[Since everyone wants to compete, the scene is bound to get lively — it's all about the stage of succession struggle. If you've got the guts, come on in.]
[This worried Yanwudi to no end. Too many brothers — what a headache. If you stage the Xuanwu Gate Incident fourteen times, I'll be the one getting annoyed even if you aren't.]
This world and Xie Zhao's world originally followed the same course of history, but things went off track during Emperor Xuanzong's reign in the Tang Dynasty.
A formidable figure launched a rebellion even earlier than the An Lushan Rebellion, killed Emperor Xuanzong, and took the throne himself. From that point on, the course of this world diverged.
So everyone present knew about the Xuanwu Gate Incident — how Emperor Taizong of Tang contended with Crown Prince Li Jiancheng, launched a coup at Xuanwu Gate, killed the Crown Prince, and forced the Emperor to abdicate in his favor.
Fourteen Xuanwu Gate Incidents — that would mean wiping out all his brothers! And you're complaining about being annoyed?
The nobles were still in shock, but the Emperor let out a cold snort. "Trying to force me to abdicate? He's still too green for that!"
The chief eunuch Feng De quickly urged, "Your Majesty, please calm down. Given how Miss Mu phrased it, it seems that prince didn't actually do such a thing."
That was indeed a fair point.
The Emperor was satisfied. "At least he knows his place."
"But judging by her tone, she seems to admire that brat?"
Even when it came to someone committing treason and seizing the throne, what Mumu cared about was whether he killed too many people and found it annoying?
[Xiao Ming felt this wouldn't do — absolutely not. He'd killed so many that his blade was starting to dull, and that pained him. This was his peerless treasured blade — how could it be used for such crude work?]
The Second Prince couldn't believe it. "Crude work?"
The Seventh Prince's eyes lit up. "There's really a peerless treasured blade?"
The Fourth Prince was speechless. "…What exactly is she feeling sorry for?"
The ones getting cut down are us! You don't feel sorry for us — the souls beneath the blade — but you feel sorry for whether the executioner's blade got dull? Don't be so biased, I'm telling you.
Wait, whose souls beneath the blade?
Pfft, pfft, pfft!
That's way too inauspicious!
It was the Sixth Prince who had an unusual point of focus.
"Hold on, who is this Xiao Ming?"
Connecting the context, the Fifth Prince frowned and guessed uncertainly, "Could it be that Yanwudi? His name is Xiao Ming?"
The ruler of an entire nation named Xiao Ming?
The Fifth Prince looked disgusted, as if he'd seen something filthy.
"Utterly improper!"
"But none of us brothers have the character 'Ming' in our names," the Sixth Prince found it strange.
The princes all had the 'sun' radical in their names, chosen by the Emperor — supposedly because he wanted his sons to shine as brilliantly as the sun.
Xie Zhao, however, felt that for some reason, looking at these dozen-plus brothers whose names all contained the 'sun' radical, it was easy to think of the ten golden crows from mythology.
Those ten were even more dazzling, and yet all of them were shot down by Hou Yi, leaving only one survivor.
How similar to the succession struggle.
What a coincidence — even though all fifteen of their names had the 'sun' radical, not a single one used the character 'Ming.' So when Mumu called out "Xiao Ming," it left everyone completely baffled.
Who was she calling?
Everyone had actually been looking forward to hearing Yanwudi's name, so they could pinpoint him precisely. But "Xiao Ming"… who was Xiao Ming?
"Could it be… he hasn't been born yet?"
Hiss… that wasn't entirely impossible, but the Emperor was already fifty!
Could he still…?
Everyone secretly glanced at the Emperor. The Emperor coughed expressionlessly, and they quickly averted their gaze and sat up straight.
Heavens help me, I've got some nerve, actually daring to laugh at the Emperor.
Everyone was just guessing randomly anyway. Once reason returned, they knew this guess wasn't reliable at all.
First, setting aside the question of whether the Emperor was still capable — just two months ago, a palace attendant had reported good news and been promoted to Noble Lady. The Emperor was very capable indeed.
But regardless of whether that child was a boy or girl, they had no chance in the succession struggle.
The older princes had already grown up, and the succession struggle had already begun. Even the Tenth Prince and those ranked further back had no part in it, let alone an unborn infant.
And even if — a thousand steps back — this child had extraordinary luck, and the Emperor suddenly lost his mind and doted on a Noble Lady from the family of a low-ranking seventh-rank official.
Then, regardless of opposition from the court, he insisted on making that Noble Lady's son the Crown Prince, letting him win by lying down.
Even so, the nobles of the court would never agree.
The nobles had distinguished military records. They were both the maternal families of the princes and their wives' families — all in the same boat as the princes. If you refused to establish their grandsons or sons-in-law, and instead established some unrelated outsider?
Fine, you want to flip the table, do you? Then nobody gets to play!
That would be practically forcing the entire military to rebel.
They still needed the military to guard the borders. The Tartars to the north harbored restless ambitions — whenever it got cold, they'd come graze their horses at the frontier. The Nanzhao to the south were also at odds despite their pleasant facade — even the princess sent for a peace marriage wasn't born of the same mother as the Nanzhao king's heir. Who knew when they'd rebel again.
So the nobles couldn't be offended. The Crown Prince would have to be chosen from among the princes connected to the nobles by marriage. An unborn child had no chance.
The only possibility for an upset had been ruled out.
"So it seems this 'Xiao Ming' is still among us—only that's not his real name, but a nickname given to him by the spirit creature," the First Prince said after a moment of deliberation.
"But why would the spirit creature give him a nickname?"
"Who knows—the spirit creature seems quite fond of him."
"How strange."
