Wu Junji had grown into his features since birth. Looking at his face, no one dared claim he was not Emperor Zhou's son.
The Empress Dowager, the Retired Emperor, and the imperial physicians could all attest to when Wu Junji had been born.
Wu Junji's position as the eldest son was beyond dispute.
Led by Chen Yang, all the military officials at court supported making the emperor's eldest son the Crown Prince.
With the Great Ancestor's final instructions and the example of three generations of wise rulers before them, some wanted to object, but ultimately fell silent.
Fine. They would see how the General Summoning went when he turned three...
If the results were poor, Wu Junji's position as Crown Prince would be far from secure. It was only two years away, after all. Why insist on opposing His Majesty?
At the Crown Prince's investiture ceremony, Emperor Zhou held Wu Junji himself while the Retired Emperor draped him in robes embroidered with four-clawed black dragons, and he received the homage of every official.
Wu Junji watched the scene excitedly. I am the Crown Prince!
Holding him, Emperor Zhou whispered into his right ear.
"If you amount to nothing at three, I'll depose you."
The little Crown Prince scratched his ear, thinking the old geezer was seriously sick in the head, trying to judge his whole life by what he was like at three.
I'm already the Crown Prince.
If you dare depose me, I'll poison you to death.
By the time the investiture ceremony was over, Wu Junji was already a year old.
That system from the beginning had been like a night-blooming flower, appearing for an instant. He never heard its voice again.
Wu Junji did his best to eat, eat, and eat, believing he could escape the constitutionally weak body of his previous life. Reality proved he had been dreaming.
No matter how much nourishment he took in, he could never build himself up to match Wu Junzheng.
Those two months less in the womb were like an impassable chasm that defined their respective places, and they had also cut off any possibility of Wu Junji practicing martial arts.
Another year passed in the blink of an eye. Wu Junji was two, and once again he woke on the enormous dragon bed.
The entire Canopy Bed had been carved from red sandalwood, its auspicious patterns understated yet lavish. The bedding had absorbed the wood's faint fragrance, and after sleeping there so long, he felt he had become a human-shaped piece of red sandalwood himself.
Hugging his quilt, he rolled and rolled across the bed, making a full circuit before opening the bed curtains and poking out his little head.
The eunuch who had long been waiting beside the bed looked at him with a beaming smile.
"Are you awake, Your Highness?"
The maids on either side drew back the curtains. Sitting at the edge of the bed, the little Crown Prince rubbed his eyes and mumbled.
"Awake."
Nanny Wang dampened a cloth to freshen him up.
"Which outfit would Your Highness like to wear today?"
The little Crown Prince sighed. "The one Father picked."
Nanny Wang's smile widened. "Your Highness is so filial. His Majesty will surely be delighted when he returns from court."
A little while later, His Highness the Crown Prince, looking like a little tiger, examined himself in the mirror.
The old geezer had gone mad lately, constantly wanting him in animal costumes: a frog today, a puppy tomorrow, a rabbit the day after, then a rooster.
This was no bullshit paternal love, nor was it a sign of deep affection. It was the most direct expression of how he saw him.
Emperor Zhou was a tyrant, warm on the outside and cold within, who could turn on someone without a trace of mercy.
When he played with you like a toy, he truly regarded you as a toy.
You had better not let that mocking intimacy blind you into believing you were special.
Wu Junji believed that all feelings were by-products of two people pulling against each other to the limit and countering every move, illusions conjured by dopamine in the brain.
Right now, he and Emperor Zhou were doing precisely that. Whether it could stimulate enough dopamine to create that illusory by-product remained to be seen.
Wu Junji understood himself clearly: he could not endure hardship, was blinded by the lure of gain, and had a ravenous appetite for power. As for being so exhausted in body and soul by the heartbreak of his previous life that, now reborn, he wanted only to give up, lie flat, and depend on others? Not a chance.
What he wanted was for Wu Junji's name to appear in the imperial annals of Great Zhou's official history. When he died, the word used had to be "demise"-the death of an emperor!
So he needed the emperor's affection as a bulwark against the palace and court struggles that would come with the fight for succession.
Emperor Zhou was an eccentric tyrant who could go mad at any moment and failed every test of moral character. Gaining even a little weight in such a man's heart was no easy task.
Fortunately, he was only two. There was plenty of time.
