Would You Like to Have a Drink

Chapter 6.2

For many years, Yuan has not had a Crown Prince.

The most favored ninth prince on the surface, was still far from coming of age, his biological mother passed away early and he had no foundation in the court. Unless Emperor Yuan was determined to abandon the old and set up the young, otherwise, it’s unlikely for him to be made as the crown prince. The Eighth Prince was a bit stupid, so he doesn’t take him into consideration.

(t/n Abolishing the elder and establishing the younger refers to the practice of abolishing the inheritance rights of the eldest son in ancient hereditary feudal society and transferring the right to other sons except the eldest son.)

After some calculation, there were only the fourth prince, fifth prince and the sixth prince staring at the crown prince position.

Here, the Fifth Prince was an embroidered pillow martial artist. He was supported by the heroes of his mother’s family. He had been on the battlefield a few times and had more failures than success. Although he had the military power of the Northern Army, he was not not enough to be afraid of.

(t/n Embroidered pillow, Chinese idiom, pinyin xiù huā zhěn tou, which means a person who has only appearance but no learning ability. From “Black Books”.)

The Sixth Prince also had dignitary relatives. A powerful aristocratic family, took root like an old tree, and the support rate of the court and the people was high. His strength was deep. 

The Fourth Prince’s biological mother was born from a lowly background. His strength seemed to be less than half and was a low-key person. But in fact, he hides his capacity and bides his time. He was deep-minded. On the surface, he looked like a young child who only loved beauty, but in reality he went to the back of the two to build up his strength.

I’m afraid the Fourth Prince would have had to be crowned if the protagonist Yu Beizhou hadn’t intervened. I’m sure the Fourth Prince did not anticipate that his actions would be equated with nurturing a tiger and bringing infinite problems in the future.

But maybe the Fourth Prince doesn’t care, he doesn’t actually love the country and the beauties.

Zong Luo remembered that the voice for the Fourth Prince was also very high at the beginning. Many readers in the comment area joined Yu Beizhou’s CP, and there were also comments that after Yu Beizhou ascended the throne, the Fourth Prince would be named the emperor’s husband.

(t/n voice- a publicly or formally expressed wish, choice, or voice of opinion conservatism)

Although Zong Luo didn’t live to that time in his life, based on the copywriting of ‘Would You Like to Have a Drink’, Yu Beizhou finally succeeded in stealing the big country and its millennium inheritance, which was really ironic.

After finally leading the Confucian disciples to a few good futons, the students of various schools stood up and saluted. Looking at this situation, the three princes who were interested in the position of the crown prince have all come.

The Sixth Prince, Zong Yongliu, was the first to pace forward, raised his voice and laughed loudly, “Gentlemen, It is a great honor for the Great Yuan to have you here. These few days of discourse, everyone must speak freely. We, the Great Yuan, are thirsty for talents. At this time, as long as there are talented people, we will not refuse anyone who comes, and I hope you all don’t be cautious.”

Zong Luo pondered for a moment, and whispered to Gu Ziyuan, and asked the book boy to deliver a message to a servant, and excused himself from behind with the excuse of tidying his clothes. 

At this time in the previous life, Zong Luo was already on his way to the frontier, and most of the news in the capital was learned through secret letters. 

“Sir, the side hall is right in front of you. You can choose any one to go in. The clean clothes and things you need are on the table, and you can pick them up yourself.”

Zong Luo thanked him in a low voice, and put a bunch of silver in the little servant’s hand. “Thank you. I don’t want to be disturbed when I change clothes.”

The servant nodded and bowed quickly. “Yes, I understand. If someone comes later, this little one will take them to the other empty side halls, and no one will disturb the young master.”

After closing the door, Zong Luo confirmed from the crack of the door that the servant had turned around and left, and then he went to the rear of the hall, pushed open the back door, and deliberately left a half hidden trace….

The Lanting Waterside Pavilion was close to the palace gate, and it was the place where the royal family holds summer banquets on weekdays. The interior was contrary to the solemnity of the Great Yuan Palace, there were pavilions, carved beams and painted buildings, and an eighteen-bend canal was specially dug for drinking and poetry. The meandering water was extremely elegant.

There was also a royal residence. It was close to the palace and was guarded by the palace guards on weekdays. No one was allowed to enter. 

Zong Luo grabbed a stone, aimed at a sparrow on the branch, and used a little strength.

When the guard heard the movement and went up to check the sparrow’s injury, he softly tapped his toes and sprang up in the air. He left the ground and moved as fast as lightning, and flew into the brick red palace wall.

The palace was deserted. Only a few people know that there was a gate in the back garden of the waterside pavilion, and the cold palace was just around the corner.

It had not been repaired for many years. The logs and beams were covered with thick spider webs. The walls have fallen off and discolored. Looking around, the place looked gray. Not a single servant was seen walking and there were even quite a few fat mice.

Zong Luo walked in the quiet hall, skillfully turned left and right. He reached a slightly dilapidated courtyard and knocked on the door.

Knock.Knock.Knock.

For a long time, he did not hear any movement inside the door.

Just when Zong Luo wondered if the person had already escaped and moved out of the cold palace, the back door was abruptly opened.

A thin young man stood behind the door, with a pair of black eyes wide opened, he didn’t speak and he just looked over at him timidly.

Across the white silk, Zong Luo showed a reassuring smile. “Xiao Ba, it’s me, your third brother is back.”

