Chapter 2: When Tantai Tian Woke, It Was Already Afternoon

It was only at this hour that sunlight could filter into the narrow Buddhist hall.

He caught a faint whiff of charred charcoal.

Yu Zeming, who had been dozing, jolted awake. Seeing Tantai Tian sit up, his face lit up with delight. “Your Highness, you’re finally awake.” As he spoke, he carefully slipped a cushion behind the headboard.

It had, of course, been taken from the soft couch in the Buddhist hall.

Even so, Yu Zeming moved with the lightest of touches, cautiously, careful not to brush against Tantai Tian at all.

“How is the Hall of Blessed Tranquility?” Tantai Tian asked.

Yu Zeming answered softly. “After Your Highness returned last night, they summoned a whole crowd of Imperial Physicians to the Hall of Blessed Tranquility. The lamps burned there all through the night. And come morning, the Imperial Dragon Guard began searching everywhere in the palace, taking away every animal the consorts of the Inner Palace keep for amusement.”

So after last night’s commotion, the Hall of Blessed Tranquility had apparently deduced from the scratches on the Emperor’s face that the attacker had been some sort of animal.

Tantai Tian’s pale face held no color at all, and when his lips pressed together, they looked even more bloodless. “Have Liang Ze notify Ji Jia. Tell him the time has come.” Spoken so calmly, yet the words carried the edge of a sharpened blade.

A look of something close to awe surfaced on Yu Zeming’s face, and he answered with the utmost deference, “As you command.”

With Tantai Tian awake, a third of the sickness had already lifted from him.

Still, he ran a low fever and had no appetite whatsoever.

He leaned against the headboard, resting, and listened to the sounds of Yu Zeming entering with a bowl of thin congee. “The charcoal from last night. How much of it was used?”

“Your Highness, all of it was burned.”

The charcoal allotment for the Hall of Peace and Ease had always been meager, nowhere near enough to last an entire winter. The cheap black coal stank and choked the throat with coughing when it burned. Water had surely been mixed into it to pad the weight.

Only by scrimping and saving had any been left over at all. That was the only reason they’d had any to burn last night.

And that was the strange part.

Tantai Tian’s cold gaze swept over his body, over the bed, over the scattered black hairs hidden in the bedding.

He remembered perfectly well that the remaining charcoal was not enough to burn through the night. Never mind that it was low-grade black coal to begin with. Even if it had burned all night, it would only have taken the edge off the chill. There was no way it could have kept him comfortable.

Tantai Tian spoke coldly. “Help me change. Everything on the bed is to be replaced with new.”

Yu Zeming attended him as he changed into fresh clothes, then tidied the bed from top to bottom. But as he worked, a slight frown creased his brow, and he eyed the little black hairs with a flicker of suspicion.

Tantai Tian glanced over the now spotless bed, then ate his belated meal in silence, even if it was nothing more than a bowl of watery congee.

Just as he was eating, footsteps sounded outside the Hall of Peace and Ease.

Yu Zeming strode out and blocked the reckless Imperial Dragon Guard. “Have you no shame! The Hall of Peace and Ease is where the Crown Prince rests and recovers. You will not run rampant here!”

The guards parted, and from behind them stepped out a middle-aged man with a full beard and bright, sharp eyes. “These are His Majesty’s orders. Every corner of the palace, high and low, is to be searched.”

“Yu Zeming, let them in.”

Tantai Tian’s voice came from within, and Yu Zeming had no choice but to step aside.

The Hall of Peace and Ease was small to begin with. The moment the Imperial Dragon Guard crowded in, there was barely room to turn around. In a space this tiny, one sweep of the eyes took in every last item.

Gong Jianfeng, Commander of the Imperial Dragon Guard, walked slowly into the eastern side chamber. Once a bed had been crammed into that tiny room, there was no space left to spare, making it feel all the more cramped.

Gong Jianfeng bowed. “Your Highness.”

Tantai Tian gave a nod and rose to his feet.

Gong Jianfeng’s eyes followed the Crown Prince. Even reduced to such circumstances, His Highness remained peerless in bearing.

He searched the bed himself, and after confirming nothing else was hidden there, led his men back out of the Hall of Peace and Ease.

Once it was over, some of the guards trailing behind him couldn’t help wondering.

“Commander, why do you still show such deference?”

Everyone knew how powerful the Imperial Noble Consort had grown these past years, how she had hounded the Crown Prince all the way out to the Hall of Peace and Ease. Now she ruled the Inner Palace with an iron hand, and the Eldest Prince won more and more of the Emperor’s favor.

If not for the Eldest Prince’s frail health, the Crown Prince would have been cast aside long ago. Why show such respect to a prince with so little power left?

The Eastern Palace existed in name only.

“Watch your tongue!”

Gong Jianfeng barked them into silence and dressed them down so harshly that his subordinates dared not breathe another word of it.

Lately the Emperor’s health had been failing badly, and he needed medicinal pills year-round just to keep up his vigor. His ever more violent temper, the remonstrances of the court officials, the Imperial Noble Consort’s indulgences… all of it weighed heavy on Gong Jianfeng’s heart.

