Edited by White Whale
Long Xiaoyuan had lived 26 years altogether in the world. From the 16th year to the 26th year, he spent roughly 200 days a year in bed, because he suffered from severe heart disease.
Even so, he was quite open.
At the age of nine, he knew he would die at 16. At that time, he wished to enjoy the famous mountains and rivers of the world while being treated. Pitifully, he had only been to a few places, for he was in poor shape.
He had to be as obedient as a lamb in order to stop his mother, the chairman of the board, his father, the vice-chairman, and his brother, who was three years younger than him, from worrying about him.
When he successfully turned 20 years old, his families even wanted him to get betrothed.
However, he turned it down. What a joke it was! Although he was only 20 years old, he felt he had no interest in women, of which he wasn’t sure, either. But he didn’t want to delay the possible girl.
Furthermore, he didn’t yearn for love probably because of his illness.
Since he was bored at home, he started to read all kinds of novels, including the world-famous books, the Four Great Classical Novels in China, some famous romantic and supernatural books.
His good brother would bring bunch of books for him each two months.
He received many books again three days before his 26th birthday.
When he skimmed through them, a book called The Empress’s Way to the Throne caught his eyes. He originally thought it was a romantic book authored by an unknown writer, so given that his brother took it to him, he decided to read it. The book was written from the perspective of the empress, which was a little weird.
That was because the empress was…a man, not a woman.
At the beginning of the book, the empress was ushered into the imperial palace. As a capable young man from a distinguished family and the only legitimate son of that family, the empress was forced to marry into the palace as a man, because the emperor was suspicious of his family, even if he was the emperor’s legitimate wife.
Besides, after the empress was married into the imperial palace, the cruel emperor was dissatisfied with him, too. Under the spell of the imperial concubine of the highest-ranking, the emperor liked women, not men. Although it was a dynasty where men could marry each other, few people did that.
Because of the emperor’s dislike of him, his life was apparently hard. On the day of the wedding, the emperor cruelly finished having sex with him and then went to the sleeping chamber of the imperial concubine of the highest-ranking, turning him into a laughingstock.
Afterward, the book described that the empress had a miserable life in the imperial palace. Anyone could mess with him. Besides, he had to “strive for the emperor’s love” against a bunch of women. Even so, he tolerated it all and gradually developed his power in the palace.
As mentioned earlier, the empress was a capable young man from a distinguished family that enjoyed rather big influence. Otherwise, how could the emperor be so afraid of his family? But as loyal people, they never thought of a rebellion.
However, after five years in the imperial palace, the empress was forced to rise in rebellion. When the cruel emperor wanted to kill his parents and grandfather, he eventually fought back.
He took advantage of the force he had developed in the palace to kill the emperor and became the new emperor!
Reading here, Long Xiaoyuan finished three-quarters of the book.
The rest of the book detailed how the empress succeeded to the throne, slew all rebellious Wangyehs, and subdued ministers, and the like…
At the ending of the book, the empress became the emperor and left a long-standing reputation in history. Additionally, he only had an empress and seven imperial concubines in his life and led a happy life. Of course, they were all female.
Moreover, he abolished the rule that men could marry each other!
When the empress was on the throne, no one dared to mention boy toy, and none of the ministers dared to find one. Thus, the short period when he was the empress remained a disgrace to him as the emperor.
Long Xiaotian peacefully died on the day of his 26th birthday.
He had made his life worthwhile by living ten years longer from 16 years old to 26. But to his surprise, he got a rebirth!
When some memories that didn’t belong to him popped in his mind, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
He laughed, it was because he got a new life where he was quite healthy and was able to display martial arts.
He cried, it was because…though he had a rebirth, he time-traveled into the book he just finished reading.
The protagonist of The Empress’s Way to the Throne wasn’t the emperor, who would be killed, at all.
More importantly, in the book, Empress Shi Qingzhou would kill the emperor, who was Long Xiaoyuan now, on the day of the fifth year in the palace.
