Chapter230

Elara was very surprised, "You want to go back with me?"

Elara was very surprised, "You want to go back with me?"

Mathias heard the surprised voice of the girl beside him. He answered with a soft "Hmm" and tightened his hold on her hand.

The Pei Family had once been a dead knot in his heart. But maybe that knot had been there too long, and the hole it made had grown too deep. He was already numb to it.

Today she personally brought him back to untie it. Seeing his parents and brother's painful and angry eyes, Mathias found that he didn't feel as happy as he once hoped.

His emotions hardly moved. Instead, while his mother comforted him with care, he lightly pinched his own fingers, thinking about what Elara might see inside the Pei Family residence.

"I want to go back with you."

He repeated softly in her ear.

When she was in the southern lands, his brother's angry questions often echoed in his mind.

He did not know when his feelings for her changed.

But when he was close to death, she saved him. When he didn't want to live, she found him, pulled him back, and made him want to live. Even though his body became like this, she never showed disgust. She was still willing to hold him, sleep beside him, soothe, heal, and support him.

The matters of the Pei Family seemed to drift away from him over the past few months.

Now, in his mind, what he thought about every day was more about... her.

So just treat him as the abused brother his brother said he was. No matter how she treated him before, he now didn't want to leave her.

Elara reached out and lifted Mathias's face from her neck, wanting to see what expression he had when he said those words.

Why would he leave the Pei Family to come into her palace?

"Mathias, if you worry your body isn't fully healed yet, then maybe..."

But before Elara could finish, Mathias surprisingly interrupted her.

He held her left hand that was cupping his face and, right in front of her, gently kissed the side of her face. Elara instinctively curled her fingers, more surprised than before as she looked at him.

"Don't worry. The things you and Oswyn once said, I will also follow."

"I don't need any titles. I want to stay by your side, all of this is my choice."

He gently rubbed her hand with his cheek. His dark green eyes showed a kind of longing and tenderness never seen before.

"So, Your Majesty, please agree."

"This is the only thing Mathias wants now."

On the way back to the palace with Mathias, Elara did not ride in a carriage. Instead, she walked slowly with him through Plumera City.

Most places in Plumera City had been repaired and rebuilt. More and more people were coming in, making the city livelier. With the court strongly supporting various developments, many shops and houses that had been closed or sealed for various reasons were now mostly reopened.

Elara led Mathias to a small shop.

This little shop sold some carved rabbit toys, very similar to the small items Elara had just seen in Mathias's room.

Mathias had liked rabbits when he was young!

This matched his gentle personality somewhat.

Elara looked at the delicate and small toys and smiled. She bought a few cute little rabbit pendants and handed them to Mathias.

"For you."

Mathias took the three vivid rabbit pendants. After a brief pause, a slight smile appeared on his lips.

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

The original emperor went to his room today.

Mathias put the three small rabbit pendants inside his chest pocket. He held Elara's hand a little tighter and continued walking with her through the new Plumera City.

Taking advantage of this evening, Elara explored most of the newly rebuilt Plumera City.

Thinking that if some people found Mathias with three little rabbits and that he had nothing, they would probably come to cause trouble for her again, Elara bought some more small items to take back while walking with Mathias.

When she came out of the last shop, she suddenly noticed a tall building under renovation ahead.

The building was five stories tall. It looked like it was reinforced and rebuilt on top of an old tavern. It stood out among the surrounding buildings as the tallest on the street.

The interior was also very new and beautiful. Above the main entrance on the ground floor hung a plaque covered by red cloth that had not been removed yet. On it were three large characters: Jade Flame Tower.

Was it going to be a new teahouse or a flower house?

"What is it?" Mathias's voice came from beside her. Elara looked away and shook her head. "Nothing. Maybe I was mistaken."

She thought she had just seen Imani inside that building... but the light inside was dim. She only saw a rough silhouette and was not sure.

Elara did not look again and kept walking toward the palace with Mathias.

After their figures passed the tall building, a slender and handsome figure appeared on the third-floor balcony. He stared at her back from afar.

Only after Elara and the man beside her disappeared around the street corner did the figure slowly withdraw his gaze. He lowered his eyes slightly and sat motionless by the window railing, watching as the night grew deeper.

The power of his family and his own medical skills kept growing, and he also had solid experience in managing medical businesses.