(t/n Xiao Ba- Small Eight)

After looking at him again and again, after seeing the ancient jade with Kui pattern on his waist, the young man was startled like a rabbit, suddenly burst into tears, ran over, hugged him and chokingly said, “Third brother… Is it really you? Everyone in the palace says you died on the battlefield…”

“It’s alright, it’s alright, how did your Third brother die? Look, aren’t I fine?”

Zong Luo patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t stand at the door, let’s go inside and talk.”

“Good!” 

The young man hurriedly closed the door again, not an ounce of stupidity was seen on his face.

If Zong Luo was the outsider in the palace, then the Eighth Prince Zong Ruichen was the invisible person in the palace. Zong Ruichen’s mother concubine’s side, the Rong family, participated in the rebellion in the early years.

When dealing with the Rong family, Emperor Yuan had no mercy, and directly executed the whole family up to its ninth generation. 

The mastermind was even punished by tearing its body asunder by five carts, and the smell of blood failed to dissipate at the Meridian Gate for three days and three nights. Zong Ruichen’s mother concubine was sent into the cold palace and was even given poisonous wine.

(t/n tie a person’s head and limbs to five carts, put on a horse or an ox, and pull them in five different directions, thus tearing the human body into five pieces, hence the name Chacha. Sometimes, five oxen or horses are used to pull the punishment without using a car, so the splitting of the car is commonly known as dividing the body by five horses . It takes a lot of effort to chop off a person’s head and limbs, not to mention pulling. And the torture suffered by the prisoners is even more conceivable. When it is really torn apart, I am afraid that the prisoner will no longer feel the pain. The pain is when it’s being pulled.)

(t/n Meridian Gate- main gate of the Imperial Palace)

At that time, Zong Ruichen’s mother concubine had a big belly, and when she heard that her family failed to rebel, her eyes turned black and she gave birth prematurely. On her deathbed, she had no choice but to entrust her child to the nanny who had been accompanying her in the palace for a long time.

With the blood of a sinner flowing his body, although he was saved from death as being one the emperor’s heir, Zong Ruichen had not had a good life in the palace these years. In addition, the nanny taught him not to cause trouble since he was a child, so he had always been extra cautious in front of outsiders. After a long time, he ended up being called a fool. 

Fortunately, Emperor Yuan didn’t pay attention to him either, just treated him as an invisible person. The servants in the palace were used to it and went with the flow. Over time, there was no one to serve personally inside the cold palace. Occasionally, one would come over to deliver something. His treatment was not even comparable to the hostage in the Proton House next door, which was under house arrest next to the palace. It’s really a pity. 

There were so many people in the royal family of Great Yuan, only Zong Ruichen and Zong Luo were the most pitiful. 

Zong Lou may have treated the others insincerely. But he really regarded Zong Ruichen as his own younger brother, and Zong Ruichen also sincerely admired this older brother of his. 

When he returned to the palace from Wei Country, Zong Luo not only had no foundation but also hadn’t yet had his coming of age ceremony. It was the time where he spent a period of time with Zong Ruichen.

In his last life, he was exiled to the frontier, where he could hardly survive. Later, he heard that Zong Ruichen got himself involved fighting for the Crown Prince position along with the three princes in order to protect him. Eventually, he became a chess piece and was beaten to death at the Palace banquet.

Zong Luo, who was far away in the frontier at that time, received the secret letter and almost scared him to almost vomiting a mouthful of blood.

Zong Ruichen was not at all stupid as outsiders say, on the contrary, he was not only talented and intelligent, but also had a very good foundation. Zong Luo still remembered that he had promised him that after Zong Ruichen’s coming of age, he would take him to the battlefield to expand the territory, teach him martial arts, become a famous swordsman and be a good man.

But in the blink of an eye, things were different, he didn’t even get to see him for the last time. His corpse was collected by Zong Lou’s division left behind in the capital.

(t/n things are different – an idiom, the pinyin is: wù shì rén fēi. It means that things are still the same, but people are no longer the same people. It is mostly used to express the passing of time and the remembrance of the deceased. It is from the “Book of Wu Zhi” by Wei Cao Pi of the Three Kingdoms.)

In this life, Zong Luo had to find a way to take Zong Ruichen out of the palace.

“That’s about it.” He gave a brief account of himself, hiding his true purpose. Only saying that he had been seriously injured and was saved by Confucianists. Now his eyes have not yet healed, but with the help of a medical sage, there might be some hope for it to be completely healed.

Zong Luo conveniently blamed the other three princes for his serious injuries in the battlefield, and found a perfect excuse for why he had to spend so much effort to disguise his amnesia.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell the truth, but that he had a lot of plans. If he was not fully prepared, Zong Luo wouldn’t disclose it to anyone until he had accumulated enough strength.

Zong Ruichen nodded hurriedly, and really believed Zong Luo’s plan to “catch big fish by disguising memory loss” with his palm sized skinny face still wet with tears.”Third brother, It’ll be alright!”

In Zong Ruichen’s heart, Emperor Yuan was no different from a cold-blooded Asura.

Now that he heard that the Third brother had concealed his presence from the cruel father emperor, the worship and admiration in Zong Ruichen’s heart once again broke through the sky.

Zong Luo rubbed his head. “All in all, I still need Ruichen to help me keep this matter a secret, and if necessary, you may have to cover it up for me.”

“Do not worry.” 

Zong Ruichen patted his chest and assured. “Third brother, don’t worry, such a trivial matter,  I can definitely handle it.”

“That….” 

Zong Luo was in the middle of speaking, when unexpectedly, a loud kick at the door outside the hall was heard.