The Villain Runs Wild

Ch 62 - Ruthless Crown Prince x Foolish Prince: Tattletale Puppy


When Lin Sui left the palace, Yan Qin also walked out of the Eastern Palace doors.

Fu Shu went to stop him unconsciously, but quickly restrained herself again. His Highness the Crown Prince never said the Fifth Prince wasn’t allowed to leave the Eastern Palace, so she couldn’t act presumptuously.

She was about to go with him out of the palace when a young maid quickly came running over, then saluted Fu Shu.

“Sister Fu Shu, a few items in the storehouse aren’t adding up, please come take a look.”

Fu Shu halted, pointed the young maid to follow the Fifth Prince, and hurried off in the direction of the storehouse.

Yan Qin had already roughly figured out the Eastern Palace’s situation in the last couple of days. He stepped through the threshold and headed to a distant place, the young maid softly asked him where wanted to go, to which he answered “to see the flowers”, so he was lead in the direction of the Imperial Flower Gardens.

It was summertime, so the lotuses on the Imperial flower pond were in beautiful bloom, elegantly carried by the soft breeze.

Tall trees blocked out the sky, and underneath them was a pavilion in which young boys and girls were playing around, with palace maids standing to the side in attendance.

“Paying respects to Their Highnesses.”

The young palace maid quickly saluted the young royals, but became inwardly worried by seeing the Sixth Princess, Seventh Prince, and Eighth Prince standing not too far away.

That day His Highness the Crown Prince had kicked the Fifth Prince into the water, those ancestors were the ones standing to the side, only today the Her Highness the Fourth Princess was missing.

“Isn’t that Fifth Brother? Haven’t seen you in a few days, are you in good health?”

The Seventh Prince wore a dark blue robe and a gentle look, so, even though he was still young, he gave off a scholarly air.

Standing next to him, the Seventh Prince, who was of a similar age, actually had a cold look, seemingly not very willing to see him.

“Yes, I’m good.”

Yan Qin giggled as he answered, his sharply-contrasting eyes looking especially clear, which made him look even more like a child than his younger brothers.

The Eight Prince snorted coldly, walked in front of Yan Qin, and pointed his chin at the young maid from the Eastern Palace.

“Go away.”

The young maid nodded awkwardly and put some distance between them, watching from afar.

“Why did you lie that day? The Crown Prince clearly kicked you down, but you actually helped him tell tall tales, are you an idiot!”

The Eight Prince balled his fists angrily. The Seventh Prince didn’t fake politeness, curling his lips and saying: “Of course he’s just an idiot.”

“He can’t distinguish between good or bad. Clearly we were the ones he should have been helping, but he actually stood on the Crown Prince’s side.”

The Seventh Prince waved his sleeve, looking at the foolish older brother in front of him with eyes filled with disdain.

So what if he used to be smart? As far back as he could remember, his birth mother had forced him to practice and study, punishing him if he couldn’t master his studies by making him kneel, go hungry, or by using a ruler to hit the palm of his hands.

His birth mother said the Fifth Prince was outstanding when he was young, so why wasn’t he? Why couldn’t he compare to the Fifth Prince when he was how old and knew how many words? Could it be that he was more stupid than the Fifth Prince?

Under such circumstances, he held incomparable resentment towards his bright older brother.

Fortunately, he became a fool. It had been very good.

Now, with his stupid and slow-witted appearance, where was his former genius?

“I heard that Fifth Brother has been sleeping below the Crown Prince’s bed, wouldn’t that make you a little attending eunuch?”

The Seventh Prince ridiculed him and the Eight Prince clapped, laughing along.

The Sixth Princess stood to the side not daring to make a sound, she just clutched her handkerchief with a look that made it clear she wanted to leave, but didn’t dare to.

Originally it had been her Fourth Sister who invited her out to sit, but Fourth Sister had to go back to the palace earlier than planned, and she had just been thinking about taking her leave when she bumped into this scene.

Her birth mother wasn’t particularly favoured, so she was overly cautious even with her, and she never dared to participate in what her younger brothers said about the Crown Prince. After all, her birth mother had been promoted by the Empress, but even though the Empress Mother had already passed away, the Crown Prince wasn’t friendly to them at all.

“I’m afraid Fifth Brother can’t compare to a clever little eunuch, but I’ve seen you look much better recently, it seems like the Eastern Palace’s slop really does feed people.”

Compared to his previous frail appearance, after being nursed with medicine and meticulously fed in the Eastern Palace these past few days, Yan Qin’s complexion was actually much better than before.

