Title In Progress

Ch 76 - Ruthless Crown Prince x Foolish Prince: Obedient Dog


“Of course big brother Crown Prince is not the same as those people.”

Yan Qin reached out to hold Lin Sui’s hand, his action was brazen and impudent, but it also carried a bit of intimate fawning.

Yan Qin thought that his big brother the Crown Prince wouldn’t shake his hand off, because this was his interest. The interest that was owed to a tool being used.

Although Lin Sui was a bit older than Yan Qin, when both their hands were placed on top of each other, Lin Sui’s palms were completely wrapped up by Yan Qin’s.

Yan Qin’s hands really weren’t as soft and slender as those of an ordinary prince, instead, they had a few rough and thin calluses which hurt Lin Sui a little when they rubbed at him.

“Your hands?”

Lin Sui frowned slightly, holding Yan Qin’s hands and carefully examining his palms.

Naturally, Lin Sui knew the cause of this, but pretended not to on the surface.

“Grandfather said practicing martial arts would strengthen my body and make me less likely to get sick.”

Yan Qin skillfully glossed over the topic, grasping Lin Sui’s soft and slightly cold palms with a bright smile on his face.

His big brother the Crown Prince had really proven to be an heir raised with the utmost care, he couldn’t feel even a single thin callus on him. It was no wonder that he had wrinkled his brows with a reddened face when he’d helped yesterday.

Lin Sui struggled for a moment when faced with his tightly-held hands, but seeing as he was unable to break free, he simply stopped moving and let Yan Qin pull him along.

They returned to the Eastern Palace like that, and the people in the Eastern Palace lowered their heads when seeing the unexpected sight.

Ever since Lin Sui’s purge last time, there were only trustworthy people in the Eastern Palace now. Lin Sui had even left behind two of Yan Qin’s spies so as to avoid making the puppy anxious.

The people left inside the palace all pretty much understood how much the Fifth Prince liked sticking close to the Crown Prince, so the didn’t think much of this strange scene that would have seemed excessively intimate to an outsider.

At the inner hall, the door was closed from the inside by Fu Shu.

“Did you see that woman’s face clearly just now?”

Yan Qin nodded: “I saw.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“No.”

Yan Qin understood that he shouldn’t know.

He had actually seen Concubine Yu before, but as a stupid prince who had been recuperating outside of the palace for two years, how would he remember the appearance of the Emperor’s beloved concubine?

“She is Concubine Yu, remember her face, she’ll be pushed over by Concubine Yun in a few days and have a miscarriage. At that time, all you have to do is be a witness and tell everyone that Concubine Yun acted deliberately, understand?”

Concubine Yun was King Qing’s birth mother. She was only a First Class Attendant when she gave birth to King Qing, then she was promoted to Noble Lady afterwards. She was not entitled to raise her own child, so King Qing was sent to the Imperial Noble Consort, who had a hard time getting pregnant after losing her child.

Concubine Yun had previously held the position of Noble Lady for a very long time, since although she was King Qing’s birth mother and one of the Imperial Noble Consort’s people, the Imperial Noble Consort had no plans of elevating her position, so it wasn’t until two years ago that she was promoted to Concubine based on her seniority.

There were many women as beautiful as flowers in the palace, and Concubine Yun wasn’t favoured. Even if she had the title of King Qing’s birth mother, she wasn’t spared a single glance.

She had a dull appearance, and the Emperor was a lecherous man who liked bright colours the most.

Lin Sui wasn’t only planning on suppressing the power of King Qing’s faction externally, he was also planning on driving a wedge between King Qing and the Imperial Noble Consort internally.

The Imperial Noble Consort wasn’t entirely at ease with her and King Qing’s relationship, and she was a very scheming woman who felt that a child who wasn’t her own flesh and blood wasn’t worthy of trust. She had done everything to ascend to the position of Empress, but the position of Empress seemed hopeless, so she had her eye on the position of Empress Dowager^[1]. However, if King Qing got close to his birth mother, it wouldn’t do her any good.

It wasn’t like there was no record of this in previous dynasties. In the past, a certain dynasty’s ruler helped his birth mother become Queen Mother^[2] after ascending the throne, and the power of that woman who had schemed to become Empress Dowager was eroded. Her hopes of winning glory for her family were in vain, and in the end she became a target for the Emperor and died.

