What a Villain!

As soon as Xiao Qianyu left Zhaode Hall, he climbed into a sedan chair and ordered the bearers to take him straight to the Eastern Palace.

The snow had stopped long ago. A thin layer of frost covered the palace's red flowers and green trees.

The snow had melted into water. A eunuch came out with a broom to clear the ground, and when he spotted the sedan chair in the distance, he lowered his head and knelt.

Seated inside the sedan chair, Xiao Qianyu casually memorized the route to the Eastern Palace while considering how to face its former residents without giving himself away.

First of all, his life was safe for now. He had the protection of Heaven above and the Golden Finger to save him below. Unless Emperor Yongchang flew into a rage and sent an army of ten thousand to kill him alone, dying would not be easy.

As long as he stayed alive, even if he slipped up somewhere, there'd still be a chance to turn things around.

Besides, after the original Crown Prince had fallen from power, the people who had once served him in the Eastern Palace would inevitably be targeted and demoted. Their status would be far worse than before. People naturally sought advantage and avoided harm. As long as they understood that clinging to the Crown Prince was the only way to live well, they would keep any doubts to themselves.

They might even help conceal the truth.

If someone did try to report him, he could figure out how to deal with it then. He had a Golden Finger, after all. He couldn't possibly crash and burn in this world.

With that thought, Xiao Qianyu's confidence soared. He calmly prepared to meet his subordinates.

Mingde Hall in the Eastern Palace.

In truth, the former servants of the Eastern Palace were in an even worse state than Xiao Qianyu had imagined.

By the time the sedan chair stopped, a miserable crowd of palace maids and eunuchs was already kneeling outside the Eastern Palace gates, their heads pressed low to the ground as their whole bodies trembled.

Xiao Qianyu stepped down from the sedan chair. The first thing he saw was a sea of bowed heads; he couldn't see a single face.

His gaze swept over them, and he said gently, "Rise, all of you."

His familiar voice seemed to flip a switch. A sob rose from the crowd, followed by one tearful whimper after another, until their grief became so overwhelming that anyone would be moved. A pang of sorrow rose involuntarily in the heart.

"Your Highness, Your Highness the Crown Prince, I've finally lived to see you return." A eunuch lifted his head, tears streaming down his face. Then he shuffled forward on his knees and stopped before Xiao Qianyu, clutching the hem of his robe with humble excitement as he cried, "Your Highness, you were always generous to your servants. Your kindness reached even the lowliest among us. Few in the world were as benevolent and forgiving as you. Countless people in the palace once received your grace.

"But when you fell, how many still remembered your kindness? There have always been few who offer help when someone's down, and many who kick them when they're down. You wanted us to live well, but just staying alive was too hard." His voice turned shrill, his words spilling out through his sobs. "Qiyu and Huaying still couldn't be saved. They were tortured to death! This servant was useless. I couldn't save them."

He could hold back his grief no longer and burst into tears.

The young eunuch had a sharp, shrewd face, pale skin, and thin eyebrows. Faded bruises still marked his face. He looked about sixteen or seventeen, and his slight frame seemed as if a gust of wind could knock him over.

His clothes didn't fit, and the fingers visible beneath his sleeves were mottled. Clearly, he'd had a hard time before being summoned back. Even his new clothes looked as if they'd been hastily thrown on.

As he poured out his grief, the people behind him broke into tears as well, as if he'd touched a wound they all shared.

Among them were palace maids and eunuchs, all looking dispirited and unwell. Clearly, once their master had gone from Crown Prince to rebel and False Crown Prince, their treatment had plummeted, and they'd endured no small amount of torment.

In the palace, the fallen were always trampled on; nothing showed life's fickleness more plainly. Yet seeing this wretched, weeping crowd moved even the hardest heart.

"Your Highness, you must avenge them." The young eunuch's eyes, small as they were, burned with bone-deep hatred. "This servant knows who killed them. It was the Grand Princess's and Third Prince's people. They did it on purpose."

Xiao Qianyu looked at him quietly and held out a hand. "Get up first. We'll talk inside."

The young eunuch wiped the tears from his face in a fluster. Trembling with both fear and something like reverence for a god, he bowed his head humbly. "This servant wouldn't dare trouble Your Highness. I'll get up right away."

As he spoke, he braced a hand against his knee and tried to stand.

But his body was probably too weak, and he'd been kneeling too long. As soon as he straightened up, he swayed and toppled to one side.

Xiao Qianyu instinctively reached out to steady him. The instant their bodies touched, a passage of the story slipped into his mind.

What he saw was the future originally in store for the young eunuch: the life that followed the original Crown Prince's execution on the Execution Platform, before Xiao Qianyu had taken his place.

The young eunuch was one of the four personal eunuchs who had grown up by the original Crown Prince's side. They were Qinxin, Qiyu, Shumo, and Huaying.

The young eunuch was Shumo.

The original Crown Prince had personally chosen Qinxin, Qiyu, and Huaying. Shumo, however, had ended up by the Crown Prince's side through a twist of fate.

He had been the eldest son in his family, but his mother died of illness when he was young. His father remarried and soon had other children.

As the saying went, once there was a stepmother, the father soon followed. Shumo's life took a sharp turn for the worse after his father remarried.

From the age of five, he'd been forced to work in the fields alongside his father, chop firewood, cook, wash clothes, and look after his younger siblings. Like a tireless little beast of burden, he struggled to survive. He worked more than anyone else in the family, yet ate the least, often getting by on just one bowl a day of watery porridge so thin he could see his reflection in it.