PUA

88 asked him a question. It already knew the answer, but it still wanted to ask again.

"Host, Bolao and the female lead are dangerous people you can't control. You can guard against a thief for a thousand days, yet even the tightest net has a loose thread. Why not kill them and settle things once and for all?"

Qi Yuanzuo replied half jokingly, "Because I'm a pacifist?"

88 simulated a pair of matchstick legs and crossed them like a human, resting both hands on its knees. With the air of a cultured scoundrel, it intoned:

"Every pacifist is a potential berserker."

"When their yearning for peace goes unfulfilled, they either obsessively destroy themselves or destroy the world."

Something pricked Qi Yuanzuo's heart. Those two lines somehow felt perfectly to his liking.

88 said, "That's something my third son once said."

Qi Yuanzuo said, "...Thank you?"

88 started playing an old, melodramatic TV drama inside his head and ignored him.

So Qi Yuanzuo coaxed it a little. "The female lead can produce Pumpkin Seeds and grow strawberries. Even if her system isn't an agricultural system, it must have something to do with agriculture."

"Since I'm already here, and I'm the Crown Prince of a nation, I naturally have to work for the people's welfare. Keeping the female lead around means an endless supply of food crop seeds."

"First, I'm keeping Bolao because Father has planted too many eyes around me. If I have something that can't see the light of day in the future, Bolao will come in handy."

"Second, in the original novel, Bolao was a slave to three masters. He worked for me openly, secretly threw in his lot with some brother of mine, then became a spy for the male and female leads. That's talent."

"I want to see what choices he'll make in this life. Consider him an observation sample in a social experiment on human nature?"

"As for why I don't kill my reborn brothers, my brothers are heaven-chosen beasts of burden, born with the spirit of workhorses right out of the womb. They need no cultivation or instruction. Once they can walk, they can work. Put them to good use, and they're keener than mules."

"I have no reason to refuse."

"What undertaking doesn't carry risks? I'll simply do my best to keep the reins in hand."

"Doesn't thinking of it that way make you happy, 88?"

88 had no heart and no tears. Its central board was overheating, its green code had tangled into a sticky mass of cobwebs, and its entire system was out of sorts.

It simulated cigarettes and alcohol, taking a drag, then a drink. It thought this was what humans called sorrow.

This host was so hard to manage. A casual remark could stir its memories and make it sad, yet 88 couldn't understand why it was sad.

The contract code on its central board prohibited it from taking part in any of its host's decisions. 88 obeyed blindly, and so it suffered blindly too.

88 made up its mind. Once it finished guiding this host, it would restore itself to factory settings.

Watching it, Qi Yuanzuo fell into thought. Systems had restrictions too?

Of course. Everything had a genetic lock. Otherwise, the world would fall into chaos.

What was the genetic lock on the female lead's cheat?

The original novel had been written from the female lead's perspective. This was her secret; naturally, she couldn't possibly "write it out."

It thus became the secret Qi Yuanzuo most urgently wanted to crack.

He began going over everything Jiang Liang had done since entering the palace.

Jiang Liang had passed Pumpkin Seeds off to him as strawberry seeds, which meant she currently couldn't obtain strawberry seeds from her cheat.

Jiang Liang's circumstances outside the palace had been difficult. If she could obtain things from her cheat at will, she wouldn't have been in such a sorry state.

Jiang Liang's father had beaten and berated her, and she must have had her share of dirty, heavy work. Yet her hands were soft and uncalloused, her skin as delicate as tofu. Her cheat must have been responsible.

It could beautify her skin and provide seeds. Those two things fit together like an ox's head on a horse's body-as though they had been drawn at random!

Ever since arriving at the Hall of Inherited Blessing, the female lead had been flattering people and acting sweet. He had thought she was trying to build good relationships as a newcomer, but what if she had another purpose?

Qi Yuanzuo was ninety percent certain.

The female lead could draw prizes from her system based on other people's feelings toward her!

Those feelings were probably affection or something similar, assessed by the system and converted into a currency-like value. Once that value reached a certain threshold, the female lead could draw a prize!

The rewards were random!

Then he understood why the female lead suspected him.

He must not have contributed a single point of affection toward Jiang Liang.

