Chapter 2: The King Returns

The bedchamber.

Zhang Han lay on the floor, blood from his head pooling on the ground; it was unclear if he was dead or alive.

Feng'er and Luan'er had terrified looks in their eyes, shrinking into the corner of the wall in fear.

In their eyes, this was merely another one of Zhao Xu's sudden outbursts of violence, and it might be their turn next.

One could tell just from the terrified looks in their eyes.

Zhao Xu curled the corners of his mouth, revealing a harmless smile.

The two little maidservants, one elegant and the other naive and charming, both had eyebrows like painted ink, skin like snow, and figures that were graceful, slender, and alluring.

It was just that, at this moment, Zhao Xu's smile looked like that of a murderous demon to them.

Consequently, the two of them huddled even closer together like little rabbits.

"Do not be afraid, this Prince will not harm you."

Sitting down in the main seat where Zhang Han had just been sitting, Zhao Xu explained in a soft voice, like a strange uncle coaxing a girl with a lollipop.

As Zhao Xu's words fell, Feng'er and Luan'er immediately revealed expressions of astonishment.

Ever since Zhao Xu became mad and foolish, they had never heard him speak a single word, and whenever Zhao Xu wanted something, he would only express it with sounds like "ah, ah, ah."

One can imagine their shock now.

"Your Highness..."

Feng'er and Luan'er's eyes instantly filled with tears; they had no relatives, and upon arriving at this remote frontier, they only had Zhao Xu for company.

Even if Zhao Xu's madness had improved just a little, they would have been happy for days, let alone now that Zhao Xu was like a normal person.

"You have suffered," Zhao Xu comforted them. "At noon yesterday, this Prince's madness was cured. From now on, this Prince will not let anyone bully you."

He could understand how the two of them felt.

Having come to this unfamiliar Yan Commandery, with nothing to rely on, they only had a mad and foolish Yan Wang.

Every day they also had to guard against the covetousness of jackals like Zhang Han, suffering greatly.

One can imagine their feelings now that Zhao Xu's brain ailment had healed itself.

"Your Highness..."

Zhao Xu's next considerate remark made the two of them even more pleasantly surprised.

Feng'er was bolder, so she couldn't help but ask, "Since Your Highness has recovered, do you know your own name, and what is your rank among the Imperial Princes? And what are our names?"

"This Prince is ranked ninth among the Imperial Princes, and my name is Zhao Xu. As for you two, one is called Feng'er, and the other is called Luan'er; you are both this Prince's personal maidservants." Zhao Xu tilted the corner of his mouth, smiling somewhat mischievously.

Upon hearing this, a blush flew onto their cheeks.

There is a difference between maidservants and maidservants.

Those who clean, boil water, wash clothes, and cook are merely menial maidservants.

But they were closer; they were specifically responsible for Zhao Xu's food, drink, and daily life, including their bodies, which also belonged to Zhao Xu, so Zhao Xu's words just now were more like flirtation between a man and a woman.

However, while the two were shy, they also thought that since the Yan Wang even understood this, he must have truly returned to normal.

Just as they were happy, a chaotic sound of footsteps suddenly came from outside.

They saw the servant whom Zhao Xu had knocked unconscious clutching his blood-stained head, rushing into the bedchamber with seven other servants.

"Master Zhang!"

The guard servant saw Zhang Han lying in a pool of blood and let out a sorrowful cry.

Looking up at Zhao Xu sitting in the chair, he turned his head and said viciously to the servants behind him: "What are you still standing there for? Quickly, grab this Mad King."

The servants thought this was just another one of the Mad King's usual farces, so they prepared to rush forward.

"This Prince's madness has been cured, and I have now returned to being a normal person. Those who want to die, come right ahead!" Zhao Xu shouted loudly.

In the past, everyone in the Prince Mansion treated the Ninth Prince as nothing because he was mad and foolish; now that he was a normal person, everything was naturally different.

It was time to let this bunch of brats understand who the master of the Yan Prince Mansion was.

"His Highness spoke!"

