Chapter 85: My Child Bears the Bearing of a Great Emperor (11)

Of these three, one loved wealth, one cherished power and fame, and the last was enamored with beauty.

Pei Shaoping was the one with an eye for riches. He was also the easiest to persuade, and his reputation was quite spotless—if he took your money, he would see things done. That alone set him miles above those who pocketed bribes but never delivered.

While Cui Ge paced anxiously, Qin Ye couldn’t grasp what he was so worried about—the emperor trusted him implicitly, and he held military authority in his hands. If all else failed, why not simply overthrow the emperor and seize power himself? His son was destined for the throne, fated to rebel sooner or later; what difference did a little haste or delay make?

If Cui Ge had no taste for rebellion, the matter was simple: bribe Pei Shaoping. After all, Cui Ge had vanquished the enemies who destroyed the Cui clan and confiscated their fortunes—he could well afford to buy Pei Shaoping’s allegiance.

When Qin Ye suggested bribing Pei Shaoping, Cui Ge’s first instinct was to protest. Even if he wasn’t a paragon of virtue, he was no traitor—how could he stoop to such collusion? But before he could voice his objection, Qin Ye cut him off with a single, pointed remark:

“You’re giving Pei Shaoping money to protect the Crown Prince—isn’t that for the good of the realm and its people?”

Cui Ge was left speechless. Well, it did seem reasonable.

Cui Ge was nothing if not proactive. He gathered valuables at once and sent them in secret to Pei Shaoping.

Pei Shaoping was a strikingly handsome young man. The emperor, it must be said, had a weakness for good looks and could never abide the plain or ugly. Accepting the bribe, Pei Shaoping assured them he would handle the matter.

A few days later, the Crown Prince was released. Yet the ordeal had left him drained of spirit and vitality.

As for the campaign, its outcome matched the plot: the emperor fell ill, and panic seized him, compelling an immediate return to the capital.

Qin Ye sighed, dusted Dahei with flour until the dog appeared pure white, and taught it a gaze both noble and sacred. With a burst of sword energy, he transformed an ordinary leaf into an object of jade-like wonder, and in a calligraphic hand learned from a world long past, he wrote out every remedy for miasma, poisonous insects, and the summer heat.

He sent Dahei, bearing the letter, to a reputable general, hoping to save lives that might otherwise be lost in vain.

Dahei delivered the message and promptly fled, chasing after his master, who had already set off with the emperor’s returning entourage.

The general who received the letter merged Dahei in his mind with the mythical Bai Ze, the auspicious beast, and clung to this belief without doubt.

Dahei was thoroughly perplexed—had he become Bai Ze? Oblivious to such legend, he sprinted all the way, finally catching up to Qin Ye, trailing a flurry of flour in his wake.

Was flour truly the only way to dye fur? Qin Ye smiled—flour was so convenient. Let Dahei roll in the emperor’s pristine flour, and the black dog became white as snow. Afterwards, Dahei needed no help to return to his original color—a dip in water and a shake, and all was as before. It hardly mattered; the emperor’s flour was never eaten anyway and no one else would have it.

Thus, Qin Ye kept his achievements hidden and continued his idle, carefree existence as a dissipated scion.

The emperor, gravely ill, commanded the Crown Prince to tend him day and night. Ordinarily, a sick emperor would never summon the Crown Prince—especially since the emperor’s illness had been contracted in the south. What if it proved contagious?

But the Great Shun emperor was different. He dreaded the thought of himself waning while the Crown Prince thrived, hale and hearty. He was haunted by his own past—he had ascended in just such a manner. Judging others by himself, he believed the Crown Prince harbored similar ambitions to usurp him.

Yet the Crown Prince was remarkably dutiful, genuinely anxious for his father’s health. He insisted on personally attending every detail, and even, in testing the emperor’s medicines, contracted the same illness.

The emperor was deeply moved. For a time, father and son basked in an atmosphere of mutual affection and filial devotion.

But as the emperor recovered and the Crown Prince remained gravely ill, the emperor ordered his son banished from his presence—his attitude shifting abruptly.

The Crown Prince, who might have recovered, fell into melancholy at this change. He began to think that only his death could satisfy the emperor, and, left to his own devices, allowed the illness to worsen.

The empress pleaded with the emperor to visit their son. The emperor, fearing relapse, refused. Yet the empress persisted. Though their youthful marriage had since cooled, she had always known her place—never objecting to the emperor’s excesses, never reproaching him for his infidelities. The emperor appreciated her discretion, and at last, swayed by her entreaties, agreed to visit the Crown Prince, though only from behind a screen.

Inspired, the Crown Prince’s will to live revived, and his illness began to abate. It was never a fatal ailment—otherwise, the emperor himself would have perished.