And the Crown Prince…

Gong Jianfeng lowered his head.

Even a dragon fallen low was still a dragon. Yet when Gong Jianfeng had stood before him today, what welled up in his chest was a subtle, creeping fear.

He had served at court for over twenty years, climbing step by step to the post of Commander of the Imperial Dragon Guard, a trusted minister at Emperor Changle’s side. And he was afraid of the Crown Prince?

If word got out, he would be a laughingstock.

But Gong Jianfeng only grew more humble, unwilling to overstep the mark.

When true dragons fought, who could say who would win? So long as he stood firmly in his place, he would not lose his life.

Hurrying along the palace walk, Gong Jianfeng spotted a party approaching and immediately bowed.

“Commissioner of Military Affairs.”

Xu Zhao gave a nod and returned the greeting.

Gong Jianfeng led his men aside to let them pass, watching them go.

Come to think of it, the Commissioner had been entering the palace far more often these days than before.

Curious though he was, Gong Jianfeng did not dwell on it.

Once the Imperial Dragon Guard had gone, quiet settled over the Hall of Peace and Ease again.

The side chamber was tiny, and unless it was necessary, Yu Zeming and the others always waited outside.

Now, in that little room, Tantai Tian was alone.

He sat on the edge of the bed, tilting his head back to stare at the dim ceiling.

The sunlight had grown thin enough that he could not make out how many beams ran overhead.

“Not coming down?”

Tantai Tian’s voice was cold, colder than the winter snow beyond the window. Any other person or creature would have shrunk away in fright, never daring to show itself.

In the silent room, only his breathing could be heard. It was as if he had just been talking to empty air.

After a good while, a tail dangled down.

Swaying gently, back and forth.

The cat appeared.

It leaped down from the crossbeam.

Last night, the cat had pounced viciously at Emperor Changle’s face, sharp claws springing from velvet paws, raking bloody scratch after bloody scratch across his skin.

Back then, the cat had been wild and ghostlike.

But the cat that appeared before Tantai Tian now was the one from the palace wall.

A tiny, skinny, black cat.

Pure black from nose to tail, with eyes of gold.

The cat was not the affectionate sort.

Still, when Tantai Tian spoke, it came out.

Last night, the cat had slept on him the whole night through.

The cat warmed the human, and the human warmed the cat.

Right now, Tantai Tian smelled faintly of kitten.

Tantai Tian looked down at the cat.

The cat was really very small.

Sitting beside him, it looked just like a steamed bun.

Round little head, round little body.

That evening, when Yu Zeming came to invite Tantai Tian to dinner, he heard him give the order: “Prepare a bowl. Set aside a portion of food every day and leave it by the door.”

Yu Zeming glanced at the cat that had appeared out of nowhere. He didn’t dare ask, and he had no wild guesses either. He simply bowed and complied.

Which, to hear it told, meant he was going to be keeping a cat.

Master and servant walked out the door, never seeing the cat bouncing merrily down behind them and rolling a happy circle on the ground.

The cat rolled over.

And rolled over again.

【Congratulations, Host, on completing Quest One】

After bonding with the System, the System had told the cat a great many things. It was all very complicated, but the cat sometimes lay outside the corner shop watching television with the shopkeeper.

The tiny screen played out story after story of love and hate.

The System said that many of the stories on television were adapted from novels.

And the cat’s job was to come to this world and keep the main plot on track. In other words, to stop the novel from turning into a butchered TV adaptation.

When the cat laid out this whole cat-logic argument, the System fell silent for a moment.

Whatever. The cat was sure it was right.

After arriving in this world, the very first quest the System issued was to stay by Tantai Tian’s side.

Not the sneaky, cowardly kind of staying. It only counted if Tantai Tian himself asked the cat to stay.

The System said that Tantai Tian was the Second Male Lead.

According to the original plot, after he inherited the throne, he would suffer several assassination attempts and end up crippled and blind. After all those trials, his temperament would transform completely, and he would become a tyrant. At that point, the Imperial Clan, left with no other choice, would step forward and champion someone to drive Tantai Tian from the throne.

And that someone was the true Male Lead.

The cat thought it all sounded terribly complicated. Why not just let the Male Lead be Emperor from the start?

The System could only answer that the original timeline’s plot simply unfolded that way.

Quest One, as issued, should not have been all that hard, provided Tantai Tian were still the gentle, scholarly Crown Prince he had started out as.

But the Spacetime Turbulence had thrown the entire world into chaos. The man who should have ascended the throne without a hitch was now holed up in exile, wasting away in the tiny Hall of Peace and Ease.

And as for his personality…

The cat had huffed and puffed, mewing and trudging along, and finally perched on the palace wall to see Tantai Tian. And then it met those gloomy eyes of his.

The human… is already a tyrant!

The cat’s ears shot straight up, and it flattened itself into a tiny cat-snake crouch.

Such scary, scary eyes. Such a scary, scary human.

How could any creature in this world be built so big and so wide!