At first the story was OK, then he decided to refuse the marriage the Emperor proposes to him for his sister, at first the author justifies this as being the characters modern sensibilities that he risks the emperors anger even after he is demoted. Only for us to later find out that the entire plot point was fabricated so the protagonist could be engaged to a 4 year old instead, somehow his modern sensibilities were no longer present. It would have been better if the author had simply skipped all this, if you wanted his Mariage to be to princess Changle you could have simply let the Protagonist not marry while building on his accomplishments which would be reasonable grounds for the Emperor to propose Marriage. Instead we have a ridiculous plot where a 4 year old insists she wants to marry the protagonist and even the emperor despite the utter disrespect is begging the protagonist to marry his daughter. How any of this makes any sense to the author. I have no idea.