This was a plan to instigate conflict. Lin Sui had given Concubine Yu a medicine that resulted in producing a false pregnancy and a miscarriage when the time came. Concubine Yu had already been taking it for a time, so in a few days it would be the date for her ‘miscarriage’.

If something happened to his birth mother, what choice would King Qing make?

How could he live up to his ‘filial and kind’ reputation if he abandoned his birth mother without the slightest hesitation? This integrity was the good reputation many people praised King Qing for.

But if he tried his utmost to help, the Imperial Noble Consort’s thoughts would be up for debate.

The human heart was the thing one could bet on the least.

Thinking about that scene, Lin Sui revealed a smile, and he looked at Yan Qin waiting for his answer.

Yan Qin pretended to be ‘struck dumb’ for a good while, then nodded like he ‘didn’t understand’ what was going on: “I’ll listen to big brother Crown Prince.”

Then he asked with some apt hesitation on his face: “But why…”

He seemed unable to understand, this kind of thing was too complicated for a fool.

“Don’t ask too many questions, you just have to do as you’re told.”

The Crown Prince’s face was as gorgeous as a painting, but it was extremely cold and vicious.

Lin Sui lay down on the long reclining chair and beckoned towards Yan Qin.

He looked at Yan Qin, who was crouching by his side with an obedient face, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a relaxed smile as he reached out to stroke Yan Qin’s face.

Delicate and slender pale fingers lingered absent-mindedly over that face, and Lin Sui spoke quietly in a somewhat lazy tone: "Remember?”

In a bit of a daze, Yan Qin felt Lin Sui’s sleeve brush across his face, and felt a numb itch with the cool wind that accompanied it.

He caught sight of Lin Sui’s wrist through his sleeve, and smelled the warm fragrance on his body.

If he hadn’t been worried about not showing an excessively strange emotion to prevent his older brother from discovering something odd, he would have long since gone to stick to it in intoxication, closed his eyes and gone to sleep peacefully next to his hand, enjoying this pleasant moment.

“I remember.”

Yan Qin’s voice was slightly hoarse as he tried to suppress his constant thoughts.

“Good boy, A-Qin,” The young man on the soft couch didn’t think there was anything wrong with him coaxing his younger brother this much, his voice turned softer and softer, and even if it carried some malice, he continued praising him quite effortlessly, “This One likes good dogs the most.”

This was a twisted commendation, a supreme honour.

Yan Qin found it hard to keep his face from flushing, the blood inside his body surged, spreading heat in all directions like a rushing current.

When he heard Lin Sui’s last words, he even wanted to shamelessly wag his tail to show his happiness.

Yan Qin wanted to be his big brother the Crown Prince’s most beloved dog, but he wasn’t the most obedient one, because he not only wanted to lick his Master’s body, he also wanted to eat him up.

Just being a dog wouldn’t be enough to move a fickle and shallow Master, he had to be a wolf to keep him docile, keep him interested, and keep him perfectly content.

The heroic-looking, handsome youth blushed and spoke: “A-Qin also likes big brother Crown Prince the most.”

He was naïve and shy, all of his greed and desire to monopolise hidden under the surface.

Lin Sui lightly swept his gaze over him, then lowered his eyes and pretended to sleep, inwardly adjusting his breathing.

No, Yan Qin was still young.

Tsk.

Yan Qin was too tempting to him like this. Lin Sui admitted to himself that he really did have some bad tastes, the more he saw Yan Qin blushing and looking shy, even if it was all an act, the more he felt his body heating up.

He clearly liked him very much, but he always pretended to be proper.

At first, Lin Sui didn’t know Yan Qin liked being ridden the most because Yan Qin never said anything. He didn’t know Yan Qin was shy, and was even worried about his human cauldron constitution and afraid that he would be unhappy, so he didn’t dare to ask for it.

The sword practitioner who only focused on cultivating knew very few things, he only made one or two back and forth movements, which was nothing to write home about.

It was only later, when he first tried it, that he became aware of the level of Yan Qin’s excitement.

Yan Qin liked looking at him, but their relationship had not begun with passionate love, Yan Qin felt like he had taken advantage of him and was worried that showing too much excitement would make him seem rash, so he never asked for it.

