I'll Disgust Them to Death

Zhaoyi Wei lived in the Bright Elixir Pavilion. Upon receiving the news, she immediately sent someone to invite His Majesty.

Ordinarily, His Majesty would certainly refuse her invitation, but the little Crown Prince's arrival changed everything. Who in the Imperial Palace did not know that the emperor cherished the little Crown Prince like the apple of his eye?

Zhaoyi Wei worked out her little schemes. She had only slapped a servant girl; the emperor would not care. If the Crown Prince came and made a scene over it, he would be the one in the wrong.

To soothe her, the emperor would at least stay for dinner tonight. Once he had eaten with her, why worry that nothing else would happen?

"His Highness the Crown Prince has arrived!"

At the announcement, Zhaoyi Wei hurried out to greet him. "This consort pays her respects to Your Highness."

The little Crown Prince swept past her and went straight to the seat of honor. Those familiar habits and that arrogant manner could not help reminding Zhaoyi Wei of the Qi Emperor.

The Eldest Prince instinctively claimed the space to the little Crown Prince's right. Standing there sent him into a brief daze.

"Rise. I came to ask about something."

He asked Jiang Liang, "Who hit you?"

At last, Jiang Liang was certain: the little Crown Prince had come to settle the score for her.

Jiang Liang stepped forward, swallowed, and pointed out the three people who had struck her.

In the Imperial Garden, Zhaoyi Wei had ordered people to hold her down while two servants slapped her from either side. Including Zhaoyi Wei's first slap, there had been three of them.

The little Crown Prince said casually, "Hold them down."

The servants he had brought charged forward without another word and restrained Zhaoyi Wei and the other two.

Zhaoyi Wei was dumbfounded. This was not what she had imagined! Wasn't he supposed to try courtesy before force?

"Wait! Your Highness! What offense has this consort committed? Unless Your Highness gives a reason, this consort will never submit to such humiliation!"

The little Crown Prince said, "Slap their mouths."

A flurry of smacks rang through the hall. Zhaoyi Wei screamed in pain. She had only meant to kindle a little fire, never imagining that it would burn her instead!

About five or six slaps landed.

"Stop."

The servants stopped.

The little Crown Prince asked Zhaoyi Wei, "Do you admit your fault?"

Zhaoyi Wei nearly hated him to death.

"This consort does not know what Your Highness means!"

The little Crown Prince said, "Keep hitting."

"This consort admits to slapping Your Highness's servant! But she damaged the flowers in the Imperial Garden first!"

Jiang Liang hurried to explain, "I didn't!"

Bolao said with biting sarcasm, "Even when beating a dog, you should mind its master. Are you blind, Zhaoyi Wei, or are you deaf?"

"If the dog did something wrong, you should have reported it to His Highness. His Highness wins people over with virtue. Would he have let you suffer an injustice?"

"You dared discipline her without even looking at whose servant she was. Are you worthy?"

The little Crown Prince grew impatient. "Hit them!"

And so the slaps flew again.

Bolao slipped in some malicious counsel. "Your Highness, this servant thinks Auntie Simiao hasn't been very diligent. She cannot even train a lowly servant properly. This girl keeps saying 'I'-does she think she's a mistress?"

"This servant is willing to take Auntie Simiao's place and train someone for Your Highness who knows the rules and won't cause trouble."

Beside him, the Fat Eunuch shot him a sidelong glance. This brat had been stealing work to curry favor for quite some time. Clearly, he had long disliked that Jiang girl.

The little Crown Prince ignored him.

Jiang Liang was frightened. She kept feeling that her encounter with Zhaoyi Wei in the Imperial Garden had not been a coincidence, yet she had no evidence.

She hastily knelt. "This servant admits her fault! It will never happen again!"

"Stop."

The little Crown Prince asked impassively, "How many?"

A servant replied, "Your Highness, twenty."

The little Crown Prince asked again, "Zhaoyi Wei, do you admit your fault?"

The beating left Zhaoyi Wei burning inside, and she wished she could devour him. "Though this consort was at fault, Your Highness barged into my Bright Elixir Pavilion today and slapped me at will. How have you lived up to His Majesty's trust in the Crown Prince?!"

The little Crown Prince nodded. He understood.

"Drag them outside and beat them to death."

The entire room fell silent.

The Fat Eunuch hesitated for an instant. He was certain His Majesty would not mind the Crown Prince beating someone, but if the Crown Prince killed someone...

Had it been any other child, he would have worried that his master did not understand what "beat them to death" meant. But this was the little Crown Prince, clever and gifted, almost as though he had been born knowing everything.

The Fat Eunuch swallowed his advice, lowered his eyes to his nose, and his nose toward his heart.

These were all His Majesty's people, and the Fat Eunuch was their leader. His silence meant tacit approval.

Several eunuchs therefore dragged the three outside in silence to carry out the execution.

All three were frightened.

Their faces swollen like pigs' heads, the servants of the Bright Elixir Pavilion begged indistinctly through their tears. "Spare our lives, Your Highness! Spare our lives! We know we were wrong!"