This time, he came to Plumera not just to take the imperial exam out of curiosity, but also because he had heard that Oswyn, the young master of the Divine Healer Valley, had become the head of the Plumera medical department. That was why he signed up so eagerly.

He had long admired the Divine Healer Valley, known as the top medical family on the continent, and he was extremely curious about Oswyn himself.

After Elara saw his situation, she directly transferred him to the medical department. His official position was changed to the same level as the Left Deputy Minister of the medical department, specifically to help Oswyn with planning, organizing, and other administrative tasks he wasn't good at.

Elara didn't hand over all the authority either. She also transferred another native student from Marigold County under Kristof — a young man named Yan Qian — and appointed him as the Right Deputy Minister of the Medical Department.

Yan Qian was also a talented person. Although he didn't come from a noble family, he was someone General Qi had rescued while clearing towns outside Marigold County. At that time, the clinic his family owned had already been destroyed, and he had become a beggar.

Still, driven by a healer's heart, even as a drifter, Yan Qian had continued using his medical skills to treat people around him.

After being brought back to Marigold County by General Qi, he first joined the Medical Department there. However, because he had missed the county's civil exams, he never held an official position.

Once news of the upcoming national exams in Plumera City reached Marigold, the officials there strongly recommended him. They praised not only his exceptional medical skill but his overall talent, though he lacked an official examination record, so they pushed him to attend the exams in Plumera City.

Yan Qian ended up placing second in the medical division. From his background, he was also proficient in arithmetic, which was rare in this era, and was considered a science-minded scholar with sharp thinking.

His character and past behavior were all commendable.

Elara promoted him to Right Deputy Minister of the Medical Department to help Oswyn handle the other half of the department's responsibilities.

Still, no matter what decisions were made by Dilian or Yan Qian, everything had to be signed and stamped by Oswyn before becoming official.

After finding these two capable aides for Oswyn, Elara could finally sleep well again. The Medical Department also began running smoothly and started preparing to set up government-run hospitals across every county in Plumera as the nation expanded.

While the Medical Department progressed in each county, the vast areas of abandoned farmland in cities and counties were being restored. The Agricultural and Industrial Department dispatched many teams called "National Rooting Officials" to lead these efforts.

After several months of restoration, the land gradually regained its capacity for farming.

Elara also had people dig up and bring back the high-yield crops Kristof had discovered. These were handed over to the Agricultural and Industrial Department for cultivation and categorized by type for planting across the counties of Plumera.

Under Kristof's leadership, the Ministry of Justice quickly compiled and recovered all the stolen assets and resources from figures like Lord Gregory. Besides returning them to the national treasury and using them for disaster relief, they also discovered several hidden mines containing gold, silver, copper, and iron.

This put Elara in an excellent mood for days. Several new ironworks had just been constructed, and these newly discovered mines would serve as backup sources of materials.

The cities and counties of Plumera were developing rapidly. In Plumera City, the new and old districts, the military's ear forts on the walls, and several satellite cities outside the main city were all being built quickly.

The area of the new city was ten times that of the old city. The wall around the new district was taller and thicker, enclosing the old district in a square ring.

Both the new and old walls were built using "ancient cement" provided by the System and bricks fired with casting techniques developed by Elara. Iron bars were even embedded inside, making them very sturdy.

As long as no bombs were dropped, Elara believed no one could blast through her new city walls.

Once the Construction Department had more hands, Elara planned to apply this construction method to the entire nation of Plumera. She was determined to replace every wall and checkpoint with this durable design.

On top of the new city walls, several military towers stood tens of meters tall, serving as ear forts.

Heavy-duty mechanical crossbows and powerful siege weapons were hidden inside these towers, guarded secretly. Puppet Soldiers were stationed throughout, and only high-ranking military officers had access to them.

If war broke out, the defense crossbows from these four towers alone would be enough to give any attacking army a tough time.

The satellite cities outside were nearly complete as well. In addition to the ones assigned to the military for camps and logistics, Elara allocated one specifically to Damon from the Commerce Department.

That satellite city would serve future trade caravans visiting Plumera City, offering them a place to station and store goods.

Several satellite cities were built for different types of factories too. Others remained empty for Elara to use when needed.

Three months after construction began, most buildings and streets in Plumera City were nearly finished.

The administrative headquarters of the nine main departments were built in the northern district, close to the imperial palace. That's where officials worked daily.

The new city's major commercial and residential zones were also fully completed.