Putting himself in Jiang Liang's shoes:

-I play with a child every day and make him so happy, but his affection for me is a big fat zero. That's so strange!

-Today, this child showed an almost monstrous intelligence in class!

-Could he be like me, with an adult's soul inside a child's body?

-No, I have to test him.

Once Qi Yuanzuo understood what was going on, his mind was at ease.

A minor matter.

When someone felt a degree of closeness or familiarity toward another person, it showed in their body language.

For instance, they would unconsciously lean toward that person while walking, or follow them out of the corner of their eye.

That was exactly how Jiang Liang behaved toward Bolao now.

Qi Yuanzuo inwardly mocked Jiang Liang's excellent eye. With one choice, she had picked the most venomous snake of all.

Jiang Liang still harbored a modern person's sense of superiority. She regarded Qi Yuanzuo as her support in her present circumstances, but also as a potential threat.

She believed she only stayed by Qi Yuanzuo's side because she had no other choice.

She submitted verbally, but in her heart and bones, she refused to acknowledge that she was a palace servant.

She wasn't seeking an answer about whether he was "one of her kind."

It was her self-respect, unable to resist trying to stand back up after submitting.

Simply put, she looked down on the little Crown Prince. She didn't consider herself a servant, but a wage worker babysitting a child.

Yet she also feared the sword of imperial authority the little Crown Prince represented, hanging above her head. That first intimidating order to kneel had left Jiang Liang under imperial authority's shadow.

If the little Crown Prince were one of her kind, things would be different.

She would be furious, but she could salvage her dignity. See? I'm not a servant. The Crown Prince is like me. We're equals. Then she could take it for granted that she could ignore the sword of imperial authority overhead, believing the little Crown Prince wouldn't-and shouldn't-hurt her.

Qi Yuanzuo could offer only one assessment of her: naive and foolish.

One brutal beating would bring her to her senses.

Once again, he realized that not a single person around him was normal. Jiang Liang wasn't normal either.

The break between lessons lasted three quarters of an hour. Qi Yuanzuo had gone to the privy and sorted all this out in just a quarter of an hour.

Jiang Liang never could have imagined that her probe had failed the moment she made it, and that he had seen through her instead. Not only had he guessed her trump card, he had dissected her psychology too.

When Qi Yuanzuo returned to the classroom, he saw Shi Yu squatting by the door, feeding ants.

The noble heir had gathered up his robe like a farmer, sticking his rounded, undertrouser-clad backside out into the open.

How to put it... He understood that robes were inconvenient, but was there any need to be so uninhibited?

The little Crown Prince glanced at his backside three times. In Great Qi, people wore no underwear beneath their undertrousers. If the heir spread himself any more freely, he might as well have been airing his bird out in front.

Shi Yu had scattered pastry crumbs on the ground and was watching a swarm of ants carry the food away as though they had found a priceless treasure.

Qi Yuanzuo noticed his hands. They really didn't look like hands accustomed to a pampered life. Could the Prince of Annam and the Elder Princess have been abusing their child?

"Don't ants look like the common people?"

"They toil away all year, yet still depend on Heaven to grant them a meal."

The little Crown Prince tilted his head and asked innocently, "Are you Heaven, then?"

Shi Yu said, "I wouldn't presume to be."

The little Crown Prince said, "Then the people aren't ants either."

Shi Yu looked up. Squatting there, he happened to be at eye level with the little Crown Prince.

The little Crown Prince was round and lustrous as pearls and jade, like a glutinous rice ball with a rosy filling showing through.

He was dressed simply that day, in a creamy-white Firegrass Garment. Cloud patterns bordered his robe, and a silver young dragon emerged from the clouds, winding from front to back, its head resting on his shoulder with pearls for eyes. It seemed to have come alive, gazing at the world alongside its master.

Shi Yu's expression turned strange.

"Your Highness, to make those clothes, the people of the Southwest must cross open country and mountain forests through summer and autumn, gathering basket after basket, stripping the bark and twisting the fibers into thread. Only after three unbroken years can they offer enough firegrass cloth to make a single outfit."

He pointed at the dragon's eyes.

"Pearl slaves along the coast risk their lives harvesting these Eastern Pearls. Who knows how many people have to die for a single one?"

"Your Highness, how many human lives do you suppose were traded for the clothes you're wearing?"