In the blink of an eye, a year flew by. Gong Yimo was now fifteen years old.

  She now sat in the arbor next to the river, watching the progress made by the workers. She estimated that these secret riverways will be completed within this month. When it was completely she will be rolling in money, Gong Yimo drank her herbal tea with leisure while watching the pleasant country scene.

  After a year of hard work, Gong Yimo became a fairly wealthy lady under the endless support of Imperial Consort Yun. She cooperated with Jin Yun to acquire multiple pawnshops and turned them into banks.

  During this year and a half, the emperor spent most of his time at Yun Jin’s place. Her “pillow talk” was very impactful, combined with the country backing her as well as Jin Yun’s generous budget, the bank made a great deal of profit even though it was still at its initial stage of business.

  Jin Yun finally was living a stable and peaceful life. All of this, however, were built on top of his mother’s sacrifice. He had no choice but to work hard so that his mother’s sacrifice will not be in vain.

  However, Yun Jin was not the same as the Yun Jin from before.

  A year ago, the eldest royal prince went with Lu Zha to Lou Ye without fully recovering from his injury. The eldest prince’s mother cried with deep grievance as she knelt outside Imperial Consort Yun’s palace for an entire day and night, pleading for mercy. However, she didn’t even get to see Yun Jin before he fainted from kneeling for too long.

  Later on, because the fourth prince’s ear sickness wasn’t properly treated, he became deaf and had to cut off one of his ears. He can be considered as a cripple after that incident.

  Because of this, his mother found trouble for Yun Jin multiple times. One day, she even caused Yun Jin to fall into the water. As a result, her title had been degraded by three ranks by the emperor. Now, even the empress had to avoid her in the imperial palace.

  Gong Yimo had already seen enough disputes in the imperial harem. She was happy being an aide; whenever she wanted to do something, she just needed to ask Jin Yun to ask Yun Jin. Yun Jin would always agree, so Gong Yimo hasn’t seen Yun Jin in a long time.

  At that moment, someone sent a secret notice: it was news regarding Da Yu.

  After she acquired money and human resources, she had been keeping track of the four big countries, especially Da Yu. Even she herself can’t understand why she was so curious about these news, but she couldn’t help but want to hear about their rumors.

  When the marquis’s residence was holding a funeral procession, the empress was originally planning to break off the marriage between the crown prince and Su Miaolan. However, when Miss Su fell into the water and was rescued by the crown prince, her reputation had been ruined. In response, the crown prince promised to wait for Su Miaolan for three years in front of everyone.

  His action shocked the entire royal court!

  The people from the marquis’s residence expressed their gratitude to Gong Che, but the empress was angered till she was ill.

  When the empress’s condition slightly improved, Gong Che went to visit her once. It was unknown what they had said, but the empress didn’t press the matter anymore. After that, Gong Che went to Huaihe River alone.

  The blueprint of the Jade Dragon Canal was surveyed and calculated by her, so Gong Che won’t change the path of the tributary route on his own initiative. So after she finish digging the Yuheng riverway, Da Yu would probably be done soon.

  But the trade between the two countries won’t get around Gong Che, so the chances of the two of them meeting will be pretty high.

  Gong Che said he liked her then, but now…… she doesn’t know what the situation was like.

  Of course, she heard the most news about Gong Jue in Yuheng. It was almost as if he was trying to emphasize his existence on purpose. She didn’t even need to deliberately ask about him to hear about what he was up to.

  He rescued the emperor from the tiger’s den in the hunting ground. Another example was when the emperor had fallen seriously ill, he had served the emperor until he fell unconscious. Recently, he was bestowed the treasured sword by the emperor and had eliminated all the corrupted officials, confiscating numerous properties under those corrupt officials.

  He was present during every bloodbath; even though he was still young, the corrupt officials were terror-stricken by him.