At the thought of getting only two meals a day, Wu Junji immediately turned and went inside to find a bowl.
Emperor Zhou had said that the Academy would provide all the students' daily necessities, including matching clothes, so he had brought only some pastries and little hair crowns.
Back in his room, he untied the large bundle the scholar who had guided him there had left behind and found a spittoon.
It was white porcelain, and quite pretty, but it was a spittoon. It could even serve as a chamber pot, but the one thing it should never serve as was a rice bowl.
Wu Junji kept rummaging. No bowl.
A wooden washbasin and a spittoon were the only two things that could hold anything.
His expression calm, Wu Junji carried the spittoon off to get his meal.
He was small, and by the time he had run back and forth, almost everyone else had been served.
When Wu Junji arrived, he happened to see Wang Qing walking toward Wu Junzheng with two portions of food.
Wu Junji raised the spittoon.
"Food, please."
Greed flashed in the cook's eyes. He scanned Wu Junji's body inch by inch, the rich fortune making his soul nearly fly out with craving.
Wu Junji had no idea that, in a demon's eyes, he was gold within and pink without, gleaming with pearls and jewels-a temptation enough to drive demons mad!
The human emperor fortune clung tightly to Wu Junji. Only by shaking his resolve, making him suffer, making him miserable, making him hysterical, could they cause that fortune to spill out for demons to devour.
The cook could bear it no longer. Wiping away his drool with a greasy hand, he poured his malice over Wu Junji without restraint.
"Where did this little bastard come from? Holding up a spittoon-want me to reward you with a mouthful of phlegm?"
Wu Junzheng sprang to his feet, glaring furiously.
Holding up the spittoon, Wu Junji tipped his head back and repeated:
"Food, please."
Demonic markings spread from the corners of the cook's eyes. "Want something to eat that badly? Your grandpa will give you a mouthful!"
He rattled his throat and hacked up a lump of sticky phlegm, grabbed the spittoon, and spat into it. The foul-smelling mucus clung to the side and trickled down.
Wu Junji repeated once more, "Food. Please."
An ordinary child would already have been bawling in terror, but the human emperor fortune remained firmly attached. Unable to obtain even a trace, the cook grew desperately impatient, yet had no idea what to do.
His bestial savagery flared, and he kicked Wu Junji. That movement seemed to trigger some mechanism.
Every demon in the dining hall swarmed forward.
Wu Junzheng's pupils kept contracting.
He watched them surround Wu Junji and tear at his clothes, yank away the pink hair chain wound around his hair, and pull off his dice.
They exhausted every filthy word they knew, belittling him, crushing him, insulting him.
The noble Crown Prince of Great Zhou, the King of Hell in Wu Junzheng's mind, the imperious founding emperor Zhou Zhongzu, stood clutching a spittoon. His clothes were torn, his hair loose, and a pack of demons shoved him back and forth like a punching bag. Once again, he was that beggar anyone could bully.
"Aaaah-!" 88 could take no more. Screaming, it haphazardly shoved a lump of something into Wu Junji's hands, then scrambled under a table and hugged itself, trembling.
"Aaaaah-!"
Wu Junzheng could take no more either. He clutched his head and screamed.
Drawn by the scream, the demons quieted down.
Wu Junzheng gripped his throat and dry-heaved. These were physical, pathological retches; he wished he could vomit out his intestines and his eyes!
The unreachable divine idol in his heart shattered with a crack.
Its majestic golden body fell into the muddy earth, exposing the rotten stuffing, the putrid matter, the bones of a dog wagging its tail and begging for pity inside!
Wu Junji was a beggar! He was nothing but a lowly beggar!
Spat on! Crawling between people's legs! Called a beauty spittoon, an ass-dog! Picking steamed buns off the ground, bending himself to please others, stopping at nothing to seize power-a beggar!
He could put on silks and satins, wear crowns of gold and silver, but in his bones, he was still that beggar who had once been so lowly!
When he had power, he ran wild!
When he lost it, he could still put aside his supposed nobility and dignity to beg for a meal!
To a beggar, nothing mattered more than a mouthful of food. He could easily cast aside his status and start all over again, but Wu Junzheng could not.
He discovered that he feared Wu Junji losing his noble status even more than Wu Junji himself did.
Weren't you all-powerful?
Weren't you supreme above all others?
Weren't you the ultimate victor?
How could you be so lowly?!
Wu Junzheng could not bear it. He could not bear it!
People always liked to revere what was beautiful, and to despise and pity what was lowly.
88 had forgotten every humiliation of Wu Junji's previous life.
It had placed him high on a pedestal, all noble and grand.
Wu Junzheng had placed him high on a pedestal too, all noble and grand.
Yet Wu Junji cruelly shattered that image before their eyes.
He was covered in mud. His life was cheap. He had nothing.
Everything he had, he had schemed and worked to obtain himself.
Even now, he continued to weigh his options at his own unhurried pace.
Wu Junji leafed through the memories 88 had transmitted to him in its panic.
These were his true experiences from his previous life.
Those memories held everything he wanted.
Tsk, tsk. What a windfall.
The less Wu Junji cared, the more Wu Junzheng cared. He shook all over like dice being rattled.
He charged forward, snatched Wu Junji's spittoon, and smashed it into the cook's face.
At that moment, he was no longer afraid of any of these damned demons.
He pointed at the cook and cursed:
"A stinking rat from a crack in the ground! Scrabbling like a dog, swarming like a fly-one look at you makes this prince want to vomit! Do you deserve to serve Wu Junji his food?!"
"Do you know who he is?!"
"A pack of blind, foul-mouthed beasts! Your hides stink and your fur reeks. One whiff makes this prince want to vomit for seven days and eight nights! Even the manure our people of Great Zhou ferment for their fields smells better than you!"
"You think you deserve to act so insolently before the imperial family of Great Zhou!"
A red flood dragon rose mightily from Wu Junzheng's body, its furious roar soaring through the blue clouds for a hundred thousand miles!
With the memories of his previous life, Wu Junzheng wielded fortune as easily as moving his own hands.
The young yet powerful red flood dragon coiled and pressed down. All thirty-one demons in the Zhou quarters screamed and revealed their true forms.
Losing all composure, Wu Junzheng shook Wu Junji.
"Where's that overwhelming presence you crushed me with in your last life?!"
"Even this prince can deal with these furry beasts! Are you doing this on purpose?!"
"Are you deliberately trying to disgust this prince?!"
"Tell me! Tell me?!"
"I knew Chen Yu was a treacherous scoundrel! Did he scheme against you? Did he abandon you and run away?!!!"
Wu Junzheng interrogated him like a shrew. Halfway through, he failed to catch his breath and nearly fainted. Trembling, he took off his own clothes, then tied Wu Junji's hair back up. Only once Wu Junji looked bright and presentable again did Wu Junzheng feel better.
He looked at Wu Junji, then suddenly covered his face and burst into loud sobs.
Like a little child throwing a tantrum, he wailed, "I hate you so much..."
"I hate you so much!!!"
Unable to accept himself like this, Wu Junzheng ran away, sobbing wildly.
Wu Junji tilted his head, straightened his clothes, and touched the little topknot on his head. Then, looking at the room full of demons sprawled every which way, he leisurely hummed the Newspaper Seller's little nursery rhyme, stepped onto a chair, and climbed onto the table.
"No rice bowl? Then I shall claim the pot and eat from it. It's all the same."
Author's note: Everyone said this version was good, so let's go with this one.
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