Would You Like to Have a Drink

Chapter 7.1

Outside the door, a few palace servants led at least a dozen young slaves and also with a lot of maidservants dressed in various colors. A mighty group of people stood at the door of the Cold Palace. At the forefront was a young prince in royal clothes looking very arrogant and domineering.

Behind them was a young man in purple clothes who looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, and there was only one solitary servant by his side, which looked particularly afraid.

Boom boom boom!

A little servant was first ordered to knock on the door, but no one came and opened it from the other side no matter how much he knocked, so he kicked it instead. Although it was the Cold Palace, the architectural style of every palace in Great Yuan was solemn and dignified. The pillars were made of tall logs. As long as the door panel was fastened from the back, it would be difficult to push it open from the outside, even if it was kicked.

“Good! This fool dares to not open the door even if knocked!

Zong Hongjiu, the ninth prince who saw this scene from a distance, became angry. “Break the door open for this prince!”

“Yes.” The young servant dared not to disobey, and immediately ordered a few slaves to get a wooden pillar.

Those of them who were mixed in the palace were the most clear in their hearts. There were only two people in the Imperial Palace that couldn’t be provoked the most, one was the current Emperor Yuan, and the other was the Ninth Prince.

Emperor Yuan didn’t have many harems, and he didn’t have an empress. Only when they gave him a prince and a princess would they be given a share. So far, the Empress’s position was vacant.  In addition, over the years, his thunderous methods had not diminished, and the concubines in the harem were as obedient as cranes, and no one dared to make any mistakes.

The Ninth Prince was the youngest prince in the palace. Although his biological mother died early, he was still the most favored.

In the early years, when Emperor Yuan had not yet fully taken charge of the continent,  he was so busy with government affairs that his feet could not even touch the ground. At night, he would collapse on the floor behind the screen of the Zhang Palace and was even unable to visit the harem several times a year.

Later, as the old ministers were removed and the national strength became stronger and stronger, Emperor Yuan’s body was not as tough as when he was in the battlefield in the earlier years. Coupled with the fact that other princes had their coming-of-age ceremonies one by one and have gone out of the palace to build their own palaces. At this time, the youngest sons who were born after the government affairs loosened up were naturally spoiled by thousands of people and others could not help but envy them.

All of the above caused the Ninth Prince to be high and mighty in the palace.

He had just turned ten years old, yet he was already jumping everywhere he went and creating trouble. Being obedient in front of Emperor Yuan was not out of the question, however, he immediately changed his face in front of the palace servants. A few days ago, a Shaofu went to the Emperor Yuan to file a complaint, suing the Ninth Prince that he was without manners, and that every time, he was always late for class, he even brazenly dragged the proton of the Wei Country out to fight and play.

(t/n Shaofu-a palace official who tutors a prince)

Emperor Yuan asked the Ninth Prince to plead guilty in front of the Shaofu, however he turned his head and banned the proton of Wei Country, and the punishment for those who should have been responsible for it all fell on the small frame of the latter.

“How can the Ninth Prince be so favored?”

Hearing what Zong Ruichen said, Zong Luo couldn’t help but be surprised.

He didn’t spend much time in the capital in his last life, and he was busy plotting his next move in the year that he came back. Although he knew that the Ninth Prince was favored, he didn’t remember it to such an extent.

One must know that if someone else was like this in front of Emperor Yuan, even if they were both princes, they would have to lose a layer of skin.

“Indeed, especially in the past year, the father simply favored the ninth prince up to the skies. Zong Ruichen sighed. “Perhaps….as the father thought about the Third Brother dying in the battle, his heart became sad, so he doted on the Ninth prince more and more?” 

“Maybe.” Hearing him say that, Zong Luo didn’t say anything more, but he felt ironic in his heart.

If he hadn’t been sent to the frontier and was given a sword for suicide in his previous life, he would definitely think the same as Zong Ruichen.

Seeing that the door was about to be smashed open soon, Zong Luo whispered something to Zong Ruichen, turned around and went out through the back window of the palace, and flipped over the beams with ease. When he turned around, he saw that the Ninth Prince had successfully opened the Cold palace door.

Zong Hongjiu stood at the door, looked at the darkness in the hall, he was immediately disgusted. “Get him out!”

At once, some attendants who knew Kung Fu were given the task to do it. These servants practiced Kung Fu, and the strength in their hands was astonishing. It was impossible for Zong Ruichen to let others see that he had studied martial arts, so he could only pretend to stand stupidly, and let his servants grab his two hands and drag him out of the palace.

As soon as he was dragged out, Zong Ruichen saw Ye Linghan, the proton of Wei Country, standing behind Zong Hongjiu, and he immediately understood that the Ninth Prince wanted to have fun with the two of them again.

Zong Hongjiu acted arrogantly and domineeringly, and no one in the palace was qualified to be his playmate. The children of the courtiers were also trembling and respectful towards him, and he felt all the more bored.

In order to have fun, he would bully Ye Linghan, the proton of Wei Country, and the foolish Eighth Prince Zong Ruichen when he had nothing to do, and make them both unhappy.