To seize the large through the small, the first step was to change Emperor Zhou's habitual way of addressing him.
He had had enough of being called "little wretch."
Emperor Zhou called him a little wretch at every turn, until the servants of Taiji Palace thought "little wretch" whenever they saw Wu Junji.
His attitude determined the servants' attitude. Only after noticing this problem did Wu Junji decide to act.
Whenever the other man called him a little wretch, he stayed silent and refused to answer.
His reaction only made Emperor Zhou call him a little wretch with even greater relish. He even started making animal costumes, plainly harboring a malicious desire to toy with him.
After thinking it over at length, Wu Junji decided to fight poison with poison: whenever the man called him a little wretch, he would call him an old geezer.
Little wretch versus old geezer.
Father and son traded insults every day.
It was just like back when the two of them could clash dozens, even hundreds of times over the issue of sucking his fingers.
This time, they had been locked in their battle of wills for half a month.
Wu Junji was still fine, but Emperor Zhou had been close to losing his temper these past few days, so Wu Junji yielded just enough and put on the tiger costume.
The little Crown Prince carried a small stool to the entrance of Taiji Palace and sat down, ears pricked for the wind and birdsong as he breathed the fresh air. By the time the sandalwood scent on him had slowly faded, scattered footsteps sounded at the entrance.
Wu Junji stood and ran over on his short little legs to welcome him.
"Father!"
Ever since Wu Junji entered the palace, Emperor Zhou had kept him at his side and raised him personally.
The child changed by the day.
He stopped drooling, learned to sit, learned to crawl, learned to talk, learned to walk-and learned to make trouble.
Emperor Zhou deeply regretted not correcting the boy's stubborn streak in the beginning.
The little wretch, who was not even as tall as his sword yet, defied him every day.
He refused to wear the clothes he was told to wear.
He refused to call him Father when told.
He would not listen when he read to him.
He would not eat when he fed him.
Damned brat!
Today, Emperor Zhou had swallowed a firecracker at court and had nowhere to vent his fury. Before he even stepped into Taiji Palace, he had already decided what he would smash, determined to show the little wretch his imperial might.
Then a little tiger came charging straight at him, roaring out "Father!"
Wrapped in thick clothes, those two short little legs practically ceased to exist.
He waddled over, patter-patter, and half the fury in Emperor Zhou's heart was waddled away.
Emperor Zhou bent down, tucked the little tiger under his arm, and gave his bottom two smacks.
"Weren't you calling me old geezer? Why aren't you saying it today?"
"Weren't you refusing to wear this? Why have you put it on today?"
Wu Junji looked exactly like a kitten draped over a bar, folded limply in half. He was no fool: dancing along the boundary proved his skill; dancing over it meant courting death for no reason.
"You're the one who keeps calling me a little wretch."
Emperor Zhou carried him into the palace under his arm, not forgetting to bicker.
"I am the emperor. I can call you whatever I please!"
"What's wrong with little wretch? Can a wretch I fathered be the same as any other wretch?"
Wu Junji argued, "Then what's wrong with old geezer? Can an old geezer called that by the Crown Prince be the same as one called that by anyone else?"
Emperor Zhou simply could not understand why he was so determined to fight over a form of address.
Emperor Zhou sat cross-legged on the carpet, tugged the tiger tail on his son's costume to topple him over, then slipped his cold hands beneath his clothes and warmed them against his son's warm belly.
He was plainly treating him as a hand warmer.
It was late autumn, almost winter, and Wu Junji was already sensitive to the cold. He struggled fiercely to retreat, cursing in anger.
"Old geezer!"
Wu Junji blamed the old geezer for his body's persistent frailty.
What normal person used his own son to warm his hands?
Didn't he know children could get diarrhea?
When he had just turned one, the man had made him gnaw on venison and steamed buns.
When he was nearly a year and a half old, Emperor Zhou put wine in his soup.
Now that he was two, Emperor Zhou chased him around feeding him ginseng soup.
As though he feared he might fail to feed him to death.
Those first two incidents alone had made Wu Junji realize that this eccentric, mercurial old geezer might be raising him merely as an amusing personal possession.
His own belongings, even if they rotted, died, or became useless, had to be disposed of by him personally.
If he liked him, he would hold him high above everyone else; if he did not, he would immediately grind him down.
Even appointing him Crown Prince might have been nothing more than a momentary rush of blood and a lapse of reason.
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