“That damned village girl……!! She actually dared to speak to Your Majesty about reducing coal production!? And Your Majesty actually agreed to her suggestion!? This is utterly outrageous, utterly outrageous——!!”
“Who knows what that little brat from the Grant family is thinking! Reducing coal production isn’t good for him either, right?! Why is he still helping that village girl!”
“Heh, don’t you all understand yet? The one who wants to reduce coal production isn’t that village girl at all—it’s that little brat from the Grant family! I heard he got completely swindled out of a coal mine by some local noble before! He probably supports reducing coal production because he doesn’t even have any decent coal mines to show for it!”
Several high-ranking nobles huddled together, whispering in the corridor of the palace.
These nobles speculated about the relationship between Ye Tang and Ulysses while analyzing whether Ye Tang was Ulysses’s ventriloquist dummy or the queen’s string puppet.
“Why not just……”
One of the nobles made a beheading gesture.
“Make her disappear.”
“Getting rid of a village girl is easy either way——”
The queen was a fanatic who loved seeing technological progress. The nobles had initially spared no effort in mining coal to please her. But soon, they discovered that coal mines brought them enormous profits.
With the widespread adoption of electricity, the power generated by thermal power plants fell short of demand. More new thermal power plants were built and put into operation one after another. As the source of electricity, coal prices soared accordingly, reaching levels that filled the nobles’ coffers to overflowing.
Capitalists who saw the profits in electricity and coal tried to take a cut from the nobles—some bought mining permits directly with money, others volunteered to manage the operations for the nobles, turning them into hands-off owners who only needed to count the money. Still others, the vanguard faction, directly wired electricity into factories, replacing manual labor with machines to further cut production costs.
The bustling capital leaped into becoming a city that never slept, illuminated by electricity. But at the same time, the consequences of the overuse of thermal power generation began to emerge.
The capital was perpetually shrouded in gray smog; it had become a foggy city where the blue sky was nowhere to be seen.
But what did that matter to nobles who had their own territories and estates? Their lands remained picturesque with clear waters and green mountains, their manors lush and beautiful.
The queen’s palace was somewhat affected by the fog, but the palace servants chalked it up to two years of bad weather. Even when rumors reached them of mysterious deaths in the capital’s slums—victims with no bleeding wounds—they dismissed it as horror stories fabricated by the commoners.
No noble, no palace servant, no one who considered themselves upper-class cared about the deaths of a few commoners, let alone the strange illnesses afflicting hundreds or thousands of them—commoners were unclean and lacked decorum. Weren’t their bizarre diseases just the result of their own carelessness?
Only Ye Tang, who knew these commoners were dying from environmental pollution, sprang into action the moment she entered the capital.
She conducted on-site surveys at the thermal power plants, visited the commoners afflicted with the “strange disease,” and paid them to temporarily relocate from the capital.
Recently, Ye Tang had explained the dangers of environmental pollution to the queen and requested an edict to strictly control coal production, reducing pollution from thermal power plants at the source.
Her actions struck a direct blow to the nobles who had grown fat and rich off coal. Countless nobles opposed Ye Tang’s proposal, claiming she hindered technological innovation and development.
The queen could not tolerate anyone standing against technological innovation and development. In the past, she would have had such obstructors dragged out and beheaded. But with Ye Tang, not only did she refrain from punishing her—she even casually agreed to her idea, willing to control thermal power plant coal consumption at the source as Ye Tang suggested. They would compare to see if coal pollution was truly causing the capital’s abnormal climate and the commoners’ strange illnesses.
According to Ye Tang: If all these bizarre events were caused by coal pollution, then as the pollution level dropped, the capital’s climate anomalies would naturally recover, the afflicted commoners’ symptoms would ease, and at least the number of new cases would decrease.
The nobles looked at Ye Tang as if she were a monster. They simply couldn’t understand how the queen could be so tolerant of this village girl.
Ulysses knew, however. Ye Tang wasn’t opposing progress and development at all—she desired technological advancement and innovation even more than the nobles present.
While rejecting thermal power generation, Ye Tang had also brought alternatives—plans for wind power and hydroelectric generation. These plans were still immature, and the machine designs for wind and water power were barely off the ground.
But the queen’s technicians marveled at Ye Tang’s plans. Many of their eyes lit up, for they saw real potential for implementation!
The queen had already received evaluation reports from her technicians and was very satisfied with Ye Tang’s alternative plans. How could she possibly punish Ye Tang now, the bringer of progress and innovation?
