I Became the Prince Who Hates a Million - 1
It has been one month as of today since I watched the Cheongcheon River bloodbath live and in person, then became a man from some 1,400 years in the past.
It has also been one month since I began earnestly wondering whether a Chinese god who couldn't understand a prayer in Korean had gone and stuffed my soul into this body.
'Not bad, actually?'
After turning it all over for that month, landing in this body seemed like a fairly decent outcome.
Granted, a twenty-first-century human getting dropped into the tail end of the sixth century is a wretched state of affairs. Just how many tiers had civilization regressed, exactly? For the first several days after the possession, even the toilet was such an ordeal I couldn't use it in peace.
But the twenty-first-century me had died a soldier's glorious death, and my soul had flown off into the deep past to become a part of history. For someone swept up in the opening chapter of an alternate-history novel, it would be hard to hope for a better setup than this.
'The status is overwhelming.'
First, this body's original owner was Yang Guang — second son of Yang Jian, founder of the Sui dynasty, and a thirteen-year-old squirt newly appointed as Prince of Jin. A king staring down the ruin of his own nation, or a royal who never even got his coronation, or failing that, a noble of a dwindling house — or a commoner who wasn't even a noble. Measured against every abysmal starting point imaginable, being the founder's legitimate son and a prince in the bargain was a boon I could thank the god who possessed me a hundred times over and still be in his debt.
'The era isn't bad, either.'
Seven, maybe eight of every ten protagonists flung into the past in these novels are made to face a brutally grim reality. A boy-king with his uncle's coup looming right before his eyes. A sovereign of Silla with island raiders days from landing on his shores. A slow-footed soul who'd have to roll out his most flexible waist-work before the barbarians. Those fated to either weather the storm of a falling nation or claw out outright independence — the trials stack up faster than you could list them.
And me, by comparison? This age — the Sui dynasty freshly founded, the wise ruler Yang Jian alive and on the throne?
'All I have to do is keep breathing.'
One of the most dazzling golden ages in all of Chinese history was the era in which Yang Jian — Emperor Wen of Sui — held sway. What else could explain why that period came to be called the Kaihuang Era of Prosperity and stood as a byword for peaceful golden ages?
Admittedly, there is that once-in-history lunatic who squandered that golden age in a mere fourteen years — and that lunatic is me. Which is to say, so long as I genuinely do nothing but breathe, the prosperity and glory of the unified empire carry on unbroken. There is no need for me to writhe and twist in agony just to dodge a dynasty's collapse.
"Pfft..."
The laugh had come bubbling out on its own. Setting aside the minor inconvenience of having to live out my days in an era fourteen hundred years gone, things could not possibly be better.
Even better: I am the second son. I don't need to shoulder the crushing weight of the imperial throne, and so long as I stayed warm with my brother the Crown Prince, I could live out my days as a perfectly model slacker imperial family member. A life with nothing to take charge of, nothing to achieve under the banner of some grand duty, no reason to fret over losing my neck or my estate. I won't be leaving a mark on history — but then, I had no pressing need to work at being remembered, either.
'This is the best.'
I was almost ashamed, looking back, that I'd once cursed the god out for answering my prayer so strangely. That god had presumably done his utmost, in all sincerity, to honor a prayer from a foreigner.
Of course, the Chairman bastard who orchestrated the Cheongcheon River bloodbath remains beyond all forgiveness. Here's hoping that bastard goes down in history as a raving lunatic in the line of Fu Jian and Yang Guang.
"Your Highness. You seem to be in good spirits."
There I was, smirking away to myself, when at some point the wet nurse had drawn up right in front of me, meal table in hand. What the—when did she get in? I hadn't heard so much as a footstep, let alone the rattle of dishes.
"Oh, nothing. The weather just seemed nice today, that's all."
Part of me wanted to rebuke her with the full weight of royal dignity — one does not enter a prince's chambers unannounced — but she was my wet nurse, so I let it slide.
Naturally, as someone who'd possessed this body barely a month ago, I had formed no emotional bond with the woman whatsoever. She was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger.
Still, sifting through this body's memories, I found that Yang Guang had treasured her a great deal. Back when he was younger, his birth father and mother had been busy for one reason or another, and it seemed he had come to regard his wet nurse as something close to a parent of his own.
Which made it a strange thing indeed that a wet nurse cherished to that degree had left no trace in the historical record. Did something happen to her along the way, I couldn't help wondering.
"Then, once you have finished your meal, would Your Highness care to take a walk?"
"Mm... perhaps I will."
But whatever became of the wet nurse of actual history, what did that matter? Yang Guang was me now, and how she was treated rested in my hands. And even without any bond of affection, I had no intention whatsoever of casting out or slighting a capable, quick-witted wet nurse. Thinking of her as family, in place of an Emperor and Empress rather daunting to approach on a whim — that suited me just fine.
Above all, my goal was a peaceful, comfortable life as a slacker imperial family member. Who, watching me cast out the wet nurse who had tended me for more than ten years, would ever take me for a well-adjusted royal? No — they'd see the seed of a tyrant, personality properly curdled, impossible to deal with.
'Let's make it for life, you and me.'
And so I watched her set down the meal table with a fond, mellow heart. I would be the royal living through a golden age of peace; she could be the wet nurse living in symbiosis with a slacker royal.
And so a year passed — spent, steadily and faithfully, as a slacker imperial family member, a prince without a speck of ambition or greed.
With a prince barely a year younger than the Crown Prince content to sit around and breathe, I could strangely sense the satisfaction and relief of the ministers around me. And fair enough — in a dynasty's founding years, nothing matters more than a stable line of succession. Never mind that the reigning emperor, Yang Jian, wasn't yet fifty, and that the Crown Prince and I were only fifteen and fourteen. Succession, as a rule, is the kind of thing that wobbles and collapses the instant a single lunatic enters the picture.