The Eight Prince mocked: “Could those be His Highness the Crown Prince’s old clothes you’re wearing? It seems like you’re a real person now[1].”

There were many shameful secret tricks inside the palace. Yan Qin wasn’t only deprived of food, he was even deprived of new clothes.

The clothes he was wearing today were actually the Crown Prince’s old clothes, their materials were of the finest quality.

Faced with the two people’s scorn and ridicule, Yan Qin adopted the ignorant look of someone who couldn’t understand their words, staring at the air and laughing foolishly.

But the hands hanging down inside the wide sleeves of his clothes were clenched into tight fists, the thin blue veins on the backs of his hands bulging outwards.

Seeing that the fool in front of them wouldn’t even get angry, the Seventh and Eight Prince also felt it rather dull and returned to the pavilion.

Yan Qin snapped off two branches of blooming flowers from the Imperial Flower Garden, walked around in a few circles here and there, then slowly returned to the Eastern Palace.

Lin Sui had just returned to the palace when he caught sight of the little fool returning from outside, he didn’t know where he’d gone to roll around in, but his clothes were stained with dust and mud, though he didn’t seem to notice. When he caught sight of Lin Sui coming, he happily rushed forward, but stopped in front of Lin Sui and stood shily in place, grabbing a flower and handing it to him.

“Brother, pretty flower.”

There was pure happiness and flattery on his face, which seemed especially cute when paired with his young and immature appearance which was just starting to reveal his heroic spirit.

“Filthy.”

Lin Sui looked down at Yan Qin’s filthy cuff and waved at Fu Shu.

Fu Shu stepped forward and took the flower, reporting in a low voice: “His Highness the Fifth Prince went out today, he ran into Their Highnesses the Sixth Princess, Seventh Prince, and Eight Prince at the Imperial Flower Gardens.”

“Oh? What did they talk about?”

Fu Shu answered: “His Highness the Eight Prince sent the servant following him to stand away, hence the servant couldn’t hear what they said.”

“Seventh Brother said I was a little eunuch, so did Eight Brother, and they also said that Older Brother Crown Prince only ‘seems’ like a real person[2], what does that mean?”

Yan Qin suddenly opened his mouth, muttering like he didn’t understand what he was saying as he looked at Lin Sui.

Lin Sui raised his brows, staring at Yan Qin as he spoke in an undecipherable mood: “Seventh and Eighth brothers said that about me?”

The puppy could actually tattle too, it was quite scheming of him to get someone else to do his dirty work.

“They said a lot, I don’t remember it all. They said the Eastern Palace fed people slop, but Susu told me slop is what shoats eat, but I also don’t know what a shoat[3] is.”

Susu’s full name was Bao Su, she was the late senior maid of Noble Consort Wan at the Zhongyu Palace, and was in charge of taking care of Yan Qin.

Since she couldn’t take Yan Qin away, she came to visit him once every day.

Yan Qin had wilfully said these things, distorting the Seventh and Eight Prince’s words as much as he liked.

He was still not capable enough to deal with them now, but it didn’t matter. The relationship between them and the Crown Prince was originally not good, which had been made clear by the previous set-up, and when he was muddle-headed, those words he said had been the ones taught to him by the young eunuchs, which inevitably came from those behind them.

The Crown Prince was imperious and domineering, so naturally he wouldn’t stand to hear these things, and it was unknown what he would do with this new animosity piled on top of the old hatred.

Off to the side, Fu Shu’s complexion was unsightly. Were they indirectly calling His Highness the Crown Prince a pig? Ridiculous, if the Eastern Palace’s meals were slop, then what were they eating?

“Fu Xi, go to the small kitchen, take a bucket of slop, and deliver it to the Seventh and Eight Prince’s palaces. Since they envy the Eastern Palace’s food, let them have a good taste of it. If they don’t want to eat, pour it in their bowls.”

Lin Sui flicked the non-existent dust off his sleeves, sneering as he gave out instructions.

Yan Qin concealed the surprise in his eyes, wasn’t this a bit too insolent?

He closed his eyes and thought that it seemed like the Crown Prince only had a good face, when in fact he was a complete good-for-nothing.

Fu Shu hesitated: “Your Highness, perhaps this…”

“This One is the heir to the throne, should I allow their offensive judgemental remarks? If they don’t even know how to respect their older brother, how could they be expected to show filial respect to Father Emperor or revere our ancestors? If Father Emperor came to ask this One, the answer would still be the same.”

Lin Sui gave Fu Xi a cold glance: “Hurry up and go!”

