A Slacker's Past (Bonus Chapter)

Chapter Forty

Li Wenchuan's leg condition was, in fact, an old story.

After his father, Li Yuan, named him Crown Prince, he subjected him to nothing short of cramming education, impatient to teach him everything at once.

Perhaps Li Yuan had never expected to die so early. He had always thought he would have time to educate the Crown Prince, so he sent some of the people he had cultivated to Li Wenchuan's side.

But how could Li Yuan's people possibly be loyal to Li Wenchuan? They merely used the Emperor's name to throw their weight around.

For all these years, everything large and small, within the prince's residence and beyond it at court, had been managed by Jiang Chengyu. The first thing this newcomer did upon arriving was seize the authority from Jiang Chengyu's hands.

The prince's residence was involved in countless matters. Even if Li Yuan was Li Wenchuan's father, no one wanted another pair of eyes sent to watch them so closely. This man and Jiang Chengyu soon clashed fiercely.

And Jiang Chengyu, whether in his youth or after years of handling affairs, had always had a vicious tongue. Without using a single curse word, he mocked the man so badly that he nearly died of rage in the Crown Prince's residence.

The man pointed at Jiang Chengyu, stammering, "Y-you, you, you..." for ages without managing another word.

Jiang Chengyu sneered. "Do you think His Majesty knows you stutter? This? And you still want to come assist the Crown Prince? Are you trying to tie Great Qing's entire national fortune into a knot?"

The other man immediately returned to the palace to complain. He wept miserably. According to a young eunuch on duty that day, even while waiting outside the hall, he could hear sobbing from the deepest part within. Even the most favored consort in the harem had never dared cry like that after suffering a grievance.

Jiang Chengyu heard the news in the residence as well. According to the servant who had been there, he said, "Being an official at court truly wrongs him. With that little talent, he ought to be out in the countryside wailing at graves. He could cry across five hundred li in a single breath, collect mourning money from a hundred households each time, and become richer than a nation."

Before long, Jiang Chengyu was summoned to the palace. It was said that His Majesty was furious.

When Li Wenchuan arrived, Jiang Chengyu was being dragged outside by eunuchs. Li Yuan had ordered sixty strokes of the paddle.

Even a soldier would need to lie in bed for ten days or half a month after forty strokes. Sixty strokes—and Jiang Chengyu was merely a scholar. This would kill him outright!

Li Wenchuan immediately argued with Li Yuan and pulled Jiang Chengyu aside, forbidding him to speak.

Who knew what Jiang Chengyu had said before? Li Wenchuan only needed him to play dumb now. If Jiang Chengyu got worked up again, would he have to pretend to be deaf? The intermittently deaf kind, at that.

That day, everyone in the Imperial Study acted like quails, terrified of offending any of these masters.

Li Yuan's trusted aide was still crying, and Li Wenchuan could not help saying, "Father, did you send someone to help me build a sea?"

"Impudent!"

"I'm impudent?" Li Wenchuan promptly waved his hand, sending the innocent palace servants scrambling and crawling out. What came next was not something insignificant people like them dared hear. "Father, wasn't it you who made me this impudent? Who sat atop the mountain and watched the tigers fight? Who reaped the fisherman's profit? Who, for his own selfish desires, pushed me into the position of Crown Prince?!"

"Father, do you regret it now? Too late! All the useful ones are dead, and with your help, I cleared out the mediocre ones too. Now, you have no choice."

Li Yuan was a man who took elixirs every day, raised a whole group of monstrous powerful ministers, and yet firmly held Great Qing's power in his own hands.

The court officials were nothing but his hounds. Whoever he wanted to rise would rise. That powerful minister who had once sided with the First Prince did not even know where he had gone wrong when he died. After his death, his entire family was executed, and none of his collateral relatives for three generations were permitted to serve as officials.

