Being kept in the Eastern Palace and not allowed to return home—although Yun Ye desperately wished he could go back and check on things, with locusts plaguing his household, how could he feel at ease without seeing for himself? But Li’er wouldn’t let him go home, insisting he stay in the palace and cutting off all his outside contacts. He had no idea why.

Li Chengqian sat beside him on the stone steps, both staring blankly at the world beyond the high walls. He too had been confined to the palace.

Locusts kept flying in, landing on the ground. They didn’t seem interested in eating the paulownia trees planted in the courtyard, instead drilling their way into the garden with single-minded determination. A dozen or so eunuchs wielded brooms, constantly shooing them away, while the more gluttonous ones caught them with silk nets.

Li Chengqian now felt nauseous at the mere sight of locusts—a conditioned reflex.

Yun Ye sensed Li Chengqian’s melancholy. The Crown Prince didn’t have much freedom. No matter when or where, he was always surrounded by a large group of people, including scribes who specifically recorded his daily whereabouts and conversations.

Right now, some irrelevant, chattering person had come over to criticize their unseemly sitting posture. They should be sitting on stools, he said, with hands folded together over their knees, expressions natural, gracious, and noble—this was the proper sitting posture for a Crown Prince. If a painter were present, he would paint a standard picture titled “Nobles Admiring Locusts.” As for the Marquis of Lantian, he was merely being instructed in passing. After all, he was already accustomed to being uncouth, and besides, he had wet his pants just yesterday—a disgrace among nobles, a parasite in elegant society.

After sitting like that for the time it took to burn one incense stick, the Marquis of Lantian began scratching his ears and cheeks, swaying left and right. The etiquette instructor sternly scolded him several times, used rope to bind his legs, fixed him to the stool, and was about to strike his hands with a plank when the noble Marquis of Lantian completely erupted.

He untied the rope around his legs, snatched the bamboo plank from the instructor’s hands, and gave him a thorough beating: “You damned eunuch, how dare you hit me and tie me up with rope—you’re courting death!” After beating him with the bamboo plank and still not satisfied, he kicked him several more times before stopping.

Li Chengqian watched with rapt fascination, his face excited yet his posture perfectly upright. If a painter had captured this expression, it would surely become a masterpiece titled “Demon and Angel.”

The eunuch actually had the audacity to be arrogant still: “Fine, fine! You don’t know proper etiquette and you assault your teacher—let’s see how you explain this to Her Majesty!”

Oh no! This fellow was actually sent by Empress Zhangsun. This was terrible. The person Yun Ye found most troublesome in the entire imperial palace was the Empress. Li’er was a mighty sovereign—deceiving him carried no psychological burden and even brought some pride. But deceiving Empress Zhangsun? He didn’t have the ability for that.

This woman had extraordinarily strong intuition. Her method of judging matters wasn’t based on rational right and wrong, but purely on her own feelings. Reason was completely useless before her. Relying solely on her strange instincts, she could often guess Yun Ye’s thoughts with eighty or ninety percent accuracy.

Yun Ye felt he was living backwards—the more harmoniously his psychology and body aligned, the younger his psychological age became, enjoying like a pervert the care from everyone whose physical age was older than his.

Admittedly, that was a grammatically awkward sentence, but without phrasing it that way, he couldn’t explain it clearly to himself. Theoretically, everyone in the Great Tang was older than him. Even a nursing infant would be fourteen hundred years older than Yun Ye. In the Great Tang, he was qualified to act young before everyone.

But this wouldn’t do! Empress Zhangsun’s punishments lacked any creativity—just making him stand. That couldn’t defeat him; his teachers had trained him for that since childhood. Standing for two hours was nothing. The main problem was that seeing Empress Zhangsun’s eyes made his heart feel guilty, which was far harder to endure than standing as punishment.

Thinking he was the only one with this problem, he asked Chengqian and Li Tai. It turned out that the person these two brothers feared most wasn’t Li’er, but Empress Zhangsun. This showed how remarkable the Empress’s authority was—with one command, all submitted.

He quickly helped the eunuch up and solicitously dusted off his clothes.

The fellow’s nose was bleeding, yet his head was held high, saying, “This slave doesn’t dare trouble Your Lordship,” though his body showed no intention of dodging.

The palace was full of perverts. Having just been beaten, he still remained devoted to teaching.

This time, Yun Ye obediently sat on the stool, allowing this perverted eunuch to position him as he pleased.

From a distance, it looked like a young royal in purple robes was conversing with a young noble wearing a golden crown beneath a tree—tranquil and warm.

“Chengqian, I now have the urge to kill this eunuch’s entire family.”

“Yezi, he has no family. He’s grown up in the imperial palace since childhood. If he had any, I would have dealt with them long ago—it wouldn’t be your turn.”

“My legs have lost all feeling. How are yours?”

“Right now, I don’t have legs.”

“You’re the Crown Prince—in the future, you’ll have to sit for all under heaven to see. But why must I?”

“Isn’t your ideal to establish the eternal science of investigating things? Can there be a teacher for the ages who jumps around like a monkey? Even if they make a statue of you in the future, would they really create a clay figure in a wastrel’s appearance?”

The Empress arrived. Yun Ye and Chengqian were tied to their stools and couldn’t get up, so they quickly ordered the eunuchs to untie them.

“No need. It’s rare to see you looking somewhat human. This is quite good.”

A few days ago, Empress Zhangsun had worn loose robes and wide sleeves made of hemp, so her figure wasn’t apparent. But today, wearing her casual home attire, Yun Ye immediately noticed her waist had thickened considerably and she had gained quite a bit of weight. Pregnant? The one in her belly must be that internally sage and externally kingly figure who would expand the Great Tang’s territory to its limits—Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi. If not for having a formidable wife, he would absolutely have been a model ruler according to the “Emperor’s Model.”

“Congratulations, Your Majesty! Felicitations, Your Majesty!” Yun Ye quickly offered lavish flattery.

“Ptui!”

He’d been spat at.

“How is it that a few days ago you didn’t consider the child in my womb, yet used the situation to forcibly make me eat locusts? Poor Ruyang and Lanling are still vomiting everything they eat. Poor Ke’er is even worse—he vomited so much he can’t get out of bed. Among the palace’s titled consorts, only Consort Yang is left to help manage palace affairs. Isn’t this all your doing?”

As expected, the Li’er couple—not one good person between them! The crime of forcing consorts, princesses, and princes to eat locusts was definitely being pinned on him. No wonder they wouldn’t let him leave the palace. Once he went out, what chance of survival would he have?

The various great figures in court, the various mighty men in the military, the dozen or so enfeoffed princes living near the palace—they were probably all rubbing their hands together right now, waiting for him to emerge so they could deal with him. Yun Ye desperately wanted to return to Yushan now and hide in the academy, never to emerge again.

“Good that you’ve thought it through. Otherwise, shall we send you out of the palace now? I hear Prince Hejian and the others are waiting for you, preparing to welcome you with great fanfare. At least half the court officials will be there. What tremendous prestige Marquis Yun commands!”

“In response to Your Majesty, this subject no longer plans to leave the palace. Growing old and dying in the imperial palace wouldn’t be bad either—better than being tortured to death by the ministers outside.” Yun Ye had no choice but to resort to this desperate measure.

“Excellent! Since His Majesty also likes you, this slippery fellow, why not become the Chief of Internal Attendants in the palace? Then you can serve His Majesty every day, wouldn’t that be nice?”

Yun Ye swallowed hard and shook his head with difficulty. Hiding in the imperial palace temporarily was one thing, but living here for a lifetime as a eunuch? He’d rather crawl back into that little stream and return home.