The next morning, Emperor Zhou rose early for court. The little Crown Prince lay curled in a corner of the bed, his limbs sprawled into the shape of the character 多-a squat, plump little bundle of cuteness.
Anyone would have melted at the sight. Not Emperor Zhou.
He insisted on hauling the boy into the middle of the bed and arranging his little hands and feet into the neat pose of a body laid out for burial.
He nodded in satisfaction. Much better.
The moment he turned away, the little Crown Prince sprawled into a duo again.
Emperor Zhou resisted the urge to straighten him out again and gave the stubborn little thing on the bed a soft huff.
"If your imperial grandfather sees you sleeping like that, he'll have you paddled."
The little thing sat up with his eyes still shut, tipped forward in a kowtow, and mumbled in a low, sleepwalking voice,
"Save me, Father~"
That lilting little ending curled straight into his heart. Emperor Zhou felt as though a feather had tickled it.
Unable to suppress a smile, Emperor Zhou murmured,
"You little... thing."
Once Wu Junji woke and ate his fill, he discovered a crowd of people in official robes outside, repairing tiles, sweeping, and taking measurements.
Puzzled, he asked the nanny beside him,
"What's going on?"
Nanny Wang said fondly, "His Majesty is preparing to welcome the Imperial Noble Consort."
Understanding dawned on Wu Junji.
A year ago, shortly after he became Crown Prince, the old bastard had decreed that Chen Jin, the younger sister of Commander Chen, would enter the palace as Imperial Noble Consort.
The Imperial Noble Consort and the emperor would also hold a wedding, though both its scale and its ceremonies would be much simpler.
Nanny Wang and Eunuch Qian, who attended him, kept looking as though they had something to say but could not bring themselves to say it.
The little Crown Prince asked in confusion, "What do you want to say?"
Nanny Wang said quietly, "Your Highness, according to the rites, His Majesty must spend three days with the Imperial Noble Consort after she enters the palace."
For those three days, Taiji Palace would be the emperor and the Imperial Noble Consort's home, where they slept at night.
Wu Junji's presence would be inappropriate.
The Heavenly Qian Palace, where Emperor Zhou had lived as Crown Prince, had been demolished as soon as he took the throne. Reconstruction had yet to begin, so if the Crown Prince moved out, he would not even have a proper palace to live in.
Stay in the east or west wing of Taiji Palace? They would be newlyweds in the first flush of marriage. His presence there would make him a third wheel right under their noses.
Go squeeze in with the Empress Dowager and the Retired Emperor for a few days?
And after muddling through this time, what about the next?
This time it was the Imperial Noble Consort entering the palace; next time it might be an empress. The old bastard would summon other consorts to his bed in the future, too. Staying in Taiji Palace forever was no solution.
He needed a palace of his own.
Any other prince would have his mother handle this sort of thing. Wu Junji could only find a way himself.
Thinking he was upset, Eunuch Qian bent down and coaxed him softly. "It's only a few days. Your Highness can visit His Majesty during the day. It's just that His Majesty may be busy at night. You'll have to go to bed early so you can grow big."
Wu Junji looked up at him without saying anything.
Nanny Wang wanted to say more, but a glance from Eunuch Qian stopped her.
He had once brought up having a palace of his own with his father. The man's face had soured; he thought Wu Junji was being petulant and would not take the matter seriously at all.
After some thought, Wu Junji decided to visit the Empress Dowager and the Retired Emperor. Surely those two had to take some responsibility for the investiture of an Imperial Noble Consort?
It would not be unreasonable to use this opportunity to ask them to help persuade the old bastard to give him a separate palace.
Wu Junji was not close to the Retired Emperor or the Empress Dowager. He maintained only a veneer of respect.
The two elders preferred Wu Junzheng and would occasionally ask Consort Dong to bring him over for a visit.
Wu Junji had taken the initiative to visit twice himself. After he paid his respects and ate a little, the Empress Dowager and the Retired Emperor would send him away, claiming fatigue.
After that, Wu Junji stopped pressing his warm face against their cold backsides.
As it turned out, he had still overestimated the family affection between Emperor Zhou and his parents.
A nanny attending the Empress Dowager came out and answered respectfully, "Your Highness, Her Majesty is feeling unwell today and fears she might pass her illness to you."
Wu Junji was not sure whether the Empress Dowager knew why he had come.
"Grandmother is ill? Has an imperial physician been summoned? I'm worried and would like to go in and see her. The Imperial Noble Consort will enter the palace in a few days, so I may have to trouble Grandmother for a short stay."
The nanny was polite but distant. "Thank you for your concern, Your Highness. A physician has already seen her. It's nothing serious, merely the weariness that comes with age."
"All palace affairs are subject to His Majesty's arrangements. The Empress Dowager and the Retired Emperor have no energy to concern themselves with anything more. Please return, Your Highness."
Wu Junji did not insist. "Very well. In that case, let Imperial Grandmother rest. I won't disturb her."
He descended the steps one at a time on his short little legs and headed back.
Nanny Wang's heart ached for him, and she wanted to carry him, but Wu Junji declined with his head lowered.
"I'll walk by myself."
Wu Junji had assumed that the old bastard was so autocratic, willful, and reckless because the Empress Dowager and the Retired Emperor had raised him like an ancestor to be worshipped.
What he had seen and heard over the past two years had changed his mind.
The Retired Emperor, the Empress Dowager, and the old bastard treated one another with the courtesy accorded to guests.
And "guests" was precisely the extent of their affection.
Whatever the old bastard did, those two neither interfered nor corrected him nor offered an opinion.
This was not indulgence. It was indifference.