The sight of the long, thick wooden clubs made Zhaoyi Wei tremble with fear.

She had ordered servants beaten to death before. One blow tore skin and split flesh! After ten blows, they could draw breath in but could not breathe it out!

Could His Majesty arrive to save her before ten blows fell?

She had wanted to win his favor, not seek her own death!

Even if His Majesty arrived after two or three blows, her backside would be torn to shreds. How could she attend him in bed then?!

Zhaoyi Wei screamed, "This consort was wrong! This consort admits her fault!"

"Spare my life, Your Highness! This consort should not have overstepped her place and taken matters into her own hands!"

The little Crown Prince sneered. "See? Authority is always slapped into people. If one slap doesn't work, use two. If two don't work, I can still have her beaten to death."

As he said this, the Crown Prince looked not only at Jiang Liang, but also at Bolao.

Jiang Liang went cold from head to toe. Nothing frightened her more than hearing the little Crown Prince casually say, "Beat them to death." Human lives here were mere blades of grass.

Every feature on Bolao's face looked perfectly obedient.

Qi Yuanzuo asked Zhaoyi Wei, "Is that all you did wrong?"

Zhaoyi Wei's expression froze, as though she did not understand what the little Crown Prince meant.

"Don't play dumb with me. I'm young, not stupid." His tone was icy. With his hands behind his back, the little Crown Prince walked up to her and exposed her intentions.

"You were delighted when I arrived, weren't you? You meant to move me around like a pawn to help you win favor."

Zhaoyi Wei was both shocked and terrified. She could not believe a child had seen right through her thoughts.

The little Crown Prince sighed like an old man. "Actually, I didn't want to come. But I was unhappy, and that needed an outlet. Just as you wanted to vent your anger when you encountered Jiang Liang in the Imperial Garden."

Zhaoyi Wei slumped in a daze. She had thought he was only a child. How clever could a three-year-old possibly be?

Reality proved that the little Crown Prince was more terrifying than His Majesty! His methods were crueler than the emperor's, his mind exquisitely shrewd, his intelligence almost demonic!

"Don't resent me. You deserved those slaps. After all, you gave me no face, so I couldn't be bothered to give you any."

The devil above her murmured softly, and Zhaoyi Wei desperately wanted to get away.

At last, she heard words that felt like a pardon: "Let's go."

The little Crown Prince's people left one after another, and Zhaoyi Wei collapsed to the ground.

She covered her face. Never had she suffered such humiliation.

The servant girl who had gone ahead to deliver the message hurried inside.

"Zhaoyi!"

Zhaoyi Wei asked hoarsely, "Where is His Majesty?"

The servant girl looked troubled. "His Majesty came... then left again."

Hope surged in Zhaoyi Wei. "His Majesty saw the Crown Prince's vicious methods, didn't he!"

The servant girl nodded with a complicated expression.

Zhaoyi Wei burst out laughing. "Good, good! His Majesty thought his darling was perfect in every way! He never imagined that what he held in his hands was a foul, rotten little demon! His Majesty will surely stop favoring the Crown Prince now!"

"That demon is going to lose his favor!"

The servant girl lowered her head, not daring to interrupt her delusions.

How could His Majesty feel disgusted? He could hardly contain his delight.

Heaven knew how excited His Majesty had looked when she went to invite him.

"What? Tun'er knows how to fight now!"

"Good, good, good! Grand Tutor Zhang has taught him well. He learned to fight in just one day! He's just like I was back then! Come, come, come, let's watch the fun."

The servant girl from the Bright Elixir Pavilion: "..."

The Eldest Prince could not help touching the dragon-headed bracelet at his waist. He had threaded a cord through the bracelet the little Crown Prince had given him and hung it there, just as the little Crown Prince had hung the bead bracelet from the Qi Emperor at his own waist.

So outrageously arrogant.

The Eldest Prince felt that this was exactly how Qi Yuanzuo ought to be: seeing through people's hearts and striking home in one blow. A casual word, a simple gesture-every one embodied the emperor's art of mastering hearts.

"Since you dislike Zhaoyi Wei, why didn't you kill her?"

Qi Yuanzuo strolled leisurely along. "I went there to fight, not to kill."

"I don't dislike her. I only dislike what she did."

The Eldest Prince asked curiously, "What would you do if you met someone you disliked?"

Qi Yuanzuo considered it seriously. "Can't say."

The Eldest Prince rolled his eyes at him. "I know even if you don't tell me."

Was there anyone the Crown Prince disliked?

Did the Xiongnu and the Jiangnan Beastly Bunch count?

For the former, a tower of heads; for the latter, the whipping of corpses.

Then he remembered how the Crown Prince had gathered his bones and buried him after his death, and the Eldest Prince's heart melted into a puddle.

He never disliked me.

"88, I've decided. If one day we inevitably reach the point of killing each other, I'll kill them all and bury the Eldest Prince and Father in the same coffin."

"I'll arrange my other brothers into a flower with their heads pointing toward Father, then have the historians write at great length about their loving father and filial sons."

"I'll disgust them to death. Hehe."

88: "..."