[Various] The Deposed Crown Prince's Survival Story

"Father, why are you looking at Su'er like that?" Fusu tilted his head, his chubby little hands clenched into fists and placed beside his cheeks, his bright black eyes blinking, and said in a soft voice, "Don't you think Su'er is very pretty and cute? Hehe... Su'er is the cutest little baby in the entire Xianyang Palace, no, in the entire world of Qin."

As Fusu spoke, he proudly puffed out his small belly, which resembled that of a woman eight months pregnant. "Don't mind the size of your belly; it's full of energy, and positive energy at that."

Haha! You little rascal, you're overthinking it! I'm just watching to see if it's a black bear spirit in disguise or a wild boar demon reincarnated. You're so shameless.

Ying Zheng took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to beat the brat, and said through gritted teeth, "Why does Su'er think this isn't Qin script?"

“Because I already know almost all the commonly used characters in Qin, but this is the first time I’ve seen these characters, and… I feel that the… um… the temperament of these characters is different from that of Qin script.” Fusu stroked his chin and said seriously, “Qin script is more like the style of the Qin people. Each character is a separate character, without much variation, and it looks quite regular; but these characters look more free and unrestrained. Some characters sound the same and look like the same character, but some strokes are added or subtracted… At first, I didn’t understand and thought that Father had written it wrong. Later, I realized that these additions and subtractions of strokes are used to indicate changes in time.”

After Fusu finished speaking, he looked up at Ying Zheng, as if waiting for his reply.

Ying Zheng looked back at Fusu, his mind repeatedly filled with thoughts like "That brat is so smart" and "I can't believe I have such a clever son."

It took Ying Zheng quite a while to come back to his senses, urged by Fu Su's repeated calls of "Father, please speak."

"What's so great about being literate? Do you even know the meaning of the words in this book?" Ying Zheng casually picked up a scroll of bamboo slips and placed it in front of Fusu.

"This...this..." Fusu casually picked it up and glanced at it. The bamboo slip contained a poem from the "Airs of Wei" section of the Book of Songs. "The Book of Songs? This...Su'er isn't particularly familiar with it..."

If Chinese is not your native language but you have studied it, you should know that learning Chinese is not too difficult. If you can have a simple conversation, such as "Have you eaten?", many foreigners can speak it very fluently.

The difficulty of the Chinese language lies in the large number of idioms it contains, and each idiom has one or more historical allusions behind it, which can be incredibly frustrating.

If it's so painful for people from Earth whose native language isn't Chinese to learn, how much more painful it must be for Fusu, who isn't from Earth.

Although there weren't as many idioms in the second century BC, the language of the second century BC was still quite difficult.

For example, what does the poem "氓" mean? Does it mean a rogue? Why write a poem about a rogue? Wasn't the state of Wei supposed to be full of gentlemen?

Ying Zheng was neither surprised nor disappointed by Fusu's answer.

Being able to remember everything at a glance and recite it backwards can be attributed to natural intelligence, but if someone can understand the meaning of the words in a book without being taught, then that would truly be a prodigy.

"It's alright if you don't know. Just tell me what you understand, and let your father hear it... If you're wrong, your father will teach you properly," Ying Zheng comforted him.

“Since that’s the case… Su’er will speak then…” Seeing Ying Zheng’s encouraging gaze, Fu Su boldly spoke up: “Su’er thinks this poem is discussing why, even though there are more men involved in homosexuality in reality, the otaku/fujoshi/gay culture is so prevalent among women?”

"Huh?" Son! Son, what are you saying? Son, wake up! What are you saying? Your father can't understand a word you're saying.

Ying Zheng, being an emperor after all, though inwardly frantic with worry, wishing he could grab the brat's clothes and shake him violently, yelling, "Speak! Explain yourself! What are you saying? Why can I understand each word individually, but when put together, I have absolutely no idea what you're saying, you brat?", he remained remarkably calm on the surface, simply waving his sleeve and saying indifferently, "What do you mean?"

“Father, look… this poem is called ‘The Rogue,’ which means it’s a poem about being a rogue…” I had heard that the people of Blue Star were corrupt and incredibly open-minded, that they could have sex in broad daylight on the street, and that the king would hold an annual uninhibited assembly to let the people have sex together. But I never thought that being a rogue could be written into a poem. This is simply corrupting the pure moral atmosphere of society.

“Father, look at this sentence again… ‘A man’s infatuation can be spoken of, but a woman’s infatuation cannot be spoken of.’… ‘A man’ means a gentleman; ‘of’ means ‘of’; ‘infatuation’ means *, which is BL, homosexuality, and the love of male homosexuality; ‘xi’ has no meaning; ‘you can be spoken of’ can be translated as ‘you can still talk about it.’ Put together, it means that if a man loves * and has homosexuality, he can still talk about it.”

