Content warning: apart from the protagonist's, everyone's romantic storylines defy description, and everyone's thoughts are utterly unhinged. If that bothers you, don't read.
The following includes:
A third prince with a sister-in-law romance.
An eldest prince with an aunt romance, who turns gay again after rebirth, this time with a "not-quite-brother."
A Qi Emperor who takes both men and women.
Xi Ming, a pedophile.
An even more absurd empress dowager.
Bolao is a lunatic.
So... there will only be more than the people listed, never fewer.
Proceed with caution. If you do read, don't seize on the things listed above to curse me out. The author has normal moral values, thank you.
For returning readers of my previous book, this book's content has no connection to that one. All the foreshadowing in this book revolves around Yuanzuo; the few references are only there to unravel the threads planted in Yuanzuo's story.
This is Yuanzuo's show. My sincere thanks.
Main text:
Qi Yuanzuo had transmigrated into a book-from the womb.
To keep his brain from overloading and turning him into an idiot, the system had locked away his modern memories, letting him grow up like an ordinary baby.
Only a few days ago had the memories of his previous life begun awakening, little by little.
A Beauty in Troubled Times was a novel about its male lead conquering the world step by step with the help of a transmigrated woman.
He had become the book's archvillain: born crown prince, deposed and reinstated three times, he seized the throne through rebellion and died by a thousand cuts.
Thinking of his siblings, who would grow up to commit incest, go mad, or turn into ungrateful wolves-
Framing others, stabbing them in the back, and seducing their sisters-in-law would all be everyday fare.
Qi Yuanzuo had thought of a way to cut the problem off at the root: take a knife and sterilize his imperial father.
The jade-like little child on the bed had not a trace of color in his face. His eyes, closed for six days, finally shone with life.
The Qi Emperor was overjoyed. "Zuo'er is awake!"
"Imperial physician! Come examine Zuo'er!"
The emperor, worn and haggard after days of vigil, wept with joy.
Ever since the empress's death, he had kept the crown prince beside him and raised him himself.
He had raised that tiny thing, no bigger than a kitten, until he could walk and call out. All the care he had poured into him could never be summed up in words!
"With the imperial dragon's aura protecting him, His Highness the Crown Prince would naturally emerge safely from danger."
Qi Yuanzuo looked toward the voice, and two faces came into view.
One man wore an official robe embroidered with the golden pheasant of the third rank. His mustache and beard framed his mouth in a square, his little fingernail was slightly long, and a red mole sat beside his forehead.
The other was a eunuch, his face round like a little bird's, his manner docile and honest.
The shock sent Qi Yuanzuo's eyes rolling back; he nearly passed out from sheer indignation.
Wailing over his miserable fate, he threw himself into the Qi Emperor's embrace.
Four people had ruined the archvillain's life.
The pedophilic grand tutor, and his trusted eunuch Bolao, known as the butcherbird.
The Qi Emperor, who turned into a control freak in his later years, and the disloyal, treacherous younger brother who seduced his sister-in-law.
Now, apart from the younger brother, all three were here!
The little boy on the bed sobbed, tears falling like rain, and stretched out an arm to be held. His crying shattered the Qi Emperor's heart.
"Imperial physician! Imperial physician! Zuo'er is crying! You've been examining him all this time-what have you found?!"
The Qi Emperor leaned down so the little boy lying in bed could wrap an arm around his neck, urging the physician on while coaxing his son.
"Don't cry, Zuo'er. Does it hurt?"
"How about Father blows on it for you? Once I blow on it, it won't hurt anymore."
Qi Yuanzuo whimpered a few times, then fell silent as though he really had been soothed.
What else could he do? If crying could kill these people, he could cry in eighteen different styles.
Feeling his son's dependence on him, the Qi Emperor overflowed with tenderness and carefully cradled his precious child.
The onlookers marveled.
Who would have thought the imperial family could have such affection between father and son?
Just then, an old woman in heavy robes embroidered with black phoenixes walked in.
"Yuanzuo is awake, so he must be fine. Whatever quarrels a family has, they must never damage its harmony."
"Emperor, isn't it time you released your elder sister?"
The empress dowager of Great Qi. His grandmother.
Even before his memories awakened, he had noticed that his grandmother hated both him and his father.
Now, with an adult's intelligence and the plot to guide him, he understood even more clearly what an extraordinary freak this grandmother was.