Lin Sui also really liked it at first, after all, Yan Qin was very good-looking and completely in-line with his tastes, so he felt even better the more he could look at him, but later Lin Sui did it much less often. He was afraid of seeing the overflowing affection in Yan Qin’s eyes, and of leaving his own wretchedness with nowhere to hide.

When Lin Sui opened his eyes, they were still ice-cold.

He was not a nostalgic person, it was only when he met Yan Qin that he would always think back on things.

He looked at Yan Qin, who was leaning on the couch looking at him, and spoke in a light voice: “You should leave the palace, I’ll have someone send Bao Su a message when you are needed.”

“Can I leave a little later? I want to have dinner with older brother.”

Yan Qin was quite confident in his stance, he was willing to be used, but he wanted to receive more benefits.

Lin Sui nodded his head without paying much mind, and thus Yan Qin achieved his goal of having dinner with him for the first time. After all, all Yan Qin could eat in the Eastern Palace before was leftovers.

Yan Qin was humming a song when he went out of the palace. He’d gained a lot today, not only had he held hands with his big brother the Crown Prince, he had also had dinner with his big brother the Crown Prince, and he figured the day where they could live and sleep together was not far away.

When Yan Qin left the Eastern Palace, he bumped into an acquaintance he hadn’t seen for a long time——Consort De’s son, the Seventh Prince.

The Seventh Prince, Yan Lan, was fourteen years old this year. He looked at Yan Qin’s naïve and unworried appearance as he ignorantly hummed a tune, but didn’t speak out to mock him like he had two years ago, he just turned a blind eye and walked away.

He was a lot more mature than he had been two years ago, he wasn’t thinking about how to bully this stupid older brother of his, after all, the ones threatening him now were King Qing and the Crown Prince, and Yan Qin was already not worth his attention.

Yan Qin could see the arrogance of his former bully younger brother at a glance, and he sneered on the inside.

It could be said that these people’s petty thoughts had nowhere to hide, not comparable at all to his talented and beautiful big brother the Crown Prince.

At this point, Yan Qin had selectively forgotten that he himself had once thought that the Crown Prince was reckless and brainless.

This is a fan translation posted to title-in-progress.dreamwidth.org. Support the author if you can.

In late February, something big happened in the palace.

Concubine Yu and Concubine Yun had gotten into an altercation in front of the Zhuqing Pavilion, and somehow started shoving each other. When Concubine Yun pushed Concubine Yu to the ground, the surrounding palace people saw Concubine Yu quickly yelling out that her stomach hurt, and soon she started bleeding from below.

Concubine Yun immediately said that she didn’t push Concubine Yu at all, and that it had been Concubine Yu herself who had fallen in front of her.

But this was already no longer relevant to the situation, Concubine Yu was hurriedly helped into the Zhuqing Pavilion and the Imperial Physician was called over to treat her.

When the Emperor heard that something had happened to his beloved concubine, he hastily rushed over from the Imperial Study, and saw Concubine Yu crying her eyes out.

The Imperial Physician said that Concubine Yu had been pregnant for about a month, but because a month had been too short and she had been struck on top of that, it was already too late to do anything about it.

Calculating the time, a month ago had been precisely the time when the Emperor had shown Concubine Yu his favour, so there was no doubt about the result.

The servants by Concubine Yu and Concubine Yun’s side both had their own version of events, but as luck would have it, the Fifth Prince had just so happened to go into the palace at the time, planning on bringing some of the late Noble Consort Shu’s belongings back to Zhongyu Palace, so he saw what happened.

Faced with the Emperor’s inquiry, the Fifth Prince spoke with some lingering fear: “I saw Madam Concubine Yun push Madam Concubine Yu, it was really scary, Madam Concubine Yu started bleeding after.”

“Your Majesty, it is this Concubine who is worthless, I did not realise anything and now our child is gone!”

Concubine Yu shed tears, looking at the Emperor with a beautiful pair of lovely and pitiful eyes. Her eyes seemed to carry grief, and her face was so pale and haggard that the Emperor felt his heart ache.

Concubine Yun still wanted to explain herself, saying that it was Concubine Yu who had provoked her first by mocking her without reason, and that she had not shoved her at all.

The Emperor shouted impatiently: “Shut up, would the Fifth Prince lie?”

That’s right, would a fool tell a lie?