Sure enough, hearing Zhao Xu's words, the servants were scared back several steps as if they had seen a ghost.

Previously, because Zhao Xu was mad and foolish, Feng'er and Luan'er, two weak women, could only endure and struggle to maintain the Prince Mansion.

Now that Zhao Xu was better, how could they let these people lock Zhao Xu back up?

Feng'er shouted: "Presumptuous! You all withdraw; His Highness's madness has been cured."

"Impossible! Since the Mad King's madness is cured, why would he beat the Master like this?" The guard servant panicked.

He felt guilty inside; he knew full well how he and Zhang Han had treated Zhao Xu behind the backs of everyone in the Prince Mansion for these three months.

If the Yan Wang were normal, he would surely die.

Therefore, it was best for the Yan Wang to be mad; even if he wasn't, he had to be made mad, and he absolutely could not be allowed to come out.

"Hmph, bold dog slave! You still dare to wag your tongue and distort the truth in front of this Prince? You have repeatedly humiliated this Prince during my illness; this is a capital crime. Someone, take him down for me!" Zhao Xu shouted angrily.

"Can the Mad King's words be trusted? It must be these two sluts using the Mad King to harm the Master and steal the power of Yan Commandery. Grab them all together!" The guard servant's eyes flashed with a fierce light, and he stepped forward, intending to grab Zhao Xu.

But before he could even take a second step, he heard a dull thud.

The guard servant collapsed limply.

A servant in his early twenties, with a fair complexion, a round head and face, and lively eyes, was now standing behind the guard servant, the stick in his hand still raised.

"Bah! A lowly servant, daring to offend the Yan Wang, you are courting death." The servant shouted angrily.

Everyone in the bedchamber was stunned for a moment.

Zhao Xu came back to his senses and smiled, "What is your name? From today on, this Prince appoints you as a high-ranking servant of the Prince Mansion, to serve by this Prince's side."

Having a servant choose to stand on his side greatly boosted his confidence, and he thought to himself that the status of the Yan Wang still held power.

He immediately rewarded the servant to shake the resolve of the others.

"This little one is Liu Fu, thank you for your grace, Your Highness." The young servant was so happy his face was full of smiles; he dropped the stick and knelt on the ground, thanking him repeatedly.

The other servants saw this, exchanged glances, rolled up their sleeves, and began to punch and kick the guard servant, using every ounce of strength they had.

Usually, this lead servant relied on Zhang Han to run rampant in the Prince's Mansion.

Given the current situation, even a fool could see the tide was turning; naturally, they took the chance to settle old scores and grievances, using the opportunity to show their loyalty to Yan Wang.

Moreover, Liu Fu had just been promoted from a low-level servant to a high-level servant in the blink of an eye; if they didn't try to curry favor with Yan Wang now, when would they?

"Hmm, this is what you call those who know the times are the heroes, though you are a bit later than Liu Fu. I will promote you all to mid-level servants, but do not be discouraged; as long as you are loyal to this Prince, there will be no shortage of rewards for you." Zhao Xu gave them a "you know what I mean" look.

"Thank you, Your Highness." The remaining servants knelt down and bowed their heads.

Without a doubt, Yan Wang's words were so sharp that he was definitely not the same as before.

This Prince's Mansion, no, this Yan Commandery.

It was likely about to undergo a change of heaven.

"Drag them both away and lock them up under strict guard." Having dealt with the servants, Zhao Xu waved his hand, not wanting to look at these two pieces of trash for even a second longer.

"Hurry and drag them away!" Liu Fu echoed, then stood respectfully by Zhao Xu's side.

"That was close..."

At this moment, Zhao Xu let out a long breath; the guard servant was tall and sturdy, and he really wasn't sure he could have handled him.

Fortunately, Liu Fu had intervened, otherwise, he feared he would have been locked up again.

If that happened, he would truly never be able to turn things around.

After all, Zhang Han was the Prince's Tutor of the Mansion, equivalent to a Prime Minister in the Imperial Court, and all matters, big or small, inside and outside the mansion had to pass through his hands.

As long as he was in control, Zhang Han could continue to manage everything inside and outside the mansion.