Fu Xi felt unspeakable suffering. His Highness the Crown Prince had been arrogant and despotic before, but that had been in front of the servants. It didn’t matter if he had people go slap the servants of other palaces as punishment, but why had they provoked his Lord today?

The Seventh and Eight Princes hadn’t yet reached the age of living by themselves, one lived in Consort De’s Yuehua Palace, and the other in Concubine Xian’s Fangxin Pavilion, so how could he dare spill slop in their doorsteps? This way, even if he wanted to defect, they would surely bear a grudge with him!

But the Crown Prince’s orders came first. If he didn’t move, he feared he would just be dragged outside and killed, so Fu Xi gritted his teeth, accepted the order, and left.

Fu Shu heaved a sigh, in the end, she didn’t know what to say.

Seeing Lin Sui glancing over at her, Fu Shu quickly apologised.

“No need to be like that, this One understands your concern, but why should this One be polite towards them? Father Emperor has long since wanted to depose his heir, and they are also greedily eyeing this One’s position. This is the way things are regardless of whether this One is polite or not, so why not be a little more brash?”

“Father Emperor won’t depose this One in a day, and this One is a rank above them as heir to the throne.”

Lin Sui was not only not going against his character design, he was acting even more excessively than his original character.

He wasn’t planning on winning favour and slowly engaging in open and covert fighting. What means would allow the Crown Prince to quickly ascend the throne? Naturally it was… the Emperor’s demise.

And he didn’t intend on swallowing his anger until his scheme succeeded.

They still had to pay the price for bullying his puppy.

Yan Qin looked like a eunuch? Don’t be fooled by his underdeveloped physique, he’s like a beast down below, and there’s still room for growth.

Lin Sui frowned, fortunately it was still early timewise.

Yan Qin stared blankly at the youth in front of him. Underneath his exquisite brocade, he was proud and untouchable.

For a split second, he suddenly felt that this older brother of his had the potential to become Emperor, but he preferred to be a tyrant instead.

Whether it was kicking him into the water before, or grabbing him by the neck and threatening him, this person was absolutely cruel and vicious.

He was just sixteen years old, but his dark ambition and unconcealed tyranny was like that of a venomous snake slithering among wolves.

He should clearly hate this arrogant and unreasonable attitude, but Yan Qin discovered that his style seemed more genuine than that of his other brothers.

Fu Xi brought the slop to the Princes’ doors, but he didn’t dare to pour it on Their Highnesses bowls. He hesitated to even speak harshly, and ultimately returned with the bucket, dejected.

Lin Sui spoke indifferently: “What right do you have to be by this One’s side if you can’t even do this small thing? Since you were so reluctant to let the others eat it, then this One shall give it to you.”

Fu Xi wept to the sky and tried looking for excuses to beg for forgiveness, but was dragged out when Lin Sui felt him too noisy.

Even the former grand senior eunuch couldn’t escape this situation, so the servants trembled in their hearts.

Yan Qin was also a little surprised, he also understood how favoured this senior eunuch was in the Eastern Palace, that Fu Xi abused his power plenty, he didn’t even respect a few of the imperial concubines, let alone a foolish prince like him.

Yan Qin silently stared at the profile of the person in front of him. He had thin lips and bright eyes, and was a cold-hearted, temperamental person.

At night, Yan Qin slept on the ground like usual, but a pair of feet nimbly stepped on his chest.

He opened his eyes to take a look, the Crown Prince was holding a book, staring at something, not even sparing him a glance.

It seemed like he really was a young eunuch attending at his bedside, or maybe just a footrest for him to lay his feet on.

Despite this, he was still dissatisfied with his service.

“There’s no flesh here at all, it’s uncomfortable to step on.”

The soles of the youth’s feet pressed down on his chest, his tone filled with disdain.

Yan Qin was expressionless, but he let out some innocent, slightly pandering words: “Brother Crown Prince, I’ll work hard to eat more.”

 

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[1] 人模人樣 This idiom actually translates to something like ‘person-shaped and person-like’ which in this context is used to mean that he doesn’t normally look ‘person-like’ because of his lack of good clothes, etc. ⤴

[2] It’s the same idiom as footnote [1], but in this context it means that the person’s appearance and behaviour don’t match or are inappropriate, ie. that they only look like a person on the outside (but they actually behave like a brute, for example), it’s always derogatory in implication. ⤴

[3] A shoat is a young weaned pig. The word that was actually used means ‘suckling pig’ but I felt finding an uncommon word like shoat was more fitting than just having him say he doesn’t know what a piglet is. ⤴