"Hong Yan, you insolent wretch! You disturbed the Princess and defied the nobility. Your crimes warrant death. I hereby sentence you to... immediate execution!"
When Akaseki recalled the fourth "eight-hour" stretch of memories, he finally burst out laughing.
Good, good, good! I've wanted to kill "him" for ages!
In the six years after the Princess became pregnant and gave birth, Hong Yan worked even harder. Back in the modern city, he even took out loans to buy vast quantities of supplies to support Great Yong's war against its neighbor.
Over those six years, when Hong Yan went to the Princess's residence on urgent business, he happened to catch the Dingguo Duke's heir being intimate with her; he happened to hear his daughter say she wanted Uncle Cheng to be her daddy; he ran into the Dingguo Duke's heir and his companions on the street and was slapped in public-literally slapped in the face; when the Princess's residence caught fire, he rushed inside and saved her, only for his daughter to accuse him of starting it...
All told, there were roughly thirty plot devices Akaseki knew all too well.
One every two months on average. Six of them struck Akaseki as somewhat original-for instance, being humiliated and forced to eat the disaster-relief Compressed Biscuits demonstrated both Hong Yan's spinelessness and... how the relief supplies he had bought with borrowed money had become a tool for the powerful to line their pockets!
Especially that last incident with the fire...
Only the Empress Dowager's intervention had saved him from execution.
So Akaseki simply couldn't understand why "Hong Yan" still refused to leave and even continued giving selflessly.
Finally, during a street brawl, the Dingguo Duke's heir seized an opportunity, and "Hong Yan" was summarily executed on the Capital Magistrate's orders...
The Princess