The Very Poor Prince
The sun was bright, the land teemed with life, and the unpolluted air was so fresh.
Mo Zhen lounged on an artificial hill with a blade of grass between his teeth, one leg crossed over the other as he basked in the sun without a care in the world.
He’d spent seven days thinking it over. Seven whole days, and he still couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t died properly after giving his life for his country, but instead had wound up in another world in another time.
If even dying for his country hadn’t sent him to heaven, then heaven probably didn’t exist. And if the underworld wouldn’t take him, then the King of Hell was just stingy. His job was to save lives, after all. As an army medic, he was bound to snatch a few souls away from the old man.
Actually, it made sense when he thought about it. Heaven didn’t exist, and the underworld wouldn’t take him, so he’d become a transmigrator instead, ending up in the body of the current useless prince, who had neither money nor power. He’d learned most of the history of this world, too. To sum it up, it was a hybrid world with an ancient backdrop blended with modern elements.
Like the airship above his head, for instance. Or the place where he was lying, inside the palace’s red walls.
“Sigh!” Mo Zhen gazed at the sky and let out another long sigh. He’d lost count of how many sighs that made today.
“Your Highness, stop sighing. You’ll turn into an old man at this rate.” Xiao Ruizi, his young attendant, looked at his master with deep concern.
“Xiao Ruizi, I’m bored out of my mind. Has anything interesting happened lately?” Mo Zhen chewed on the blade of grass. Army medic or not, he’d at least been born into a high-tech world, and now all he could do was chew grass out of boredom.
“Your Highness, why are you always thinking about this sort of thing? You should be focusing on His Majesty and figuring out how to win his favor. If you keep this up, Xiao Ruizi is truly worried about you.” It was the old saying come to life: the emperor wasn’t worried, but the eunuch was frantic. Just look at how much Xiao Ruizi fretted.
Mo Zhen ignored him. He’d been hearing the same lecture for seven days straight and had grown immune to it.
Seeing that His Highness had no interest in the matter, Xiao Ruizi could only continue helplessly. “Yesterday, Squire Huang’s daughter was tossing an embroidered ball in the southern part of the city. A passing monk caught it, and he was dragged by force into the bridal chamber. By the next day, the wedding had turned into a funeral.”
Xiao Ruizi recounted the story listlessly, still fretting over his master. Mo Zhen, on the other hand, listened with great interest and flipped over and sat bolt upright.
“Come on, let’s go watch the fun.” He slapped the dust off his backside, stood up, and stretched his limbs.
“Your Highness, are you climbing out of the palace again?” Xiao Ruizi panicked. His master was heading out again, and every time he did, Xiao Ruizi’s heart leapt into his throat with worry.
“Anyway, this is the Cold Palace, understand? You could die here and your corpse could rot before anyone even noticed.” Mo Zhen was already climbing down from the artificial hill. This useless prince’s body was as weak as a woman’s. If he jumped down from there, he’d probably cripple himself.
“Your Highness, wait for me!” Seeing that his master wasn’t listening, Xiao Ruizi hurried after him.
The palace wall was only as high as an adult. In his previous life, Mo Zhen would’ve cleared it with a single vault. Now, he needed Xiao Ruizi to act as a step stool.
“Your Highness, be careful!” Xiao Ruizi served as a human step stool while fretting that his master might slip and hurt himself.
“Your prince here is no good-for-nothing, you know.” Though, in truth, he was. He spent all day eating and sleeping. If he hadn’t insisted on climbing over the wall to find something to do, he wouldn’t have lasted seven days here, let alone seven hours.
In his previous life, as the medic attached to a combat unit, every second had been tense. Nothing like this easy, leisurely life. That old hot-blooded, pulse-pounding tension was gone, and the lack of it made him miserable all over.
No one would see them climbing over the palace wall in broad daylight. This was the Cold Palace, after all. There was no one here but the two of them. Besides, this was only a tiny country called Mo. Mo was the imperial surname, and Mo Zhen happened to share both surname and given name with the useless prince. What a coincidence. Maybe that was why this had happened to him.
Mo was a tiny country, about the size of a small town in his previous world, with a very limited territory. There were plenty of little countries like it in this world.
A useless prince in a tiny country was no different from an ordinary commoner. Mo Zhen’s life or death truly meant nothing to the Mo Kingdom.
…
On the other side of the wall was the market, a place Mo Zhen knew well. In the seven days since he’d arrived, he’d climbed over the wall six times, and he’d long since become thick as thieves with the neighbors.
“Your Highness, climbing over the wall again today? Want a flatbread? They’re still hot.” Auntie Shaobing, who ran the flatbread stall, greeted Mo Zhen as soon as she saw him. A useless prince in a small country was no different from an ordinary person. Everyone knew it.
“Auntie, you know I’m even poorer than you, and you’re still offering me flatbread?” Mo Zhen grinned. Without waiting for Xiao Ruizi to catch up, he wandered straight over to her stall.
“Your Highness, don’t tease me. I could sell flatbread my whole life and still not make what you spend on one meal.” As she spoke, the woman picked up a flatbread with tongs, wrapped it in paper, and held it out to him.
“Auntie, I really can’t. The food in the palace was so good today I ate too much.” Mo Zhen pushed the flatbread back. The woman’s whole family depended on that stall to make a living. If she sold one less, they’d all go hungry.
“Auntie, here.” Xiao Ruizi came up and handed her a bit of broken silver, then took the flatbread and passed it to his master. “Master, please eat. This is all Xiao Ruizi can afford to let you have.”
Mo Zhen ignored him. Undermining him like that in front of Auntie, honestly. Which one of them was the prince?
In truth, Mo Zhen was vexed that a prince could be even poorer than a eunuch. It made his whole life feel like a failure!
The old saying was right: Rely on your own two hands, and you’ll never lack food or clothing!