nether Empress’s perspective, she wouldn’t have been wrong even if she hadn’t executed her own people. After all, she isn’t afraid of Great Yan, and she held the moral high ground; Great Yan was the one who started the trouble in the first place.’

’Yet, the Great Nether Empress chose to kill her own people to give the Great Yan Dynasty a way out, even at the risk of offending the powers of the Underworld. This was a huge gesture of face, almost a self-abasement.’

’And yet, all of this was done merely for a marriage alliance.’

’It’s a little strange.’

’If the Demon Country had done all this and then demanded other benefits, he would have found it perfectly normal. But to do it all merely for a marriage alliance... it was more than a little strange. It was truly bizarre.’

’It’s not that a marriage alliance is difficult; on the contrary, it’s a very simple matter.’

’From the perspective of the Cabinet and the Court, a marriage alliance was nothing more than selecting a Prince, sending him over to marry into their line, breaking Great Yan’s tradition of never doing so, and losing some face in the process.’