And so Emperor Zhou believed everything he did was right, laughing, raging, and cursing as he pleased, acting on nothing but his own temperament.
Sometimes he was so unreasonable that he gave Wu Junji a headache.
Since the Empress Dowager and the Retired Emperor wanted nothing to do with him, he would have to broach the subject with the old bastard himself.
Emperor Zhou was intensely possessive. On the surface, this was a matter of a palace; in truth, it meant overturning the old bastard's perceptions and principles.
As things stood, if he argued with his father one day and the man told him to get out, he would not even have a place to sleep.
If he could use the Imperial Noble Consort's arrival to obtain a palace of his own, that would be a good thing.
"Ding-! Host! Did you miss 88?"
The electronic voice that suddenly sounded in his head made Wu Junji start.
The system was back!
"You're awake?"
88 let out a "Holy shit!" "Host, how can you walk already? I remember you only just being born!"
Wu Junji rolled his eyes. What an unreliable thing.
His feet ached after walking all the way back to Taiji Palace. He carried over a little stool and sat at the palace entrance with his Cloth Tiger in his arms, watching the craftsmen renovate the blue-tiled covered walkway in the courtyard.
Meanwhile, his mind wandered as he spoke with the system in his head.
It felt as though the system had set up a room inside his head. Whenever he wanted to see it, 88's round body would appear in his mind.
Liquor, cola, a huge screen, cigars, sunglasses, bubble gum, and lights in every color.
Wu Junji hesitated.
The system briskly cracked open two bottles of liquor, gulped down several mouthfuls, and bared a set of gold-capped teeth simulated from data.
"That's the stuff!"
The background music went,
"Life has tormented me~~~~"
"My descendants have ruined me~~~~"
Wu Junji: "..."
"Son, there's not much Daddy can do for you anymore. I can only tell you through my tears that Chen Yu has been reborn! Your mortal enemy, your sworn nemesis! Happy? Surprised?"
Wu Junji's first thought was that Chen Yu really had all the luck. Then he earnestly corrected its wording.
"He isn't my mortal enemy or my sworn nemesis. He's a defeated opponent."
"A mediocre talent with a narrow outlook. Don't put him on a pedestal."
88 clicked its tongue twice. Either way, he clearly cared a great deal.
In his previous life, Wu Junji's teacher, senior fellow disciple, and every subordinate official in the Crown Prince's household had left him for Chen Yu.
With that defiant breath bottled in his chest, Wu Junji had written the Peaceful People's Encyclopedia, determined to tell his teacher, everyone who had abandoned him, and the entire world that Great Zhou's Crown Prince was no mediocre piece of rotten wood unfit to be shown in public.
By lamplight at the third watch and cockcrow at the fifth, he had poured out his heart's blood and written without cease for ten years. When the strain blurred his vision, he had made himself a pair of thick glass spectacles.
On the eve of its publication, that Peaceful People's Encyclopedia, into which he had poured everything he had, was put to the torch. The towering blaze burned his spirit dry.
The glass spectacles that had witnessed those ten years seemed like fate's mockery of him.
Remembering it soured Wu Junji's mood, and when his mood soured, he did not want Chen Yu to have an easy time either.
"I need to see Chen Yu."
88 was immediately baffled. "What are you going to see him for?"
With the air of a seasoned expert, it suggested, "You should pretend you know nothing, lie low behind the scenes, and scheme against him, guard against him, and suppress him!"
"I refuse."
What Wu Junji did best was wear a gentleman's skin while doing a scoundrel's work.
Aloud, he said, "I'm not a petty, small-minded person. We've both been reborn. I'll greet an old friend and honor our past bond."
"When we fight again in the future, we'll each know the other's hand and can face victory or defeat openly."
"I hope my visit will help Chen Yu prepare for the destruction of his entire family next year. That way, his kindness in seeing me to my grave in our last life won't go unrepaid."
88 listened for a while. Although it was a mature system, it still did not quite understand the art of human language.
"In short?"
Wu Junji's gaze drifted aside.
"I want Chen Yu to live in fear and never know peace."
88 had seen enough grand spectacles to take that in stride.
"How are you going to leave the palace, Host?"
Wu Junji spotted Emperor Zhou returning from court in the distance.
"Here comes the person who'll take me out."
He trotted over and raised his hands. Emperor Zhou lifted him by the armpits as everyone at Taiji Palace bowed.
"Long live Your Majesty! Long live, long, long live!"
"Rise."
Emperor Zhou carried his son into the palace.
"Aren't you afraid of the cold? It's freezing today. Why were you sitting outside the hall? Has your brain frozen solid?"
Every time he returned from court, he would see the little thing running happily over to greet him.
Sometimes a ring of rice paste clung around his mouth; sometimes he clutched a Cloth Tiger; sometimes his little feet were bare.
Emperor Zhou never said so, but he thoroughly enjoyed it.
Who knew whom he had inherited it from, but Emperor Zhou's tongue was vicious beyond measure. Words of concern hardened into insults as they tumbled out of his mouth.
Fortunately, Wu Junji only picked out what he wanted to hear. He rested his chin on Emperor Zhou's shoulder and said nothing about his visit to the Empress Dowager.
"There's sunshine outside. Sunshine makes me grow."
Amused, Emperor Zhou thought for a moment. "You and Junzheng are about the same age. If you're bored, I'll have Changchun Palace send your younger brother over to keep you entertained."
Wu Junji straightened up. "Why can't I go to Changchun Palace to see my younger brother instead?"
Without thinking, Emperor Zhou blurted out,
"He isn't worthy."
Before you continue