The Villain Princess survived the Imperial Riot

"Hehehe! I've already helped you regain your strength. If you want to go further, you have to make your own choice! Remember, twenty years from now, your soul and body, hehehehe—"

The aura dissipated, leaving only the jade pendant and a hint of power lingering.

Aphra still found it difficult to enter the Dream Palace, which meant that she needed more "old hatred" to nourish this jade token.

"It is indeed the evil god."

Aphra looked gloomy.

But, as long as I can regain my strength, what does it matter even if I have to sell my soul?

Just as she was thinking about leaving, lights suddenly appeared in the distant mountains. Aphra, who had partially recovered her state of mind, looked into the distance and found that it was the iron guards of Yunting Villa searching the mountain!

Did you find out she ran away so soon?

But even if she has recovered some of her realm now, she is still just the weakest apprentice. How can she escape the pursuit of the Iron Guard Sentinel Falcon or even the High Knight?

Seeing the lights in the distance getting closer, Aphra made a quick decision, buried the jade pendant under a big tree, and returned to the direction of the cave.

After a while, the moonlight from the zenith shone down, and a beautiful figure in green blocked her way.

It's that green-haired bitch!

"Your Highness has said that if I want you to die, you can't escape." Yishanyana frowned. "Your Highness, I have done my best by not using the Dark Elves to punish you. If you insist on dying, I can also help you escape unnecessary torture..."

"Okay."

Aphra smiled and stretched out her hands. Iyana thought she was seeking death and was about to attack her when she continued, "Tie me up and present me to your Highness."

"?"

"I can't escape anyway, right?" Aphra sneered. "You know everything she did to me. If you remain loyal to her like this, how is that any different from the cruel Celestial Dragons?"

"Your Highness is Your Highness, and the Dragon is the Dragon." Iyana glanced at Aphra and walked ahead without restraining her. "Besides, the Dark Elves' actions are no more benevolent than the Rise of the Empire."

"Haha." Aphra didn't say much, but just followed behind, not wanting Tiejun to see her in such a miserable state.

She took one last look at the woods; there was nothing there, as if the cabin in the woods was just an illusion.

"You have a lot of blood."

"Killed a wolf."

"Well... I know you are very cunning, but now, don't think about escaping and don't play tricks." Iyana reminded again in a soft voice, wondering why the dark elf who was trying to commit suicide a while ago suddenly changed his temper.

Your Highness must have put drugs in your fingers!

You don't have to drug her, right?

"Hmph, running dog." Aphra cursed.

Yi Qiyana nodded slightly, and then she formed a general impression of Ashanfula.

Suddenly, the elf seemed to sense something, glanced at the woods, then looked away, muttering silently:

"Strange, haven't the traces of Qiu Su been cleaned up yet?"

Volume 90: Bird in a Cage: . Hawk, Dog, Dragon

April to September is the most pleasant period of time on the west coast. During this period, the nobles held banquets, organized hunting trips, and socialized. Political and business exchanges proceeded silently in these joyful gatherings.

During the Sun Dynasty, great nobles often rushed to Shia, the capital of the Kingdom of Fran, to engage in meticulous and dangerous games of chance around the palace. However, with the fall of the dynasty, the extravagant splendor of the past was no longer seen.

However, this tradition continued under the rule of the Supreme Empire, and the nobles continued to gather around the local power center and live in peace and prosperity. Even if they no longer recognized the empire, they would still try their best to keep a place in the circle.

Those who are isolated are not qualified to survive the increasingly dangerous waves.

The river valley has a wide view, the sky is clear and the water is transparent. Flags with intricate emblems flutter along the shore, soldiers in full armor stand silently, gentlemen and ladies dressed in gorgeous clothes stroll together on the grassy fields furnished with cooking utensils, tents and open-air banquets. Transport ships dock at the pier at the river mouth, and hundreds of laborers and servants are working non-stop to unload supplies and huge cargo boxes that even three or five strong men cannot hold down.

Suddenly, a metal cargo box rolled down from the side of the ship, crushing several laborers and overturning them to the ground. Before the injured could scream, the runes engraved on the cargo box suddenly shattered, and a magical beast with six slanted eyes, lion's mane and scorpion tail rushed out of it, trampled on the terrified servants, and pounced on the strolling crowd.

"Oh!"

Before the armored sergeant could react, a gunshot startled the birds in the forest and two balls of blood exploded on the monster's face, but it just rolled over a few times and crashed into a tent, then used inertia to step off the ground and fly into the air. In the sunlight, a huge shadow covered the pale-faced guests.

"Whoosh!"

A dagger pierced the monster's skull, ripping its spine as it flew toward the sun. Then the monster fell to the ground, its head and spine shattered, as if a canal had been opened, and the scarlet water of life was irrigating the field of flesh and blood.