Now, there was only three months left before he would be killed!
Under those circumstances, what was the point of his rebirth? Was there someone more miserable than him?
“Your Majesty, do you want to get up?” asked a palace maid the moment she heard the noise inside. Her voice was extremely soft as if she would be killed if not saying it this way.
In fact, the emperor had killed many people. In his eyes, eunuchs and palace maids were nothing. What made him speechless was, the cruel emperor was also named Long Xiaoyuan. Based on the memories, he knew that he looked very similar to the original emperor!
Was he such a person in his previous life? How unfortunate he was!
Having silently murmured the above words, Long Xiaoyuan didn’t dare to act very differently from the original emperor…though he had to figure out a plan to survive as soon as possible!
Sitting up, he found that he was in “his own” sleeping chamber. He seldom slept here and often stayed at his concubines’. Even so, he would have three or four days each month to “take a rest” in his own sleeping chamber.
“Dress me up,” said Long Xiaoyuan coldly.
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
The emperor needed to wear a lot of clothes. He tried his best to tolerate the palace maid to dress himself up, because he didn’t like women getting close to him. He wanted to ask a eunuch to do that the next time…no, he didn’t like eunuchs, either.
Forget it! He would dress himself up next time…but he wouldn’t make a change quickly, for he could tell from the memories that the original emperor never dressed himself up in person.
Looking at the mirror, he found the one in it was a little handsome. He originally thought he looked like the original emperor, but now, he almost looked the same as the original emperor. In his previous life, he was thinner and paler because of his illness. By the contrary, the one in the mirror was even stronger, but they looked identical.
Were there some relations? Otherwise, why did they have the strong resemblance?
In the original emperor’s memories, he went to court on time three times among the ten days and was late for court three times. Anyway, no one dared to say anything. He didn’t show up at court for the rest of the days.
Looking at the time outside, he knew it was already seven o’clock, so he would be late for the imperial court. But, he had to stop by to acquaint them.
Thus, Long Xiaoyuan said domineeringly, “Arrange the imperial carriage and go to court.”
“Your Majesty is about to set out!” shouted a eunuch in a high-pitched voice.
Those ministers had waited on the Throne Room for almost two hours, and finally here came His Majesty. Therefore, they knelt down in unison right away and acclaimed, “Long live Your Majesty.”
Long Xiaoyuan said waving his hand, “Get up.”
“Thanks, Your Majesty!”
At the moment, Chief-eunuch Zhou Qing said in a sharp voice, “Report if you have things to say; withdraw yourselves if not.”
When he finished speaking, Assistant Minister of Rites stood out and said, “Your Majesty, I have something to report.”
Having thrown him a glance, Long Xiaoyuan said, “Spat it out.”
Assistant Minister of Rites felt that His Majesty said little today probably because of a bad mood, so he felt nervous and said in a hurry, “Your Majesty, since the Spring Festival is approaching, may you appoint someone to be in charge of the Grand Palace Banquet and the Small Palace Banquet? I can make preparations in advance.”
The person in charge of the two banquets would get a lot of money therefrom. However, His Majesty would appoint one person each year, so he had to ask.
Judging from the original emperor’s memories, Long Xiaoyuan learned that the two banquets were rather significant, and the person in charge of it each year was either the one who his imperial concubines of the highest-ranking had a “good feeling” for or the one who was his favorite concubine’s relative.
However, this year…
“Where is Sun Youjing?” he asked.
Sun Youjing was stunned first and then stood out in a hurry. “I’m here.”
“Eh. This year, I’ll leave it to you,” said Long Xiaoyuan calmly, which dropped a bomb among all the ministers.
Was there something special about Sun Youjing? No. With a fourth-rank post, he worked in the Ministry of Revenue. However, he had a close relationship with General Shi’s Mansion!
Everyone knew that His Majesty loathed Empress Shi Qingzhou the most.
Given this, it was impossible that His Majesty asked such a person to be in charge of such a lucrative job. No way!