She was the Qi Emperor's biological mother, yet for some reason she loved opposing him. Anyone or anything he disliked was precisely what she favored.
Whatever the Qi Emperor liked, she hated.
For example, the Qi Emperor loved the crown prince, so the empress dowager loathed him.
The Qi Emperor disliked the eldest prince, so the empress dowager doted on him most.
When Qi Yuanzuo went to carry out his sterilization mission, his aunt happened to be staging a rebellion to seize the palace.
In the blink of an eye, just as an arrow was about to strike the Qi Emperor, the three-year-old crown prince descended from above and resolutely placed himself before His Majesty.
The emperor's heart nearly tore apart, the officials wept with gratitude, and the rebels were stunned and moved.
An arrow pierced his chest, and Qi Yuanzuo had remained unconscious until now.
For this rebellion, Elder Princess Qi Mingyue would, at the very least, lose her fief and be exiled. At worst, her head would roll.
The empress dowager had seized the opportunity to whisper poison in the emperor's ear.
Hearing the empress dowager speak as though all this were perfectly reasonable, the Qi Emperor's face turned black as the bottom of a pot.
The imperial physician, who had silently continued his examination all this time, perhaps having enjoyed enough of the spectacle, finally reported:
"Your Majesty, His Highness the Crown Prince is out of danger. However, a young child's internal organs are delicate, and this arrow wound damaged them. In the future, he absolutely must not run or jump strenuously."
"He will need quiet rest for the next three months. Indeed, only after six months of observation can we consider him safe."
The Qi Emperor understood the implication as well.
The crown prince's path in martial arts was effectively severed.
"I understand. I entrust the crown prince's health to you. You must ensure there are no lasting complications whatsoever!"
His newfound imperial father tenderly stroked his little face, wiped away the tears brought on by pain, and soothed him gently.
"Sleep for a while, Zuo'er. Father will come keep you company shortly."
Qi Yuanzuo obediently nodded.
The Qi Emperor straightened and swept an icy gaze over everyone in the room.
"If there is another accident, none of you need remain."
The servants of the Hall of Inherited Blessing dropped to their knees, covering the floor.
During the crown prince's coma, an entire group of palace servants in the Hall of Inherited Blessing had already been replaced.
The Qi Emperor and the empress dowager went outside to "reason things out," and the others gradually left as well.
Qi Yuanzuo pondered with his eyes closed. Right now, he was Qi Yuanzuo, the crown prince in the book.
All outsiders knew was this:
The crown prince had doomed his mother at birth and murdered his teacher as a child.
He was unfilial to his grandmother and cruel to his subjects.
He had also angered his father to death, beheaded six siblings, and killed over a dozen nephews.
Every official at court condemned him, and countless commoners cursed him.
Little did they know:
His grandmother played favorites and psychologically manipulated him.
His teacher was a pedophile.
His father was a control freak.
His siblings each had their own brand of madness; the entire imperial family was so insane it had become performance art.
The archvillain had endured thirty years of "brotherly affection" and executed his nephews for colluding with the enemy and betraying their country.
Yet in the end, he had fallen at the hands of his trusted eunuch, reduced to a tool for paving the male lead's way.
Suddenly, a sound rang out in his head:
[Number 88 at your service.]
Qi Yuanzuo tentatively called out in his mind.
System?
"88 at your service."
Cheat ability?
88: "Sorry, dear. None."
Qi Yuanzuo felt numb inside. What are you good for?
88: "Watching shows inside your head? Animation, youth dramas, hot-blooded martial adventures-take your pick~"
Qi Yuanzuo: *...*
88 sounded a little embarrassed. "Host, I used to be incredibly badass. But losing my child in middle age hit me so hard that I reset to factory settings. Barring an unexpected development, I can't provide cheat-ability services."
Qi Yuanzuo: What unexpected development?
88: "An immortal descending into the world? Mechanical ascension?"
Qi Yuanzuo: Get lost.
88: "Okey-dokey."
He should never have put much hope in the system. It had sealed his memories right after his reincarnation without explaining a thing. How could it possibly be reliable?
With the sounds of arguing outside, Qi Yuanzuo let himself slip into unconsciousness. He was only three and couldn't bear the pain. No more thinking. He would recover first.
Only once he had recovered could he deal with that whole pack of lunatics waiting in his future.
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