The arrogant Tianlong was riding on horseback bored, still holding her gun, walking side by side with a young and burly officer.

"Your Highness is a good marksman," the officer praised.

He was handsome, but his eyes and eyebrows revealed a maturity that was extremely disproportionate to his appearance. His temperament was stern, like a Shura who had walked through a sea of ​​blood.

"The general is truly an eye-opener." Hestia maintained a faint smile.

Freeman Ant, the supreme commander of the Yunling Military Region, is the ultimate person responsible for all the atrocities committed by the 100,000 Iron Army.

Although he looked like a man in his thirties, General Ant had already passed his eightieth birthday. Hestia felt that if the emperor really wanted to take drugs, dragging the old general away to make elixirs would definitely produce miraculous results.

"Your Highness is an unparalleled archer and a master of martial virtue," a portly man, leading a horse in front of the princess, praised her sincerely. "Even the most experienced archer in the army is probably no better than you. It seems Your Highness will easily capture the first prize this time."

Adrian Hesse, the Governor General, was walking in front of the two men with a bow at every step. It was not because he was bullied by the nobles, but because he was willing to serve them in public.

The undisputed core of Yunling Province is the provincial governor and the military district general, and perhaps also the rumored ruthless Chief Inspector, but in terms of influence and absolute status, Lucas Stein is far inferior to the two.

However, all the upper-class people with a little bit of connections know that the real boss in Yunling is someone else.

Descendant of the supreme dragon, of noble royal blood, ruler of the empire, conqueror of Fran...

People don't need to know what she looks like or where she comes from. Just by hearing the word "Tianlong", her tyrannical image of a woman who controls the powerful like an eagle or a dog and treats all living beings like slaves will come to mind.

However, no matter how one imagines, it cannot compare to the scene at this moment - the dignified governor's servile appearance made the invited celebrities wish they could dig out their eyes, puncture their eardrums, and forget what they saw and heard today.

But no one dared to laugh at the servile fat pig. Thinking about it another way, being able to lead a horse for the Celestial Dragons meant that one had one foot in the world of fame and fortune in the Divine Capital.

Even Freeman Ant, although he despised it, would not take advantage of the situation like the Chief Inspector did.

As the saying goes, if you don't see it when you look up, you will see it when you look down. The military district and the governor's office are partners with deeply intertwined interests. General Ant has to admit that Governor Hesse has a talent for collusion - even if the provincial citizens' belts are tight, the governor can find ways to ensure that the imperial officials and iron army soldiers have enough food and clothing.

Hestia made no comment on the fawning governor, but watched as several servants laboriously carried the monster away, and calmly accepted the enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

Whether she likes it or not, she is the center of this aristocratic activity. Even the governor and generals have to listen to the advice of the Celestial Dragons.

But Hestia knew that there was no way Furman Ant would be as submissive as Adrian Hesse.

The fat governor is the son-in-law of the Hesse family. He has only one daughter and is as chaste as a virtuous woman. Even though he and his wife are thousands of miles apart, he writes a ten-thousand-word love letter every week.

Hestia had heard that the lady of the Hesse family had troll blood, that every step she took could leave marks on the marble tiles, and that she could devour a goose alive with a single mouthful. Even Knight Commander Clara would be awed by this. Therefore, the princess might question the Governor's character, but she would never question his resolve.

This is a man who is loyal to power, and he happens to understand where that power comes from.

But Ling Fuman Mengant was different. Not to mention that he was a veteran of the third dynasty and had served as King Charles II's successor, but just by virtue of his status as a native prince of the empire and an elder of the Ant family, it was difficult for Hestia to treat him like a dog.

From time to time, servants would release flocks of pigeons, and then there would be endless gunshots from the ground. The unlucky pigeons, hit by ordinary lead bullets, would fall to the ground. The servants would immediately rush over, remove the bullets from the wounds of the dead pigeons, and identify the engraved letters.

Hestia also fired a shot. She didn't aim, so naturally she didn't hit anything. But more than a dozen servants still came running over, saying that His Highness's shooting skills were superb and he could hit several targets with one shot. Then they quarreled over which pigeons His Highness had killed.

The princess was speechless and could only ride to the quiet riverside. Then she said casually, "General, those rumors spreading on the west coast have been rampant recently. Do you have any clues?"

The rumors she was talking about were about the Iron Army coming in and massacring dozens of small towns.

These rumors spread across the seven seas in the West Coast newspapers, and the news of hundreds of thousands of deaths would make the necromancers' heads turn red with excitement.

The Governor's Office wanted to suppress the rumors, but it could not stop the public from talking.

Even Hestia felt a wave of weakness.

"That's the rebels' slander against us! I suggest that military control be implemented in Yunling, and those rebel accomplices who spread rumors and caused trouble be arrested and tortured severely." Freeman Ant said with a serious expression.