“You gentlemen are certainly enthusiastic about discussing state affairs.”
Ulysses appeared behind the nobles with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Having just passed his fifteenth birthday, Ulysses’s body had shot up like crazy. He woke from nightmares almost every night due to the pain in his growing bones. His belated voice change made his tone low and husky. The young earl had lost some of his pitiful, girlish charm and gained a youthful vigor.
“Ea-Earl Grant……!”
The noble who had made the beheading gesture stumbled back in fright, nearly falling to the ground. The nobles beside him were equally terrified, their backs soaked with sweat.
“What are you doing here……!!”
“Is there something wrong with me being here? This is His Majesty’s palace, and like all of you, I am His Majesty’s subject.”
His lake-green eyes flashed with sharp mockery: “Ah……right. For the sake of us all being His Majesty’s subjects, allow me to remind you gentlemen—”
“Making someone-disappear is indeed easy. The only question is, who will disappear first.”
Pointing at the nobles before him, Ulysses curved his eyes in a light laugh: “It could be you, you, you, or perhaps you. Don’t you agree, gentlemen?”
It was an blatant threat, yet the nobles didn’t dare rebuke Ulysses.
The Earl Grant who had brought that damned village girl was now the queen’s most favored noble! If Earl Gray wished it, he could make their lives hell!
“Oh my, so here you are, Ulysses.”
The speaker was none other than Queen Victoria III. She arrived with Ye Tang in tow, followed by a group of nobles renowned for their appearances.
“Your Majesty.”
Ulysses bowed. The nobles he had just intimidated behind him wished they could bury their heads in the ground, hunching over without daring to breathe.
The queen ignored the nobles behind Ulysses. Adorned in jewels, she dramatically fanned her forehead with a fan: “Come, help me persuade Mary. She says she doesn’t want to attend tonight’s ball.”
“Please don’t force the issue, Your Majesty. Attending a ball requires a dance partner, and I don’t have a suitable one.”
Ye Tang stood beside the queen, her posture so serene and elegant that it outshone any lady in the palace. No……it was more accurate to say Ye Tang stood out from the crowd compared to those noblewomen who had nitpicked her on her first visit to the palace.
She faced the queen without servility or arrogance, conversing with her easily and naturally. Anyone unaware of Ye Tang’s background would assume the woman by the queen’s side was a princess, or at least a cherished noble daughter.
Truth be told, Ulysses was stunned by Ye Tang’s learning ability. Admittedly, he had taught her some court etiquette on the way to the capital, but men’s and women’s etiquette differed. He had no solution for that and figured he could only step in to defend her when the noblewomen tried to verbally attack her.
Ulysses’s worries didn’t last long. Ye Tang seemed to have a photographic memory. Once the noblewomen demonstrated a courtesy before her, she could imitate it perfectly. Three days later, she performed the same postures and gestures more effortlessly than noblewomen who had practiced since childhood, as if she were a born royal.
“Mary, you’re making such boring excuses again. With so many gentlemen here, which one wouldn’t be willing to be your dance partner?”
At the queen’s glance, the flirtatious marquess, the sternly handsome earl, and the queen’s faction of good-looking male nobles all stepped forward, surrounding Ye Tang and inviting her to be their partner.
How could Ye Tang not know the queen wanted to bind her to her chariot with men, love, marriage, and benefits?
Her warm smile unchanged, she said softly: “Your Majesty must be joking. For a village girl like me to be a gentleman’s dance partner—wouldn’t that tarnish the gentlemen’s reputations and besmirch their families’ honor?”
Ye Tang’s words struck a chord with the nobles present. In truth, that was exactly what they thought. Aside from a few declining nobles struggling in high society, no high-ranking noble would willingly accept the queen’s arrangements.
A village girl, and one with a child at that. For the sake of her good looks and figure, they’d be willing to toy with her, make her a mistress. But marry such a village girl? That would let other nobles mock their family for generations: To cling to the queen’s thigh, they’d even sully their own bloodline?
“Please, don’t say it’s a tarnish. Being your escort would be an honor.”
While the other male nobles hesitated at Ye Tang’s words, Ulysses stepped forward. He placed his right hand over his chest, his left behind his back, and bowed to Ye Tang.
“Rosemary, may I have the honor of being your dance partner tonight?”
Ye Tang couldn’t deny her friendship with the young earl. But before friendship came their respective positions and identities.
Ulysses was firmly in the queen’s camp, and Ye Tang didn’t blame him for choosing that side. At the same time, she believed the young earl could understand her choice.