Speaking of which, how did Yuchi Xiu end up running off to work as an advisor at the Prince’s Manor?
This whole ordeal started because he had tried to rescue a stray cat dashing out onto a major highway, resulting in him getting utterly smashed to pieces by a car. For reasons unknown, his soul hadn’t perished; instead, he inexplicably transmigrated into the novel Chronicles of the Imperial Court that he had finished reading just the previous day, arriving in the Aorong Principality.
“Sigh, the Prince’s advisor bolted and ran off again.”
The possessed Yuchi Xiu’s old man, known as Old General Yuchi, also addressed as General Yuchi Yuan, let out a long sigh as he spoke.
“The first one at least managed to hang on for ten days… How come they’re lasting shorter and shorter each time? No, packing up and running away after working for just three days is taking the piss way too much…”
Listening to his old man’s dejected complaints, his old lady, Madame Yuchi sat beside him and patted his shoulder in comfort:
“That’s only because the Prince’s temper has been exceptionally explosive lately. Even the veteran generals who went through thick and thin with him are walking on eggshells with their tails tucked between their legs, let alone those weak-looking scholars who just went to work under him. Who on earth could possibly take that kind of pressure?”
Listening to the conversation between this loving couple, Yuchi Xiu chewed on a dry, coarse grain pancake and nodded very perfunctorily.
It was no wonder he had no particular reaction… Aside from the number of days they managed to last before running away, he had already heard these exact same words eight times. Counting this one, Tuoba Lin the Aorong Prince’s advisors had packed up their bedding rolls and fled overnight a total of eight times.
And this had all transpired within a mere two months after the previous veteran advisor had retired due to old age.
Although this turnover rate was outrageously high, just as his old lady had said, the situation wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.
The Aorong Prince Tuoba Lin, who ruled over the extreme northern lands of the Dayan Dynasty, was viewed by everyone as a living king of hell.
Even he who had only transmigrated into the body of “Yuchi Xiu,” the youngest son of General Yuchi’s household in the Aorong Principality, a little over two months ago—had already heard several terrifying rumors concerning this living king of hell.
For instance, this extreme poker-faced prince, who was typically too lazy to squeeze out half a word unless it was official business, would unpredictably drag out his personal retainers who had served him since childhood and chop them on the spot.
For instance, during the pacification of rebellions, he had pushed out and beheaded everyone who hindered his plans, executing people to the point of rivers of blood, with heads dropping at the vegetable market every single day.
And other absurd minor gossip like how he could tear apart the man-eating beasts that perpetually harassed the Aorong Principality with his bare hands.
Based on these rumors, the Aorong Prince Tuoba Lin was an uncommunicative, fickle, and autocratic tyrant, as well as an extreme obsessive-compulsive control freak. Anyone who dared to disrupt his plans would be sent off without hesitation to meet their ancestors.
A master who resorted to execution at the slightest disagreement, equipped with explosive combat prowess rumored to be capable of decapitating someone before the victim’s head even hit the ground to realize they were already dead.
This was quite literally a hell-difficulty boss.
While reading the novel, Yuchi Xiu had thought this character setting carried a lot of charm, but the moment he imagined having to work for such a living king of hell in reality, it was undisputedly the shittiest boss in history, bar none.
The moment a new advisor took office, the Prince would stare at them all day long with a gaze that made it look as though he wanted to swallow them alive. Who could possibly withstand that? Anyone would be terrified out of their wits and run for the hills.
Because it was so terrifying that advisors resigned back-to-back, it had already severely impacted the Prince’s Manor’s handling of official public affairs…
The Prince, whose aura was already intimidating enough, was now radiating a low pressure capable of freezing people to death.
However… although Aorong Principality’s population wasn’t large, searching around would still yield some new unlucky soul to push forward as a replacement…
Just like how those eight people were scammed previously.
Though he had no idea how many days the next one would last… anyway, it had nothing to do with him, a little young master of the general’s household who just wanted to mix food and drink while coasting through life.
Just as Yuchi Xiu was pondering why the coarse grain pancake became increasingly scratchy in his throat and lifting his bowl to take a sip of vegetable soup to wash it down:
“So you see, Xiu-er.”
The couple who had just been gossiping about the Prince’s scandals a moment ago suddenly called out their youngest son’s name.
Yuchi Xiu raised his head in confusion, only to discover that his old man and old lady were both staring at him in unison.
“That… you know how it is, right?”
Furthermore, both of their faces were currently written all over with worry.
Observing their remorseful and flustered expressions, an ominous premonition instantly crawled up along Yuchi Xiu’s spine.
Surely not…?!
Yuchi Xiu shot them a look screaming panic. General Yuchi Yuan looked tangled and conflicted as he stammered and continued:
“Ever since that incident happened in Aorong… there aren’t many scholars left in our territory who can handle this advisor job, right?”
That statement wasn’t false.
The Aorong Principality had once fallen due to its inability to withstand a beast tide. It hadn’t been long since the Prince led troops to retake the lost territory and initiate post-war reconstruction.
During that campaign, many people died in battle, including the former Aorong Prince and Princess the parents of the current Aorong Prince Tuoba Lin. Right now, the entire Aorong Principality was throwing itself into infrastructure building, leaving virtually no idle people around. Among them, literate people who could read and write, keep accounts, and handle official documents were harder to find than a two-legged toad… and all eight people who met every single requirement had recently run away overnight.
Yuchi Xiu mentally flashed rapidly through everyone he had met since coming to Aorong.
So, who was still left within the territory meeting these hard requirements? And who could be dragged over immediately to start working?
The answer was painfully obvious.
Yuchi Xiu stopped chewing his coarse grain pancake and locked his gaze dead on his old man.