"Heh." Hestia laughed.

Fuman Ant frowned. "Your Highness, do you really believe those rumors and think that the Imperial Iron Army is the kind of people who kill innocent people and take credit for their own achievements?"

"General, your loyalty to the Empire is of course entirely within my control. The meritorious soldiers will receive their due rewards." Hestia paused, then pointed to a mud pond and said, "General, how many fish can you catch from that pond?"

"Your Highness, you are joking. There is only a mud pit filled with water after the rain, and there is not even a fish fry to be found. How can I create something out of nothing?" After saying this, Freeman Ant understood what the princess meant and hesitated to speak.

If someone else dared to "teach" him in this way, the general would have punched the rapper into a pulp. Even if it was a prince or princess, he would have ignored it at most.

But the principle that whoever gives you milk is your mother is true everywhere, and the prince in front of me can really make a lot of gold coins.

The finances and taxation of the five provinces of Fran were in a state of corruption, and Yunling's annual tax revenue was only around 500,000 gold shields. This remained unchanged regardless of good harvests, peace or natural or man-made disasters.

The Yunling Military Region's annual military expenditure was as high as 1.8 million gold shields at its most exaggerated time.

The soldiers in the military district all have their own land, which saves the empire a lot of military pay costs to a certain extent. However, even in this situation, the Yunling Military District can still come up with a military expenditure of 1.8 million gold shields. Even if the Duke of Yunling went bankrupt two hundred years ago, he would not be able to maintain such a huge expenditure.

It was impossible to disarm the army. In the face of the increasingly tight financial budget of the empire, the border military regions began to become self-reliant in their own way.

Were the smuggling operations really carried out only by the bureaucrats of the Governor's Office? Were the towns that were massacred truly filled with rebels? With grain prices rising sharply during the disaster, wouldn't the Iron Army soldiers, part of the landlord group, have taken advantage of the situation?

Hestia could certainly guess the answer, but even she didn't dare to say it out loud.

This problem also made Freeman Ant feel extremely anxious - the military district's budget had been reduced to 80 gold shields last year, which was a fraction of the "grand occasion" of that year. Being so poor, if he still dared to question his subordinates about military discipline, he would probably be brought to trial by the officers the next day to question his motives.

Generally speaking, providing gold coins for the Iron Army masters is the highest good, and Freeman Ant doesn't care how many unruly people die. But now, the princess is clearly even more capable of generating gold coins. In less than three months, 300,000 gold shields have arrived, which is even more substantial than killing innocent people and claiming credit! If the princess could generate this much gold every quarter, I'm afraid the Yunling Iron Army would have to change their name to Luolin on the spot.

General Ant didn't care about his last name. Compared with that mediocre king who could only go in and out of the capital, how was the princess any worse than him?

For this reason, Forman Ant looked straight ahead, remained calm, and said nothing. It was certainly impossible for an eighty-year-old general to bow to a young girl, but he also didn't show any arrogance.

"Let's just treat it as a rumor," Hestia smiled. "No matter how many times you roll around in this muddy pond, all you'll pull out is mud. If the general wants to sustainably drain the pond to catch fish, he'll need to release fry and put in the effort to feed them."

Being taught such a lesson by a fifteen-year-old princess was a bitter experience for Fuman Ant. However, when he thought of the incoming gold shield and the prospect of further advancement for the Ant family, the general smiled kindly and nodded, "Your Highness is right."

"Yunling has a great foundation. As early as two hundred years ago, it was the most prosperous region in Fran, not much worse than Xia. Now it's just rehabilitation training. I heard some people criticizing me for selling official positions..."

"Those scoundrels are short-sighted!" Freeman Ant immediately affirmed the princess's position. He himself was a viscount, ruling over tens of thousands of households, including the ratmen. He knew that simply selling titles wouldn't allow him to make the kind of fortune the princess did.

The empire has done things like running the printing press to full capacity before, but the price is severe hyperinflation and the rapid obsolescence of paper money that is not directly exchangeable for gold shields.

But the price of the franc did not change much this month, and even the salaries of the Iron Army soldiers were paid in francs.

He doesn't know whether the printing press is under pressure or not, but at least he is no longer under pressure.

Thinking in this way, Freeman Ant could more or less understand the "accountability" in the princess' words.

It's indeed inappropriate to drain the pond to catch all the fish. With this in mind, Freeman Ant lowered his posture a little and asked, "Your Highness, do you want to revive Yunling's finances?"

"Yunling's finances are the Governor's responsibility. How can I, a mere princess, abuse my authority without the Emperor's order?"

"Your Highness, you are joking! All the people in the world regard Tianlong as their king, father, and mother. They are all your subjects, and it is only natural that you discipline them!"

"One thing at a time." Hestia shook her head. "The Governor should focus more on his duties."