The long delay in recovery owed only to the Crown Prince’s heavy heart, his desire to die fanned by his father’s coldness.

For a time, the emperor of Great Shun kept to his chambers, resting and recuperating—or so it seemed. In truth, he soon tired of inaction and took to touring the realm instead of military campaigns.

Everywhere he went, he ordered the construction of new palaces, conscripted laborers, and demanded gifts from officials and gentry. Even the common folk were obliged to offer tribute, though their offerings were beneath his notice and mere formalities.

After several such excursions, his confidence returned, and he once more set his sights on leading a campaign—not to the south this time, for the miasmas and relentless heat there unnerved him.

Instead, he resolved to march north, vowing to uproot the nomadic king’s court and prove his own brilliance and might to the world.

The Crown Prince chose to accompany him—only he could hope to restrain the emperor, though success was never guaranteed. At least, when he spoke, the emperor would not fly into a rage and order his execution.

In previous dynasties, ministers were never punished for speaking their minds. Indeed, some officials seemed to delight in provoking the sovereign. But times had changed. Now the emperor would have a man beheaded for little more than an unwelcome word, under the charge of “reckless criticism of state affairs.”

It was laughable, truly—the charge for which ministers lost their heads was “reckless criticism of state affairs.”

The emperor might as well say he found someone disagreeable and wished to punish them for that; it would be a better excuse than this.

Qin Ye, meanwhile, spent his days in pleasure, yet heard plenty of gossip and accumulated a wealth of knowledge on how to play the part of a tyrant. He learned, to his surprise, that being a despot could be quite an art.

In time, he fancied himself so adept he might one day “go professional”—portraying tyrants so vividly as to be remembered in infamy for generations.

Cui Ge kept Qin Ye close, fearing that an unguarded tongue might betray the ambitions of Qin Teng before their time. Thus, Qin Ye had little leisure to follow the developments between the story’s leading man and woman.

The Great Shun emperor provided such a bounty of drama and amusement that Qin Ye found him more entertaining on his own than the main couple combined. In comparison, who could spare a thought for them?

It was while Qin Ye’s gaze was averted that Xu Yinglan was reborn.

In her previous life, Xu Yinglan had married Prince Qi, the Crown Prince’s younger brother, who was strikingly handsome, while the Crown Prince was broad of girth and round of face—a consequence, perhaps, of his habit of eating to assuage every trouble. And trouble was never in short supply. Thus, the Crown Prince ate and ate, growing into a man so corpulent that even a short walk left him breathless.

Prince Qi, on the other hand, was tall, handsome, and possessed an odd penchant for consorting with married women.

In her past life, before the third campaign could be launched, the Crown Prince died, and Prince Qi was named heir. The emperor, ever capricious, had doted on Prince Qi when he was merely a prince, but once he became Crown Prince, the emperor turned on him, finding fault with everything he did, so that even breathing became a crime.

Under this relentless pressure, Prince Qi grew warped. What had once been a simple preference for mature women became a compulsion for seduction and a volatile, violent temperament—a tyrant in the making.

Who would have guessed that this once-refined, proud young prince could descend so far? He had always resented his brother’s corpulence, believing himself better suited to the throne, yet no one defended the Crown Prince more fiercely than he.

At present, Prince Qi was still a proud child, not yet grown—though old enough to consider marriage by the standards of the day. He had no great ambitions, only a fondness for amusement, which brought him into contact with the notorious idler, Qin Ye. Qin Ye, unaware of his identity, regarded him as just another pampered youth.

In her previous life, Xu Yinglan had become Princess Qi, later elevated to Crown Princess, which drove the Crown Prince to complete madness.

When it all came to a head, the emperor, enraged, found Prince Qi blameless in his own eyes, but, pushed to the brink, Prince Qi rebelled—just as Qin Teng once did: “This old tyrant, I can’t bear it any longer.” He launched a palace coup, failed, and was slain by the emperor’s own hand.

Xu Yinglan, as Princess Qi, narrowly escaped with her life but lived in constant fear. The realm descended into chaos; warlords rose up everywhere, and the greatest rebel leader swept across the land, gathering refugees in his wake.

Wen Baiyu, unassuming, became a minor county magistrate, amassed a small force that slowly grew, and in the end, became one of the regional lords.

By then, the emperor had long since died at the hands of the very refugees he despised.

Xu Yinglan, clutching the illegitimate son she’d borne with Prince Qi and the wives and daughters of officials, was swept along by the ministers to the south. There, her infant son, not yet able to walk, was enthroned as the new emperor of Great Shun.

For half a month, Xu Yinglan, as Empress Dowager, held her son who cared for nothing but play, and presided over the throne.