"The Prince of Jin is so truly loyal and filial, and so warm with his brothers — every time this mother looks upon the Prince of Jin, she feels as though she is gazing into a clear, still lake."
Perhaps that was why. Dugu Qieluo — Yang Guang's birth mother, the woman later ages would call Empress Wenxian — went so far as to sit me down and say it to my face.
Back when Yang Jian was still a mere subject of Northern Zhou, she had been the one to prod her hesitating husband onward and see the great usurpation through. No one alive was more finely attuned to human ambition and resolve — so of course she must have fretted that one of her own sons might someday set his sights on heaven itself.
And yet the son who would have been the most lethally troublesome of all, had he ever grown ambitious, was busy rising through the ranks as a certified authority on breathing exercises. As both empress and mother, Dugu Qieluo had every reason to be pleased.
"A child serving his parents with a devoted heart, a younger brother honoring his elder, an elder brother soothing his younger siblings — these are things only natural and right."
I volleyed back an answer so textbook-perfect it could have been printed in a primer, and Dugu Qieluo pulled me into her arms and patted my back for it.
No matter how you dressed it up, the Yang clan of Sui were rebels who had stolen the Mandate of Heaven out from under the Yuwen clan of Northern Zhou. Yang Jian might have flung open the Kaihuang Era of Prosperity as a wise ruler — that much stayed undeniable. And into that very family, a model Confucian man is born? Instead of gazing upon his usurper father and thinking, 'I could do that too!', out pops a filial son devoted to his family instead?
'No son could be more delightful than that, surely.'
In fact, the very evening my conversation with Dugu Qieluo wrapped up, Yang Jian came to find me in person, ruffled my hair, and took his leave.
That was when it clicked. If I held this stance, then Yang Jian and Dugu Qieluo would respect and support their eldest son, Yang Yong, as the next emperor — but where 'precious, delightful sons' were concerned, the one on their minds would be me.
And if I meant to live as a honey-licking slacker royal, warm brotherhood with the Crown Prince mattered, yes — but the Emperor's and Empress's favor mattered just as much. In for a penny, in for a pound: playing the textbook Confucian man didn't seem like a bad deal.
"It is, first and foremost, a man's duty to welcome a spouse and establish his household. The Prince of Jin, I trust, would prove well able to look after wife and children as the head of a family."
'Oh.'
The problem was that I had thrown myself into the Confucian-man act so wholeheartedly, I'd scratched Yang Jian's and Dugu Qieluo's itchy backs rather too hard. Perhaps they'd been itching to marry off their delightful son — at any rate, Yang Jian abruptly raised the matter of my marriage.
"Take as your bride the daughter of Xiao Kui, Lord of Liang. Though Liang has lost its former glory and now lingers in Jiangling, there remain those who have neither forgotten Liang's glory nor ceased to admire it."
He meant to set me up not even with a woman of Sui itself, but with the daughter of that Later Liang emperor away in the south as his daughter-in-law.
'So it wasn't because of me, then.'
Which came as a small relief. Later Liang was a Sui puppet state fallen, for all practical purposes, to the scale of a single city, and its reigning emperor was a pro-Sui loyalist of almost tear-jerking devotion who had traveled in person, imperial title and all, to pay homage at the Sui court. An emperor all the same, though — that much hadn't changed.
The son of one emperor wedding the daughter of another realm's emperor is not the sort of thing decided in the blink of an eye. The matter must have been more or less settled long before I ever took up my Confucian-man routine.
"I can only be moved by Father Emperor's gracious consideration. Though this body remains wanting in many respects, I shall do my utmost as the head of a household."
But what else could I do? Refusing here would do nothing but sour Yang Jian and every minister besides, so there was nothing for it but to accept — and without putting on any show of reluctance.
It helped that I was turning fourteen this year. By this era's standards, it was well and truly about time to be wed. And if wed I must, better a marriage that lent even a little help to my Confucian-man image and my dream of the slacker-royal life.
"Had it been the Prince of Jin, I knew he would speak so."
Judging by Yang Jian's hearty nod, declining to tack on needless qualifications and simply agreeing had been the right call.
"Xiao Kui's daughter is two years the Prince of Jin's senior. They say her temperament is gentle, her mind wise, and her person beautiful — she will want for nothing as one to share a lifetime with the Prince of Jin."
"Following the example of Father Emperor and Mother Empress, I shall build an ideal and beautiful household."
At those words, a smile settled onto Yang Jian's face. Though it might have been my imagination, something else seemed mixed in with his satisfaction — beyond the fond pride in a delightful son. The faint bitterness of a pitiable husband, living out his days in the grip of a wife peerless among heroines. And the small, wistful hope that his son might not live as he himself had.
'That's your karma, Father. Accept it.'
Anyone watching would have thought he'd been dragged into a marriage he never wanted. He's the one who married her knowing full well she was the heroine of all heroines. He even owes his throne to that heroine — living like that till the day he dies is exactly what he's earned.
They'd told me gentle, wise, and beautiful, but I hadn't set my expectations very high. Two years older than me meant, at most, sixteen — and this era already sat several tiers beneath the twenty-first century as it was. So fine, I could take 'gentle' and 'wise' on faith, but I let the word 'beautiful' wash past one ear and out the other.
'Oh.'
Except I was wrong. An emperor, it turned out, was a noble being who never spoke an empty word.
"I have come to pay my respects to Your Highness, the Prince of Jin."
Xiao Zhen — third daughter of Xiao Kui, Emperor of Later Liang. Had she been born in the twenty-first century, she was the kind of person I'd have seen on my television screen all the time — and there she stood.