Ying Zheng

Year 115 of the Xia Era.

Ji Province. Wei Kingdom.

A handsome young man was studying at home. The books filling the room were proof enough of his love of learning.

"Si'er, time to eat! Why are you still studying?" A young married woman pushed open the door, lunchbox in hand. Seeing her younger son still writing and calculating, she scolded him fondly.

Her younger son had been extraordinarily sensitive to numbers since childhood and had shown intelligence far beyond that of ordinary people.

While still in primary school, he had begun studying secondary-school physics and chemistry. By the time he entered junior high, he had already taught himself university calculus and other theoretical subjects.

Other people's children thought only of going out to play, but he never so much as stepped through the inner gate, let alone the outer one. He spent every day studying in his room.

Since childhood, he had been fanatical about geometry, mathematics, and physics. He simply disliked talking. He was deeply interested in learning-a bookworm, as his classmates put it.

"Mom, just leave it there. I'll eat once I finish this problem!" Without even lifting his head, the young man continued covering his scrap paper with complicated formulas.

"I'm warning you! Your brother will be back from military academy soon. If you don't eat, watch out-he'll deal with you." Madam Lü Ji pretended to threaten him, knowing that the person her younger son feared most was his older brother.

Sure enough, Ying Si shrank back, hurriedly took the lunchbox from his mother, set it on the desk, and began eating.

Their father was often away from home, so Ying Si had grown up trailing after his older brother. Though little else interested him, he loved playing with his brother more than anything.

As children, the brothers had been a pair of habitual troublemakers, catching fish in rivers and hunting birds in the hills. They were a real nuisance.

Then an incident changed everything. His brother abruptly broke with his old ways, choosing to attend military academy and take up blades and guns on the path of a soldier.

He had changed as well. Frail and sickly since childhood, he had found that the children at school did not like playing with him, so he played with his brother instead. Once his brother left for military academy, he retreated to his room to study.

He loved learning. Whenever he cracked a difficult physics or mathematics problem, he trembled with excitement, a sense of fulfillment welling up within him.

To him, everything in the world left traces that could be followed, and everything could be calculated through mathematics and physics.

The yellow dog in the courtyard suddenly began barking. Ying Si hurriedly swallowed his food and ran outside.

But when he saw who had arrived, he lowered his head in disappointment and headed back into the house.

"You little brat, don't you recognize your grandfather anymore? You didn't even say hello. How rude." The middle-aged man was both annoyed and helpless. His younger son was simply that withdrawn.

"Ah, Zi Meng, you know what Si'er is like. Where's Zheng? Still at military academy?" Lü Wei asked the man beside him with a smile. He had long since grown accustomed to his grandson's behavior.

"Father-in-law, Zheng isn't back yet, but he should be here soon. In the blink of an eye, they've both grown so big," Ying Yiren said with a rueful smile, stroking his beard.

"Ah, it's all because this old man's status is so low. I dragged my grandsons down and made life hard for all of you." Lü Wei looked at Ying Yiren with guilt.

"How could we blame you? Ji'er and I love each other. Even if my father threw me out and severed all ties, I accepted it willingly." Ying Yiren gazed affectionately at his wife and child.

There were some things he would not regret even if he lived through them a hundred times. He would still make the same choice.

Ying Yiren's true identity was, in fact, the King of Wei's ninth son, a man of noble birth.

He had been mischievous and troublesome from childhood. Though his father was the exalted King of Wei, his mother had been of lowly status, merely a maidservant.

He was the product of a drunken encounter, so he had never received much attention growing up. His deliberate mischief had merely been an attempt to catch the adults' eyes.

In truth, he loved reading and making friends. He was handsome and graceful, with an exceptional bearing.

On one chance occasion, he met Lü Wei's daughter, Lü Ji.

They fell in love at first sight and soon sank so deeply into love that neither could pull free.