No way… for real?
“So right now, there’s only one person left…”
The old man ultimately uttered that fatal sentence.
“Only you can go be the Prince’s advisor.”
Yuchi Xiu felt the world go pitch black before his eyes, filled with dread for the future.
Actually, regarding the matter of advisors constantly running away, aside from the Yuchi family, the Prince himself was also pulling his hair out in frustration.
To a cat accustomed to an orderly, routine life, someone who had finally become familiar suddenly disappearing, only to have a complete stranger shoved into their place, was undoubtedly a massive source of stress.
Once his territory and daily routine were disrupted, in order to confirm whether this newcomer was an assassin or a troublemaker, he had to maintain twelve points of vigilance at all times, staring the other person down to death.
You ask why he had to exaggerate things like this? Nonsense, felines are naturally born this neurotic.
In short, the Prince was already suffering from nervous exhaustion, and now he had to keep his nerves strung tight the entire day this was a job that would literally stress a cat to death. Moreover, those strangers who kept getting shoved in had to be none other than his closest advisors who spent the most time with him. Just thinking about this gave the Prince the sensation that his cat fur was about to fall out from sheer anxiety.
But that wasn’t even the most fatal part.
The most fatal part was that those bipedal creatures who came to work as advisors kept getting scared off after barely lasting two days.
Even though the Prince himself couldn’t figure out why (Yuchi Xiu who later learned the truth figured that the Prince having zero self-awareness about his own problems was the biggest issue of all), those bipedal creatures were simply scared of him to death.
Originally, the Prince hadn’t paid this any mind. After all, other people fearing him didn’t interfere with him eating small dried fish, nor did it pose any threat to him.
However, when the sixth advisor also packed up his belongings and fled overnight, the Prince realized for the first time in his feline life: this might genuinely be a major problem.
He clearly hadn’t done a single thing, yet those fellows who volunteered to come work as advisors terrified themselves, each turning as pale as if they had seen a ghost, running away without even collecting their wages.
What? You say it was because the Prince stared at people all day with a death gaze, projecting an oppressive aura like a massive mountain? Are you kidding me? A stranger suddenly showed up on his turf and was lingering around so close to him; how could he possibly shift his gaze away? What if this jerk suddenly drew a sword and staged a rebellion? Wasn’t it only natural that he stared them down to death?
Thus, a stranger would always suddenly pop up on his territory, only to vanish within two days, followed by a new one popping up, and then vanishing again… This hellish cycle persisted for a full two months. The Prince’s manic rage meter had thoroughly broken off the charts.
What was even more miserable was that all eight literate candidates in the territory had fled. In this rundown corner of Aorong Principality, which had just experienced war and was still undergoing arduous reconstruction, it was utterly impossible to find a living soul who could recognize characters, keep accounts, and handle official documents.
The current situation in Aorong Principality meant that even a pig would have to be dragged over to fill a quota as long as it could work.
Therefore… even if this person was the “second-foolish younger son of the General Yuchi’s household who had his brain smashed in by a man-eating beast’s claw and was now suffering from complete memory loss,” he still had to bite the bullet and go.
However, for Yuchi Xiu who had only transmigrated two months ago he naturally knew nothing about the cat drama behind the scenes.
He only considered himself an unfortunate soul, forcibly press-ganged into a super black-hearted company that had frightened away eight predecessors in an extremely short span of time, filling his heart with boundless sorrow.
He had always thought his old man and old lady were great people… How could they bear to pit their own son like this?
Back when he inexplicably transmigrated into the ancient political intrigue web novel Chronicles of the Imperial Court, landing inside this cannon-fodder extra’s body who shared his exact same name” Yuchi Xiu” he had been completely dazed.
The novel Chronicles of the Imperial Court was, as the title suggested, a dog-blood masterpiece about the imperial struggle for the throne in the capital of the Dayan Dynasty. As for this “Aorong Principality” he transmigrated into, located at the northernmost edge of the dynasty, it was a poverty-stricken backwater that barely even showed its face in the original work, and he had become an utterly insignificant extra. So in the beginning, he hadn’t even realized he had transmigrated.
Under that state of confusion, adapting quickly to this sudden ancient lifestyle was entirely thanks to the care of the Yuchi family.
Even though he was their son who “had been knocked unconscious by a man-eating beast and woke up with a rather abnormal brain,” and threw tantrums every day. His old man, who was a dignified old general but easily shed tears over matters, and his old lady a female general on the outside, cold yet warm on the inside still showered him with meticulous care.
He had originally thought this couple was absolutely trustworthy.
Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine they would personally push him into such a fire pit.
If you asked what “such a fire pit” actually meant.
Yuchi Xiu cautiously lifted his head from a pile of official documents.
And then…
A head of raven-black hair tied up high and meticulously groomed. Shoulders as broad as double wooden doors. Among the rough-hewn Aorong men where everyone was thick-limbed and heavily boned he still stood tall by a whole head, possessing an upright figure. He possessed a top-tier handsome face for which describing it as “sword-like brows and starry eyes” felt far too cliché. Coupled with that “no strangers allowed, bloodshed within three paces” cold and ruthless expression.
This Aorong Prince…
Was currently staring at Yuchi Xiu dead-on with a gaze that looked as though he wanted to eat him alive.
To put it without the slightest exaggeration, it was the kind that would physically mean “eating him alive.”
On the fifth day of becoming the Aorong Prince’s advisor.
From the moment Yuchi Xiu clocked in at dawn until he clocked off to go home at night, every single minute and second… he was subjected to a ruthlessly inhumane, all-encompassing visual surveillance by this living king of hell, who was rumored to be able to tear apart man-eating beasts with his bare hands.