Chapter 26: The One Who Shattered Chu Xingchen’s Ridiculous and Absurd Beautiful Dream Was Also His Imperial Father
For a moment, Qiushuang herself felt she had been staring in a daze. Only when he spoke up did she snap back to reality, lowering her head with a smile to cover her distraction.
“It’s nothing particularly urgent. Her Highness the Eldest Princess asked this servant to inquire whether Your Highness Chu Huangzi has fully recovered. If you have, in a few days, you may accompany Her Highness the Eldest Princess to the Hanmo Residence to study and attend lessons.”
Upon hearing this, Chu Xingchen felt a flicker of hesitation. Lately, the reports from Zhao Ying had been largely consistent with Qiushuang’s words.
Zhao Ying had said that over the past two months, while keeping watch in secret, Su Yingxue had either been studying and completing assignments at the Hanmo Pavilion and the inner palace or practicing archery and horsemanship at the Shenwu Army’s training grounds within the palace.
When Zhao Ying first reported this to Chu Xingchen, he found it hard to believe. How could someone who had been unwilling to study since childhood suddenly change their nature and devote themselves to academics?
He thought it was likely just a passing whim, a momentary enthusiasm that would fade after a few days, ending half-heartedly. To his surprise, she had persisted for over two months.
According to Zhao Ying, Su Yingxue initially couldn’t even recognize most Dasheng characters, but now she could read poetry, prose, and essays without difficulty, compose policy discussions, paint, and inscribe poems. Even Mr. Qingming, renowned in the court, praised Su Yingxue for her extraordinary intelligence.
However, it was said that Su Yingxue’s horsemanship and archery were truly lacking. It was rumored that all noblewomen in the Dasheng Kingdom were skilled in horseback riding and archery.
It was lamentable that the Eldest Princess, once unparalleled among the nobility, couldn’t even mount a horse on her first day. It was said the same applied to archery—she couldn’t even draw the bowstring, let alone hit a target. Thus, horsemanship and archery remained her weaknesses.
Chu Xingchen didn’t understand why Su Yingxue was now gifting him books and inviting him to study together, including the Six Arts.
What was this? Could it be that Su Yingxue, the Eldest Princess of the Dasheng Kingdom, truly intended to nurture him, a hostage prince from a neighboring country? To cultivate his understanding of etiquette and knowledge, to teach him the Six Arts, and to mold him into an outstanding prince?
Was it really possible for someone to be so foolish?
Chu Xingchen didn’t believe it, nor did he want to believe it.
Most of the time, the world had treated Chu Xingchen with malice, and he had long grown accustomed to it. At times, he even felt that, given his fate, he might not even deserve to encounter someone willing to treat him kindly.
Chu Xingchen knew full well that he was a prince of the Da Qi Kingdom. He remembered the conflicts and bloodshed between Qi and Sheng.
That year, Chu Xingchen was six years old. He was originally a prince born to an obscure palace maid in a side hall of the Da Qi harem. In the eyes of the Da Qi palace staff, no one truly regarded him as a master.
Because his father, the Da Qi Monarch, dissatisfied with the regulations regarding the annual contention for tribute increases in the tribute payments from Qi to Sheng, had dispatched troops to attack Dasheng’s border cities, intending to capture several cities and use them as bargaining chips to renegotiate the tribute regulations with the Dasheng Monarch.
Chu Xingchen’s imperial father had merely overestimated the combat capabilities of Qi’s border generals at the time. He believed that with favorable timing, geographical advantages, and popular support, coupled with Qi’s wealth and strong military, capturing a few border cities would be as easy as turning over his hand.
It was also his imperial father who, once so spirited in provoking the war, now felt profound regret and self-blame. He blamed himself for forgetting that “a ruler must not launch a war out of anger, nor should a general attack out of resentment.”
However, the heavens were unkind. After years of fierce battle, the Sheng Kingdom stubbornly resisted, with both sides locked in a stalemate as their forces slaughtered each other.
Later, after the war had dragged on for two years, the Qi State was struck by a century-long drought. Thousands of fertile fields withered due to the lack of water, the land cracked and dried up, and not a single grain was harvested.
The people suffered immensely, with corpses of the starved littering the land. There was no millet or rice, no military funds to support the front lines, and no fodder and provisions to sustain the troops. In a short time, the Qi State’s army collapsed like a landslide. Within just a few months, they lost three cities in succession.
Thus, at the age of six, he was bathed and purified with reverence by palace attendants for the first time, dressed in luxurious silks and brocades he had never worn before, and even had his unruly hair combed and crowned. The attendants hastily taught him the etiquette for an imperial audience.
Chu Xingchen never forgot that day—the first and last time he trembled as he walked on his own two feet toward his father, into the resplendent imperial study of the Great Qi Dynasty. He imitated others, bowing and kowtowing, and for the first time, with a trembling voice and a heart full of trepidation, he called out, “Imperial Father.”
This was the first time in Chu Xingchen’s life that he was granted an audience with his father as a prince, and it was also the first time he ever saw his own father.
That day, his father bestowed upon him fine robes, gold, silver, and jewels, and even held a banquet in the palace, treating him to rare delicacies and exotic dishes.
At that moment, the six-year-old Chu Xingchen wept with overwhelming joy. He believed his days of suffering were finally coming to an end. He did have an imperial father, after all—belated paternal love was still love, and belated care was still care.
Yet later, it was also his imperial father who shattered the laughable and absurd dreams Chu Xingchen had clung to at that time.
Chu Xingchen’s father, the Emperor of Great Qi, Chu Zhewu, made a grave misjudgment that led to Great Qi’s devastating defeat by Dasheng, plunging the people into misery and forcing the kingdom to cede territory and pay indemnities.
At the end of that same year, Chu Zhewu signed a twenty-year tribute treaty with the Da Sheng Kingdom, offering ten chests of gold, one chest of jewels, and five cities as indemnities. He even agreed to the Dasheng Monarch’s demand to send a royal prince to the Da Sheng Guo Du as a hostage. Such a humiliating treaty was signed in exchange for temporary stability.
Before leaving the palace, the six-year-old Chu Xingchen had no understanding of what a Hostage Prince was. All he knew was that, on the eve of his departure, Chu Zhewu—his own father—called his name gently for the first time and served him many rare delicacies.
It was only after growing up that Chu Xingchen came to understand that farewell banquet was merely meant to make him willingly board the carriage bound for the Great Sheng Dynasty, all for the sake of the Great Qi Dynasty.
Recalling the past, Chu Xingchen’s expression darkened, and his eyes turned cold. His father had three sons, and he was the one with the least influence, a pitiful figure who was practically insignificant within the Great Qi palace.
Later, after adapting to life as a hostage, Chu Xingchen was one day beaten so severely by palace attendants that he could no longer move. Lying in the snow, spitting blood, he suddenly looked up and saw the dazzling night sky.
At that moment, amidst the endless pain, extreme humiliation, and torment, Chu Xingchen gazed at the starry sky and suddenly believed in fate.
For the first time, Chu Xingchen realized that, for him, life was nothing but moving from one place to another, enduring humiliation and abuse.
In the Great Qi palace, Chu Xingchen was the one subjected to humiliation and abuse. After leaving the Great Qi Dynasty and arriving in the Great Sheng Dynasty, it was no different. The only change was that he was now beaten even more brutally in a new place.
When did this world’s injustice first fill me with bitter resentment? Was it when I was beaten half to death time and again by those foul-faced, vile-mannered palace servants? Or was it the endless daily chores—the unceasing scrubbing of chamber pots and cleaning of latrines?