Lü Wei's family was by no means poor. He was a wealthy magnate dealing in new chemical materials, and his family had plenty of money.

Yet in that era, no merchant family, however wealthy, could hope to marry into royalty.

Even if Ying Yiren was the least valued of his father's sons, he was still a prince of noble birth.

Defying his clan's rules, Ying Yiren chose expulsion from his family rather than give up marrying Lü Ji, becoming the laughingstock of the entire Wei Kingdom.

As a result, their children endured no shortage of ridicule from those around them as they grew up. Even their younger son Ying Si's withdrawn nature was partly rooted in this.

When the brothers were little, a so-called cousin from the royal family had humiliated them in public. Insulting the brothers was one thing, but he had insulted their mother as well.

Unable to bear such bullying, Ying Si spat at him. Humiliated and enraged, the other boy beat him in the street. Ying Zheng immediately threw himself over his younger brother, shielding him beneath his body, and was unable to get out of bed for several days.

Before they could even respond, the police came to their door, accusing them of provoking the royal family in the street. Ignoring their mother's kneeling pleas, they locked the brothers up for several days, during which they suffered every kind of injustice in jail.

Only afterward did they learn of the older generation's grudges and passions, and the story of their parents' love.

Ying Zheng changed completely and chose to study at a military academy in the Xia Kingdom, returning home only during his few days of leave each year.

Ying Si changed as well. Everyone said knowledge could change one's fate, so he would become the most learned person under heaven. From then on, he never passed through the outer gate or even the inner one, devoting himself to diligent study.

And so the brothers slowly grew up. Today was the day Ying Zheng graduated from military academy, and his younger brother had already been waiting all day.

"Zi Meng, do you know about the matter of the Han Kingdom's fief?" Lü Wei suddenly asked.

Ying Yiren paused, then replied, "I've heard about it. After the Seven Kingdoms wiped out Han's ruling clan, its fief was carved up by four kingdoms. Since the Wei Kingdom was the farthest away, it received only the stretch of territory nearest the sea."

"Since that territory borders three kingdoms, every lord the Wei Kingdom sent there died unexpectedly. On top of that, none of those three royal families interfered much, so sinister forces sprang up everywhere. Many criminals from the Seven Kingdoms fled there to live. Why do you ask?"

Ying Yiren looked at his father-in-law in puzzlement. Because of its unusual circumstances, that territory was little different from unclaimed land, though it belonged to the Wei Kingdom.

"Heh, the Wei royal family now intends to sell that territory. The price is astronomical, but they also require the buyer to be of royal blood and not from any of the three neighboring kingdoms. As a result, no one has shown any interest." Lü Wei looked at his son-in-law with burning eyes.

Ying Yiren froze and was just about to ask, What does that have to do with us?

Suddenly, his expression changed, and his gaze locked onto his father-in-law. "Are you saying...?"

Lü Wei stared into Ying Yiren's eyes and nodded emphatically.

"A true man standing between heaven and earth-how could he spend his life languishing beneath others!"

"This is an opportunity as vast as the heavens. You possess the noblest bloodline under heaven. Your great-grandfather was Xuanyuan Huangdi himself, the most legitimate Human King in the world."

"You were only cast out of your home, not struck from the clan genealogy. Now no one wants that fief, and your father-in-law still has money. You can surely build something great." Lü Wei urged him with earnest persistence.

Ying Yiren hesitated, still unable to make up his mind.

Just then, a voice rang out from beyond the door. "Grandfather is right. We possess the noblest bloodline of the Human Race. The Yellow Emperor's seat passes from one to another; this year, it comes to our house. It's time our Ying family took a turn on that throne."

The man entering through the doorway stood eight feet and six inches tall, with a prominent nose and large eyes. His head was held high and his chest thrust out, his voice resonant. Fierce and unyielding in bearing, he was a man like an eagle, a wolf, a tiger-a truly handsome man of rugged masculinity.

He was-Ying Zheng.