My brother entrusted his child to me, and I livestreamed raising the baby, making the Empress cry wi

"Whether it's the eldest princess or General Wang himself, as long as the grain tax isn't increased, who the emperor is has nothing to do with us."

The speaker was an old farmer dressed in coarse cloth, his trousers still stained with mud he had brought from the fields. The mud had now been soaked by the rain and turned into several blurry brown patches on his gray trousers.

He lived through three emperors in his lifetime. Every time a new emperor ascended the throne, people said that the world was about to change, but his fields were still the same fields, and his plow was still the same plow. Except for tax increases and wars, life went on as usual.

Many of the local people echoed his sentiments.

Yes, it doesn't matter who the emperor is. Anyway, the crops have been planted, and there will be relief grain distributed by the court before the harvest. As long as we can eat our fill, that's fine.

But many others were there, loudly proclaiming the unreasonableness of this approach.

A younger man sitting in the middle of the shop snorted, "A five-year-old girl sitting on the dragon throne? Isn't that treating the country like a game? Does Wang Meng think he's the regent?!"

Another tall, thin man leaning against the shelf chimed in.

The man looked to be around forty years old, with sunken cheeks and prominent cheekbones. His high-pitched voice carried a smug, all-knowing air about him.

"I think the eldest princess is probably being used as a puppet emperor! Wang Meng and Lin Ye's collusion is tantamount to stripping our Great Yan of its throne!"

This remark was echoed by many others, and the store immediately erupted in a commotion.

The shopkeeper paused in his wiping motion, thought for a moment, and then immediately called over the waiter.

The waiter could tell he was also from the Western Regions, with a distinctly foreign face. He bent down and leaned closer.

The shopkeeper, speaking in a low voice, summarized the current situation in a few words in a foreign language, and then told him to return to the Western Regions immediately to report to the king.

Perhaps this is a new opportunity for them...

……

Lin Ye stopped paying attention to Da Yan and focused his attention back on Xiao Douzi beside him.

His gaze shifted from the reflection in the windowpane to her profile. The coldness that had risen in his eyes upon seeing Shu Jingwei vanished rapidly, and his expression softened once more.

The Ferris wheel cabins continued to rise slowly, passing the treetops, the castle spires, and the tallest building in the park.

The scenery outside the window gradually descended, and the view became increasingly expansive.

The lights on the ground became smaller and denser, gradually merging together.

The streetlights, colored lights, building facade light strips, decorative light strings... all the light sources gradually shrink and converge as the distance between them is increased.

Each lamp became a point of light, gold, silver, blue, pink... a complex array of colors, densely covering the entire field of vision.

It's like someone spilled a basket of broken gold onto a black velvet cloth.

The outline of the amusement park was also clearly outlined by those points of light.

The winding main road, the circular canopy of the carousel... it's like a map drawn by light, every stroke is clear.

In the distance, city lights stretched out in long, thin ribbons on the horizon, their warm yellow glow emanating from the buildings and forming endless fields of light.

Those bands of light merged with the stars in the night sky, making it impossible to distinguish between the lights and the starlight.

The cockpit rose to its highest point.

The moment the cockpit came to a stop at the top, it was as if the whole world had been paused.

The wind brushed against the outside of the bulkhead very lightly, making a very soft "hum".

The entire amusement park is at your feet.

Little Douzi didn't dare blink, afraid that she would miss something if she blinked.

Her face was pressed against the glass, and a small, flat, round mark was pressed into the tip of her nose.

Just then, it suddenly started snowing outside.

When the first snowflake landed on the glass, Xiaodouzi hadn't even realized what was happening.

It drifted down from the dark blue background and was gently pressed against the glass in front of her by the wind.

Then came the second, the third… and more and more, melting into the outside of the cabin and being dyed in various vibrant colors by the amusement park lights.

Xiao Douzi's eyes widened instantly. She sat up abruptly from the glass, turned to look at Lin Ye, and pointed out the window with one finger, exclaiming in surprise:

"Godfather, Godfather! It's snowing!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Ye looked out the window.

The white snowflakes were falling steadily, and many landed on the glass roof of the cabin, accumulating into a thin layer.

Soon, the water melted into tiny droplets due to the slight warmth of the cabin, and slowly slid down the curved cabin wall.

The first snow of the year has arrived.

……

Outside the Great Flame Kingdom, in the South China Sea.

The countries here are mostly island nations, scattered across the blue waves. Some islands are large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people, while others are so small that they can only accommodate a few fishing families.

The island is covered with lush vegetation, and the palm leaves are as large as open umbrellas. The coconut trees along the beach stretch their trunks crookedly towards the sea.

The climate is hot and humid almost all year round, and the air is always filled with a salty, fishy smell of the sea.

It's late April now, and the rainy season is approaching, so there will indeed be a little more rainfall than before. However, since it's not yet the rainy season, the rain won't last long—that's how it should be.

But this year is very unusual.

It started raining in the South China Sea at the beginning of April.

For the first two days, it was just a continuous drizzle. The rain was so fine and dense that it didn't hurt when it hit my skin; in fact, it felt cool and comfortable.

The children on the island would even run out into the rain, treating it as a free shower.

But from the third day onwards, the rain became heavy and torrential.

The raindrops changed from silk threads to beads, and finally strung together into lines, pattering against the roof like someone was whipping the entire island.

The heavy rain pounded into the soil, creating small craters. Before the water in the craters could seep in, the newly falling rain turned them into a muddy mess.

It has been raining continuously for more than half a month now.

The islands are like sponges that have been pressed into a basin of water, with every pore filled with water.

It has been raining continuously for more than half a month now, and many homes on the islands have been flooded.

The rain showed no signs of stopping and continued to fall.

The sky was covered by thick, leaden clouds, with not a single crack for miles around.

By this time, when the rain came down from the sky, it was pouring down in large swaths, as if someone had poked a hole in the sky and hadn't patched it up.

The kings of the South China Sea countries had no choice but to gather together to discuss the matter.

"We can no longer sit idly by and wait to die!"

The oldest of the group, Wang, spoke first, his voice hoarse from not having rested properly for many days, sounding as if it had been sanded.

"Continuous heavy rain is most likely to anger the sea god..." His cloudy gaze shifted from above the oil lamp in the hall, sweeping across every face at the table.

"If the sea god really gets angry and stirs up a huge wave, none of us will survive!"

We have to get out of here!

The other kings all agreed that this made sense, and they began to discuss which way to go.

The east, west, and south sides are all deep oceans with no islands, so it's definitely not the right direction to go.

They eventually decided to head north to the nearest continent—the Great Flame Kingdom.