Li Wenchuan had been raised up by him. He had also forced this son, from behind the scenes, to slowly lift the butcher's blade in his hand. He had even watched with pleasure as the other princes struck back at Li Wenchuan, forcing him to take up his blade and retaliate.

"Was I wrong? Everything I did was for you!" Li Yuan's eyes gleamed like a leopard's. He had fought and killed his way up in his youth; he was no ordinary man.

"I promised Mother Consort that I would be a good Crown Prince. But Father, please—do not force your son." Li Wenchuan slowly cupped his hands in salute and lowered his head, yet his eyes remained fixed upon Li Yuan.

Li Yuan clicked his tongue. Looking at the frail scholar standing to one side, he laughed. "For him?"

He understood at once. He descended from the dais and came to Li Wenchuan's side, staring at the son he had secretly watched for years, the son he treasured too much to dare approach. "How can a ruler have a weakness?"

Li Wenchuan remained neither servile nor overbearing. "Doesn't Father have Mother Consort as well?"

Li Yuan's reverse scale had been struck at once. "Get out! Kneel for me!"

It was early winter. Xiao Xue had already begun falling in the mountains outside Chang'an City. The blue stone tiles were freezing to the bone, and the fierce cold wind before the hall howled relentlessly. How could anyone endure it?

Hearing this, Jiang Chengyu stopped acting so defiant and made as if to kneel and plead for mercy.

Li Wenchuan grabbed him and then respectfully saluted Li Yuan. "Your son takes his leave. Thank you, Father, for your great grace."

Li Yuan never said how long he was to kneel, so Li Wenchuan remained there. He even knocked Jiang Chengyu unconscious and had someone take him away, or he would surely cause another scene.

The lamps within the hall flickered. The moment the Crown Prince left, the aged Emperor shed all his majesty. Seeing that one person still remained on the floor, he snapped irritably, "You get out too."

Once the hall was quiet, Li Yuan sank onto the couch. Light flickered in his clouded eyes. In the end, he had owed this child far too much.

After all these years, he could still vaguely recall that breathtaking glimpse by the river. Even now, Consort Yang remained as she had been then. Yet every concubine in the palace at the time represented a faction at court, and before the time was right, there were constraints everywhere.

Bringing Consort Yang into the palace had already drawn too much attention. He had no choice but to deliberately neglect her, allowing mother and son to suffer grievances for so many years.

But missed time was missed time, after all. Li Wenchuan was not close to him, and the relationship between father and son had only been maintained through Consort Yang's mediation.

Making Li Wenchuan Crown Prince had been his greatest selfish desire. In his heart, only the woman he loved most and his own child were qualified to inherit the throne beneath him.

Now he wanted to make amends, but after being Emperor for so long, he did not know how to be a father.

Nor did he understand that the child in his eyes had long since grown up. When Li Wenchuan had needed his father most, he had been absent. Now Li Wenchuan no longer needed a father, had someone else by his side, and did not wish for anyone to interfere in his life.

Li Yuan summoned someone to ask about it. He had originally intended to let the matter go if Li Wenchuan had returned, but Li Wenchuan was still kneeling stiffly before the hall, silent all this time.

His anger immediately flared again. "Let him kneel! Let him kneel himself to death!"

The final outcome that night was Li Wenchuan collapsing, the palace thrown into chaos, Consort Yang weeping quietly, and Li Yuan sighing heavily.

Li Wenchuan came down with a severe fever and was left with a lasting condition. His leg never fully recovered; whenever the time came, pain pierced him to the bone. After so long, Jiang Chengyu had become half an imperial physician himself. Acupuncture, moxibustion, warming patches—he had become skilled at all of them.

"Your Highness, would this pressure feel more comfortable?"

"Your Majesty, do you feel any better?"

"Yu'an, would this help you feel better?"

He had left too early, after all. He had forgotten to leave Jiang Chengyu a death-exemption token. Who knew what sort of brats came afterward, but none of them could possibly be better than him.