Cold Palace Youth

001 The Cold Palace Youth

"The empire, long united, must divide!" an old cultivator with white hair and a youthful face said, stroking his long white beard with one hand and flicking a horsetail whisk with the other as he gazed south.

A thousand years ago, they were chased away like stray dogs, their ancestral treasures shattered. For years, they hid in the cold northern winds, meticulously planning their return.

In the ancient Great Jin Immortal Dynasty, this was a world filled with mystery and legend. Immortals had once walked these lands, but they too vanished with the wind, leaving behind only tales and ruins. And in a corner of this world, deep within the cold palace, a young boy's fate quietly took a turn.

The boy wasn't yet called Ming Shu, but his original name hadn't been spoken in a long time.

When he awoke in the small, dilapidated room deep within the cold palace, his body felt weak and he was suffocating. It was a cold winter night.

He felt the frailty of his new body and the suffocating, decaying air. His memories were a jumble, past and present intertwined, making it hard to distinguish reality from dreams.

He forced himself to stand, swaying and trembling, but finally gave up struggling. He rolled to the door with difficulty, finally managing to open a crack and breathe in the biting, fresh air outside.

It was as if he had slept and been reborn.

He was a reborn soul, and also a transmigrator. These were two different things.

After catching his breath, he began to sort through the messy thoughts in his mind.

Now, he had become a deposed prince, residing in the most desolate corner of the imperial palace.

From his fragmented memories, the boy had already been here for about a year. Not long ago, his mother, a concubine cast aside by fate, had ended her own life, unable to bear the despair of their environment.

The boy, who would later be renamed Ming Shu, had also considered ending his own life after countless struggles.

The original owner had, of course, succeeded. He had successfully ended his agonizing life.

Then, Ming Shu was reborn into his body.

He had unexpectedly discovered that his soul resonated with the boy's body in this world; he had been reborn. What story lay hidden behind this, he couldn't recall for the moment.

And this new identity seemed to be entangled with quite a bit of karma!

As Ming Shu regained his clarity, he gradually adapted to this new world, beginning to understand his identity and his surroundings. His mother's family had been implicated in a failed rebellion and suffered the punishment of having their entire clan exterminated. Although Ming Shu was young, he couldn't escape this disaster and was stripped of his noble status, relegated to commoner status, and thrown into the cold palace with his mother.

The boy roughly calculated that this body should be over nine years old.

Now he was almost ten, and he was as thin as a stick, sallow and emaciated. His development was clearly lagging behind his peers. He could only continue to endure; it was truly agonizing.

As for his past life, his memories were also hazy and needed time to recover slowly. It seemed he had just been an ordinary office worker, and he couldn't even recall his original name for the moment. He must have drunk fake Meng Po soup.

Having lost his princely identity and status, and even removed from the Imperial Clan Court's registry, he was now utterly alone, a lone leaf adrift in the harsh winter.

Perhaps, survival itself had become a luxury, which led him to seek death. And that had given him a chance to be reborn.

He would live on for him; he was so young, and there was still hope for the future.

It was just the cold palace; there would always be a chance to get out. He would wait patiently.

Fortunately, at this moment, an old eunuch, accompanied by a young eunuch, braved the wind and snow to bring some food. They discovered the boy lying on the ground, lost in thought.

The two quickly helped the boy up and found that the charcoal fire in the room had long since died out. The boy was shivering uncontrollably from the cold, his lips tinged purple.

The old eunuch instructed the young eunuch to look after the boy while he hurried back to find something.

He spent money to buy specially prepared hot congee with added spiritual herbs, and also took out the life-saving pills he kept hidden, to sustain the frail boy's life.

From then on, they would bring a little food every day, saving the despairing boy with their companionship and care. Little did they know that the person they were caring for now housed a much older soul.

When the wind and snow finally stopped, Old Zhao also brought over three old reclining chairs. The three of them would take the opportunity to lie on the open ground in the small courtyard during the sunniest part of the day.

These were the most comfortable times they would have for the next three years.

The old eunuch often told the two young men "stories."

They could only be called stories; who knew how many times the plots had been retold, but by the time they reached this place, they had become distorted "facts."

For example, one day while basking in the sun, the old eunuch told the young eunuch and the boy about the Sky-Toppling Observatory, where important figures could see the past and the future.

Thus, the Great Jin Immortal Dynasty had endured for over a thousand years without falling into decline.

However, on another day later, he spoke of how people in various regions were starving and had no means to live. Therefore, in recent years, several princes had either been rebelling or were on the verge of rebellion.

These events had implicated many people in the palace. The old eunuch and his companions were not originally eunuchs of the cold palace; their former masters had fallen into trouble, and they were consequently implicated.

As time passed, the boy gradually adapted to life in the cold palace. He began to learn the knowledge of this world and understand the family and past of his mother. The boy's maternal uncle's family had once been a small, influential cultivator family within the Immortal Dynasty.

However, the boy didn't understand why they weren't supporting their own nephew, but were instead "preparing" to support other princes.

The old emperor was already an ancient fossil, one or two hundred years old, and was still trying to find ways to use some of the treasures left behind by the immortals in the mortal world to prolong his life.

The old eunuch was always plotting how to climb back out and escape this suffocating cold palace.

The three of them, relying on each other for over three years, were still alive, which was already a miracle.

It turned out that in the intervening years, several more palace coups and rebellions had occurred, with real battles fought. Each one was more intense than the last. No one paid attention to the boy's situation anymore.

The constant rebellions led to the old emperor's suspicion growing heavier and heavier.

Several princes whose maternal families lacked background and power were directly demoted to commoners, given only a small sum for their resettlement, and all banished to the border regions.

Perhaps this was his last shred of reason.

In these short three years, the princes and the consorts in the harem, along with those implicated, who knew how many people had died.

Everyone could feel that the Immortal Dynasty's fortunes had begun to shift unpredictably.

These past three years had been enough for him to adapt to his new body and new world. Although the world he saw was merely the narrow confines of the cold palace, like a frog in a well.

Day after day. It had always been quiet!

Having endured the harsh winter and the lonely deep nights, the young man's eyes held a slightly better spirit. Conversely, the little eunuch, who was busy with countless matters every day, had eyes that grew increasingly vacant. Even though the old eunuch was diligently training him.

The old eunuch's main energy was spent rushing around, contacting various parties, and finding ways to smooth over relationships. He even hoped to escape the cold palace within his lifetime and avoid the final, devastating calamity, striving for a chance to leave.

During his years in the cold palace, spring, summer, autumn, and winter all presented monotonous colors.

Only the air was perpetually filled with a thick, decaying scent.

And in the young man's memory, the voice and appearance of his mother consort were completely blurred.

Fear might be contagious, and the desire for survival would spread just the same. The yearning for freedom still flickered with a sliver of hope.

The old eunuch would occasionally shake his head and sigh as he looked at the two children.

One day, he ran back with a face full of joy, bringing the two children good news—the old emperor had died.