At first, Mumu's behavior hadn't been obvious enough, but the more she spoke, the more they sensed something amiss.
Why did she always speak of that "tyrant" with such familiarity?
The Duke of Chen pondered for a moment, then said uncertainly, "Could it be that the title 'tyrant' is somehow misleading?"
Unfortunately, no one believed him.
Unable to discern the true identity of Yanwudi from his name, everyone felt somewhat disappointed, hoping only that Mumu would continue to share more relevant details that might offer them some guidance.
[Our Xiao Ming ranks first on the tyrant list—he's got plenty of tricks up his sleeve. Directly rebelling is just too low-class. Not only does it easily make enemies, but it also tarnishes one's reputation.]
[Look at Emperor Taizong of Tang—no matter how great his civil and military achievements were, people still can't help but mention the Xuanwu Gate Incident when they speak of him. Especially in ancient feudal societies like this one, with its emphasis on father-son hierarchy, treason is a grave crime. Once you bear that label, don't expect those literati to ever praise you.]
The Emperor nodded. This point he agreed with.
Back when he was a general and a rebel leader, he hadn't had much interaction with the literati, and had assumed they were all reasonable people like the Duke of Yue.
It wasn't until the Yan Dynasty was established and he needed literati to govern the realm that he witnessed their pedantry and ugly faces.
No matter who you were, no matter what achievements you had, as long as they deemed it necessary, they could attack you at any time.
But…
"Father-son hierarchy and ethical principles are only natural and proper—how come this Miss Mu seems to not quite approve?"
It wasn't just disapproval—it was clearly disdain.
"Pah, mountain spirits and wild creatures haven't been civilized. What would they know?" said the Duke Zheng.
"No, wait—did you hear what she said? 'Ancient times'? Is she talking about us?" said the Duke of Lu beside him.
"Huh? No way? We've become ancient people too?"
The crowd found it curious, and a few were somewhat indignant. They were barely past fifty—and they were already ancient people??
Seeing the group of them getting defensive and refusing to accept it, Xie Zhao muttered quietly, "How novel. If you're not ancient people, am I?"
"Hm?" The Tenth Prince's ears were sharp, and he turned around to say, "What's there to distinguish between you and me? That Mumu's meaning is that we're all ancient people, right?"
Weren't they all living in the same era?
"Uh… oh, of course, of course. What I mean is, why bother agonizing over this? Since Mumu can speak of future events, she must be our descendant. So from her perspective, we're naturally ancient people. That's perfectly normal."
The Tenth Prince nodded: "Makes sense."
Then he asked again: "But she's supposed to be a spirit creature—how can she be our descendant?"
Although the Tenth Prince didn't know what his own descendants would look like, at least they should be human.
"…"
Why was he so pedantic about this?
"Well then, she's a descendant of the spirit creatures of today."
Actually, Xie Zhao really wanted to tell the Tenth Prince that she was also a human—just a person from a later era. But since he couldn't explain how he knew all this, he could only make something up off the top of his head.
Unexpectedly, the Tenth Prince actually believed it, nodding and finding Xie Zhao's guess quite reasonable.
"Humans have children, so there's no reason spirit creatures shouldn't. Spirit creatures live long lives—maybe they have even more descendants. Hey, do you think humans and spirit creatures could…"
The Tenth Prince's thoughts gradually drifted off track, and he suddenly became excited. Xie Zhao politely declined and pushed him away, wearing a look of disgust.
"Come on, you'd better not let Father hear that, or he might summon a Taoist priest to perform an exorcism on you."
The Tenth Prince said, "I'm just talking. Father wouldn't do that—he doesn't believe in such things anyway."
The brothers bantered for a while, and the topic passed. Xie Zhao successfully slipped through.
The screen continued speaking.
[Rebelling won't work, and poisoning or framing others—Xiao Ming looks down on those too, thinking they're too low.]
Xie Zhao laughed: "Being a tyrant comes with high standards."
The Tenth Prince looked confused: "What does this 'low' mean? It doesn't look like Central Plains script."
Nor did it resemble Tartar or Nanzhao script.
So what was it?
The hall full of illiterates exchanged glances, their eyes all reflecting pure bewilderment.
The Emperor suddenly regretted declaring today a family banquet, which had resulted in the Director of the Court of Diplomatic Reception being turned away at the door.
Otherwise, he could have grabbed someone to translate right now.
But since the Director wasn't there, and Mumu wouldn't specially explain things for their sake, she simply continued on her own.
This made the Emperor resolve that if the screen were to appear again, he would definitely let the Director in as well.
Fortunately, that incomprehensible word appeared only once—everything after that was still understandable.
[Actually, what methods you use in the struggle for the succession depends on what kind of person the Emperor above is. Whatever the Emperor likes, that's what we do.]
[If he were someone who loved flattery, he would simply focus on pleasing the Emperor. If he were someone who enjoyed composing poetry, matching couplets, and practicing calligraphy and painting, he would scour the world to collect authentic masterpieces for him, guaranteeing to show a filial son's sincere heart!]
[Our Xiao Ming did exceptionally well in this regard—he read the Emperor's pulse precisely, defeated each rival one by one, and only after they were completely out of the game did he raise his blade to eliminate lingering threats. That's far better than tearing off all pretenses from the start.]
[It must be said, our Xiao Ming truly has a ruthless heart and a steady hand. Don't you think so, First Prince? Second Prince? Fourth Prince? Sixth Prince?]
[You've all experienced Xiao Ming's blade firsthand—tell us how it felt!]
As Mumu called out each name one by one, the First Prince, Second Prince, Fourth Prince, and Sixth Prince all darkened their faces in succession.
What did this mean—they had all been killed by that "tyrant"?
Author's Note:
It's snowing again today.