But after that, when Bai Jinzhi continued to associate with the two of them, she had never felt that these two harbored romantic feelings for her. She thought these two were complete scoundrels who wouldn’t be satisfied unless they were causing her trouble all day long.

“Your thoughts are pure, but you’re not stupid. You tell me what I mean…” Sima Ping’s voice was calm as he stared at Bai Jinzhi, waiting peacefully for her answer.

After bathing, Bai Qingyan sat under the lamplight with her half-dry hair loose, reading messages sent from the capital while listening to Liu Pinggao report on Bai Qingjue’s situation.

Previously, when Bai Qingyan and Bai Qingjue had separated to travel different routes, she had let Bai Qingjue take Liu Pinggao with him. When Bai Qingjue learned that his eldest sister had begun patrolling the cities, he sent Liu Pinggao back with part of the troops to protect his eldest sister.

“Your Majesty can rest assured. Now that Wang Jin is by Prince Zhongguo’s side, Prince Zhongguo’s safety is not a problem!” Liu Pinggao said.

Bai Qingyan nodded: “How are the soldiers who went there? Physician Hong said this epidemic is dangerous, with a higher transmission rate than the previous plague within our borders. Have any of our soldiers been infected?”

“The soldiers followed orders. Except for those who settled the disaster victims, none were infected. The soldiers who did fall ill have been properly settled, and with Physician Hong’s prescriptions sent over, it’s not dangerous. Your Majesty can rest assured!” Liu Pinggao said.

“Your Majesty…” Wei Zhong replaced Bai Qingyan’s tea with a fresh cup of hot tea, leaning down to whisper in her ear, “The prefect of Luangao City says the local merchant association president claims… their association wants to donate money to the Great Zhou cities affected by the epidemic!”

When Yan originally divided the cities, thinking that the cities allocated within Yan’s territory would be under Yan’s jurisdiction, they had allocated quite a few prosperous areas, such as… this Luangao City.

In the past, when major natural disasters occurred, the court would have merchants from prosperous areas make donations—there was precedent for this.

Back when Shen Tianzhi was promoting Great Zhou government bonds in the Great Zhou cities within Yan, almost all merchant associations and merchants were forced to purchase them. At that time, their mentality was to treat the silver as donations to the court—it had always been that common people don’t fight with officials, just to keep the peace!

Later, when the court paid interest, these merchants were greatly surprised.

Now that the court was in difficulty, with precedent before them, rather than being forced to donate like when they were previously compelled to buy Great Zhou government bonds, they might as well take the initiative. Perhaps their merchant association could even earn a good reputation, which would benefit all their association members.

Especially since the Great Zhou Emperor had personally come to provide disaster relief, if Great Zhou were to conquer the realm in the future, this Great Zhou Emperor would be the ruler of all under heaven. Their merchant association would have made a name for themselves before the Emperor, which was also a good thing.

How could Bai Qingyan not understand the merchant association’s meaning? Merchants were indeed all shrewd, knowing that being forced to donate versus voluntarily donating would leave completely different impressions in the Emperor’s mind. Since they had no way to resist, they chose the most advantageous approach for themselves.

The corners of her lips curved in the faintest smile: “Let the prefect handle this matter. Also, have… have the prefect record, which merchant households in the association donated how much. I want to see the list!”

If the Emperor wanted to see it, that meant whoever donated the most would have their name at the top and would be most easily remembered by the Emperor. Since everyone was donating and their names would appear before the Emperor, why not be first? The first was the one who would be remembered, just like… people all remembered the name of the previous year’s top scholar, and might also remember the second and third place winners, but who knew the name of the first in the second tier?

Which of these merchants didn’t want to be remembered by the Emperor? Naturally, they would compete to be first, second, or third.

Bai Qingyan didn’t ask how much to donate, only saying she wanted to see the list, exploiting precisely this merchant psychology.

“Yes!” After Wei Zhong responded, he didn’t hurry to send someone to relay the message to the prefect, but instead approached Bai Qingyan and whispered in her ear, “Your Majesty, the prefect… also brought some servants and maids, saying he wanted to present them to Your Majesty!”

The prefect wasn’t sending servants to Bai Qingyan—these servants were all handsome young men in their prime, each more refined than the last, each with red lips and white teeth competing for beauty.

Without Wei Zhong saying it explicitly, Bai Qingyan said: “Have the prefect take them back. Tell him… not just anyone is qualified to serve at My side. If he does what he should do well, I will naturally remember it. He shouldn’t meddle in matters that aren’t his concern.”

“Yes! This servant understands. This servant will go relay the message to the prefect right away!” Wei Zhong withdrew from the upper room where Bai Qingyan was staying.

“You’ve worked hard too.” Bai Qingyan looked up at Liu Pinggao. “Go rest. Tomorrow, after visiting the last city, we… will return!”

“Yes!” Liu Pinggao bowed to Bai Qingyan, then looked up at Bai Qingyan, who already had dark circles under her eyes, and gently advised, “Your Majesty should also rest early!”

Now that Yan’s epidemic was being handled according to Great Zhou’s previous methods for dealing with plagues, it was under control. The refugees had been settled, and after the great disaster, Bai Qingyan would exempt the most severely affected cities from taxes for three years, which should help them recover.

Ultimately, this time the greatest credit belonged to Physician Hong and the other physicians who had risked danger to come to Yan’s territory with her. Physician Hong and the physicians had worked almost without sleep or rest to develop medicine, finally finding the most effective treatment for this epidemic.

When Bai Qingyan, Bai Qingjue, and Shen Tianzhi inspected the cities, they applied the same epidemic prevention methods used in Shuoyang to the Great Zhou cities in Yan, which proved quite effective.

After Liu Pinggao left, Bai Qingyan looked at the messages sent from the capital and fell into deep thought.

The two hostages from Yan held in Great Zhou—Second Prince Murong Ping and Xie Xun—had remained behind closed doors since arriving in Great Zhou. This time, upon learning of Yan’s epidemic, they had taken the initiative to request an audience with A’Yu, wanting to help. When A’Yu didn’t permit it, they knelt without rising.

Xie Xun’s meaning was that since there were now Yan cities within Great Zhou that were not affected by the epidemic, they wanted to go to those cities to do their small part for Yan.

Even Murong Ping said he could continue staying in the capital, letting Xie Xun find a way to at least procure some medicinal herbs and grain to send back to help Yan through its difficulties.

Seeing their firm resolve, A’Yu pretended to be accommodating, saying she needed to ask her, the Great Zhou Emperor’s, opinion. In front of both of them, she wrote a letter to be sent here, then dismissed them both…

Her gaze fell on the letter that had arrived first, knowing A’Yu was using delaying tactics.

How could they let Xie Xun and Murong Ping go to the Yan cities within the Great Zhou? There were Yan troops there.

If they went, wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of holding them as hostages in the Great Zhou?

The second matter A’Yu mentioned in her letter… was that Lu Yuanpeng had become engaged to Wei Bugong’s eldest daughter.

And this time… Bai Jinzhi was personally escorting grain and medicine to the Great Zhou cities in Yan, but Lu Yuanpeng had also requested to follow along.