Marry the Princess or Not
Su Li let out a surprised "Eh?" She still remembered Prince Ling saying that the Marquis Weiyuan Estate only had the heir, Xiao Zitian, holding it up, and that Xiao Zitian needed a huge amount of military funds to maintain his troops, so money was extremely tight. But now, hearing him talk like this, he seemed to be quite wealthy?
Xiao Zitian looked at Su Li's wide-eyed surprise and said proudly, "In the future, I'll entrust my private treasury to you to manage, and then you'll know just how rich a man you've married. This general is definitely not one to live off others!"
Su Li stuck out her tongue at his boastfulness, unable to help herself: "Go ahead and be smug, huh!"
Seeing Su Li's relaxed expression, Xiao Zitian was secretly pleased and said, "As for Tu Dan, his real name is Xiao Yun. He's my most trusted confidant, highly skilled in martial arts, and leads the Xiao family's secret guards. Lingdang and your three male disciples are also among the Xiao family's elite secret guards. I placed them around you not to monitor you or to sneakily learn your cooking skills. With their abilities, if they wanted to spy on you, they could just perch on the kitchen roof every day without you ever noticing. If they wanted to learn from you, there’s no need for such complicated sneaky methods like formally becoming your apprentices."
"Sounds like you have a point," Su Li hummed a few times, agreeing with Xiao Zitian's words. She relaxed a bit and poked his chest, "So, what about your noble fiancée, Princess Mingyu of Chu?"
Mentioning Princess Mingyu, Xiao Zitian pressed his forehead, looking very troubled: "This time, I originally planned to use Prince Ling to get rid of that arranged marriage, but who knew such a change would happen halfway through..."
Xiao Zitian then told Su Li about his plan within a plan to fake his death to trick Prince Ling into marrying Princess Mingyu, then reappear later. He then poked Su Li’s nose and said, "Who would’ve thought my wife here would be so charming that Prince Ling would go to any lengths to kidnap you, forcing me to appear and rescue you, ruining the entire plan."
Su Li widened her eyes, surprised that it was because of her that Xiao Zitian's plan to break the engagement was ruined. Well... that wasn't Xiao Zitian's fault; he did try to break the engagement, but fate had other plans.
"Hmph humph..." Su Li hummed a few more times, feeling guilty and innocent at the same time. "Now that the emperor and Princess Mingyu know you're not dead, does that mean you have to marry the princess?"
"Of course not," Xiao Zitian immediately stated.
"An imperial marriage decree? Do you think you can just ignore it?" Su Li expressed disbelief.
Xiao Zitian's expression darkened a bit: "I'll find a way to maneuver through this and push back the marriage."
"So you haven't figured it out yet? No solution?" Su Li raised an eyebrow at him.
Xiao Zitian didn't want to keep lying to her and nodded honestly: "At the moment, there isn't a better solution..."
Su Li bit her lip and pushed him a few times: "So that means you're still the fiancée of another woman!"
"No, no, I'm my wife Ali's husband! Who the other woman is, I don't even care!" Xiao Zitian immediately declared.
"Really? But I heard you and Princess Mingyu seem to be old acquaintances, having met on the battlefield, and there was some mutual respect." Su Li looked at Xiao Zitian suspiciously.
Xiao Zitian broke out in a sweat: "There’s really nothing between me and her. It was just that back then, the two countries were at war. As the Grand General of Jin, I fought against Chu's army several times. I heard that Princess Mingyu was in the opposing army and that she... liked me. But at the time, my whole focus was on winning the war, so I didn’t pay attention to any princess or mutual respect. That was just gossip from the streets, not to be taken seriously."