"I wonder what state my fief has been ravaged into?" After getting rid of Zhang Han, he thought of his current predicament, and ten thousand grass-mud horses galloped through his heart.

Judging from the information in his memories.

The place he had arrived at seemed to be a parallel universe.

However, apart from some ancient myths and legends being the same, the history here was completely different from the modern world.

Here, there was no Qin Shi Huang unifying the six states, no Emperor Wu of Han driving back the Xiongnu, and likewise, no prosperous Tang Dynasty.

The history of this world had its own unique trajectory of development.

Therefore, he could not use the perspective of modern history to measure the history here.

After all, the development of history is full of contingency; often, the choice of a single historical figure can cause an entire civilization to leap forward or regress.

And the history here happened to have produced quite a few eccentric figures.

"The Great Song has been established for over two hundred and sixty years; imperial power and the influential clans rule the world together. Now, imperial power is weak, and power is almost entirely controlled by the Eight Great Influential Clans." Zhao Xu searched his mind.

Two hundred-plus years is basically the life cycle of a dynasty.

The Great Song was the same; after two hundred years, deep-seated problems were hard to eradicate, and land annexation had reached its extreme, truly a case of the rich owning fields stretching across the land, while the poor had no place to stand an awl.

In recent years, the eight influential clans—Wang, Dou, Ma, Han, Liang, Fan, Xie, and Xiao—had even vaguely shown signs of carving up the territory.

And in the North Territory, a foreign tribe called the Beidi had risen, with ambitions to enter and rule the Central Plains.

In the Northwest, a dynasty called Xiliang was also at war with the Great Song year after year.

In the Southwest direction, the High Barbarians on the plateau, the Jiaozhi barbarians in the south, and the Piaoman were likewise not to be trifled with.

On the seas, pirates from Dongying and Gaoli were rampant, and it was rumored that in the depths of the ocean, there were also privateer ships from the West, loaded with artillery, running wild.

Consequently, to prevent treacherous merchants along the coast from colluding with pirates to plunder the coast, the Great Song had banned the sea a hundred years ago.

Given all of the above, the current Great Song could be described as a house leaking in the rain, with the danger of collapse at any moment.

And his fief was unfortunately located in one of the vortices of these conflicts, and the most dangerous one at that.

The Great Song had twenty-one provinces in total, with seven commanderies in each province.

The Yan Commandery where he was located was at the northernmost end of the Great Song's territory, facing the Beidi, who claimed to possess a million cavalry.

Although the Great Song had the protection of mountains and rivers, which temporarily prevented the Beidi from breaking through the northern border.

But every autumn and winter, large groups of Beidi cavalry would still bypass the main paths to enter Yan Commandery and plunder wantonly.

To the west of Yan Commandery, Xiliang had already encroached upon the neighboring Jinzhou.

If Jinzhou fell, Yan Commandery would be under attack from two sides.

In a place like this, not to mention his fief becoming barren due to the plundering, he feared the banner on the city walls would soon be changed to another king's.

"This starting point is just too difficult..." Zhao Xu was dumbfounded; compared to the current crisis, Zhang Han was nothing but a small fry.

And from the information he possessed, besides the enemies on the periphery, the Great Song's technology was also inferior to the West, which added another layer of crisis.

He was muttering to himself when he suddenly felt a jolt in his brain, and in an instant, countless data, formulas, diagrams, and technical processes erupted in his mind like a volcano.

"Biological Chip!" Zhao Xu was horrified in his heart.

It turned out this was a cutting-edge scientific research project, even more advanced than the so-called brain-computer interface of some country's Musk.

Stored within this Biological Chip was all the knowledge from ancient times to the present, as well as the most advanced technology currently available.

As long as the chip was linked to the human brain, the brain would be equivalent to having a hard drive loaded into it, mastering all the knowledge within.

"So the surgery wasn't a scam." Zhao Xu's heart beat uncontrollably; without a doubt, the knowledge in the Biological Chip had traveled through time with him.

With this, perhaps everything wasn't so bad after all.