Zong Ruichen was still a prince after all, even if he was banished to the Cold Palace, he can’t do too much. But Wei Country’s proton was already miserable. The most extreme he had done was deliberately humiliated Ye Linghan, put a collar on his neck, and rode him like a dog.

“You fool, how dare you not open the door? You’re too bold.”

Zong Hongjiu was displeased and grabbed the whip held in the hand of the maid next to him, and asked the palace servants to restrain Zong Ruichen. Without saying anything, he beckoned to the latter.

This was a small horse whip he got from his horsemanship class just now. Several skins were peeled off like flowers, and a long whip in the middle was stretched out. It looked less powerful than an ordinary whip, but it was actually specially made by the Hu people in the Western Regions. It had barbs at the tail end, which made any horse to immediately quicken its pace upon contact.

If this whip was implemented on people, it would be certain that blood would shed.

The servants around were not used to it, and no one stepped forward to stop it. If it was another prince, Zong Hongjiu might have to rethink about it, but if it was Zong Ruichen, then he really would dare.

For many years, Emperor Yuan had ignored Zong Ruichen, and even Zong Ruichen was not allowed to attend the annual banquet in the palace, which was enough to show the Emperor’s indifference.

It’s true that the Emperor Yuan was ruthless when he killed his brothers and he was just still a prince back then. Was fratricidal incidents rare in other countries? Not to mention to a child with the blood of a sinner.

Besides, even if blood was shed, it might be because the fool knocked himself too hard. Who would care about a fool who lives in the Cold Palace?

Just when Zong Hongjiu showed a smile, as if he had foreseen the beauty of this fool’s flesh and blood, the whip that he just waved out of his hand was suddenly caught.

He was stunned for a moment, only to realize that there was a young man in white standing not far away, facing him sideways and the end of the whip was firmly held in the hands of the young man. Zong Hongjiu’s turned suddenly gloomy, he subconsciously pulled it, but found that the whip did not move at all. He couldn’t help being furious.

“Who’s assassin dares stop this Prince? Go! Take him down for me!”

Guards rushed forward to stop him, but they only saw the young man in white directly and easily pulled the whip out of the Ninth Princes’ hands with ease and made him stumble forward.

In the next second, the whip that had just been taken away swung out like thunder, and it danced in the palm of the young master in white, forming dazzling afterimages. Before the guards could react, they were pushed back a few steps by such fierce force, and their clothes were split inch by inch.

This was not the most frightening. The most frightening thing was the exposed face of white-robed young man when he turned around and faced them.

In an instant, all the servants and guards seemed to be frozen, their faces were stunned, their knees went weak. Many of them were scared and directly knelt down to the ground.

Zong Hongjiu just stood firm, and when he saw that they all stopped moving, he suddenly became furious. “You bastards, didn’t this prince order you to catch this assassin? When he is caught, this prince will definitely skin this bitch…!”

The next moment, the Ninth Prince finally saw the whole face of the young man in the open space.

The young man in white stood tall and had an ink hair tied into a high ponytail. Like the bright moon in the woods– an impeccable beauty.

Such a unique bearing, other than the Third Prince who died in battle, who else could there be?

Zong Hongjiu opened his mouth wide, his eyes were round, he took two steps back, and fell to the ground, with unconcealed fear, “You, you, you, you… ghost!!!”

Zong Hongjiu saw with his own eyes the memorial tablets of the Third Prince enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple, and his clothes tomb in the Imperial Mausoleum.

(t/n clothes tomb-yī guān zhǒng, are tombs in which the clothes and crowns of the deceased are buried instead of the remains. This is because the body of the deceased cannot be found, or has been buried in another place, and a burial mound is set up here to commemorate.)

Moreover, during this year’s Spring Festival, he kowtowed to his tablet in the Imperial Ancestral Temple in a proper manner.

The servants who were kneeling on the ground were trembling, and none of them dared to raise their heads.

Behind Zong Hongjiu, Ye Linghan, who had been silent for a long time, saw this scene, and his indifferent face also showed surprise. After the astonishment, he fell into an unspeakable trance and felt complicated.

After Zong Luo returned home from being a proton that year, the once prosperous Wei Country gradually declined. On the contrary, after the reform of the Great Yuan, it became stronger and stronger day by day.

In order to avoid its sharp edges, Wei Country had no choice but to send Crown Prince Ye Linghan to the Great Yuan in exchange. In fact, Ye Linghan was just a victim of the power struggle in the Wei Country.

His mother was born in the Yu family, Yu Beizhou’s Yu family. His mother’s clan was very powerful, and at the age of three, he was named the crown prince. He was supposed to be the next Emperor of the Wei Country.

However, after Yu Beizhou left the Ghost Valley, he turned around and wiped out the Yu family.

He acted very cleverly and did not leave any clues. The people outside only thought that the Yu family had provoked Wei Country’s powerful people, and the real person behind the scenes only left appearing clean and without any stains in his hands.