"Based on the previous sentence, we can infer that the next sentence means... if a woman loves... she can't say it out loud... so what can she do if she can't say it out loud? She can write it down!"

"That's why most writers of adult fiction are female, and there are very few male authors... Because if a man loves sex, he'll just say it directly... Saying it directly means coming out... Since he's already out, he might as well just hook up with someone, why waste time writing stories? You know, sex is fleeting..."

Looking at a three-year-old child with a round face, round hands, and a round belly, like a little meatball, who was telling you with a serious, heartbroken expression that life is only once, so don't be afraid of gossip, do what you want, go out when you want, and seize your youth to the fullest, Ying Zheng's first reaction was, "My son is so cute! This kind of child pretending to be an adult is the cutest... Wait, what does this brat mean? And why are you looking at your father like that?"

Although Ying Zheng couldn't understand most of the words in Fusu's words, he did understand "Longyang's love," which was the male favorite of the King of Wei... the one in bed... skilled in swordsmanship, and often sent on diplomatic missions to other countries to seduce their courtiers with his beauty.

Having silently imagined himself on the bed with a man, Ying Zheng, who is currently the father of seven children (three men and four women) and has the standard imperial harem of three wives, nine concubines, twenty-seven ladies-in-waiting, and eighty-one imperial wives, felt utterly disgusted and wanted to vomit.

As expected, beauties with big breasts, perky butts, and slim waists are more to my liking.

Wait a minute, I have no homosexual desires, and Fusu doesn't usually come into contact with outsiders, so now the question is... who taught him this filthy thing?

Ying Zheng vowed that if he found this person, he would tear him apart and rip him to vent his anger.

Fusu is the eldest son of the Qin Dynasty and the first in line to inherit the throne of the Qin Kingdom. If he is taught to become obsessed with men at a young age, not only will his temperament change and his health be ruined, but he might also be unable to have children. Wouldn't that be terrible?

Thinking of this, Ying Zheng's anger intensified. He wanted to angrily ask Fusu who this person was.

However, seeing Fusu's bewildered expression, not knowing where he had gone wrong, Ying Zheng decided to investigate the matter secretly.

"Fusu, this poem isn't interpreted that way," Ying Zheng said gently, stroking Fusu's soft hair.

When Fusu was a child, he was imprisoned in Yongcheng by Zhao Ji, so he never shaved his head like other children. Later, when Ying Zheng won a great victory, Fusu returned to Xianyang Palace. Ying Zheng wanted Fusu to shave his head like other children, but Fusu said, "My head can be cut off, my blood can flow, but my hairstyle cannot be messed up." He refused to shave his head into a watermelon head, even if it meant death.

If he doesn't want to shave, then he doesn't want to. Ying Zheng has been indulging Fusu for quite some time.

With two round little buns tied on its round little head, it looked incredibly cute, which greatly increased Ying Zheng's patience.

"Then how should we interpret Father's poem?" Fusu asked, looking at Ying Zheng with starry eyes.

Am I wrong? How could I possibly be wrong? I never make mistakes. If I am wrong, it's because you bunch of foolish blue-star people are too low-level to understand the profound meaning of my great 123 Romance Star.

Fine... I'll tolerate you guys since you're so backward.

"This poem, well, it means this..."

Ying Zheng leaned back on the couch, his innocent and adorable son sitting in his lap. He held a scroll of bamboo slips in his hand and explained its meaning to Fusu. From time to time, he could hear his son's soft and tender cries of surprise.

"Wow! Father knows so much!"

"So that's how it's interpreted! Su'er didn't know that!"

"Su'er is so stupid, she can't even match one ten-thousandth of her father's intelligence."

Ying Zheng was overjoyed.

Shortly after personally instructing Fusu in his studies, Ying Zheng appointed several scholars at the Imperial Academy and sent them to teach Fusu.

According to the rules of the Qin Palace, all princes except the crown prince should receive their initial education in literature and martial arts at the Prince's Academy under the jurisdiction of the crown prince's tutor. Only the crown prince would have a dedicated teacher responsible for teaching him the ways of literature and martial arts.

Ying Zheng was young. Although he had children, there were only three young princes in the palace, the oldest of whom was only three years old and not yet old enough to begin their studies. Therefore, the position of tutor to the crown prince was practically a sinecure, and the Prince's Academy had not been opened for eight hundred years.

Thinking of this, Ying Zheng said, "Fusu is still a child, such a tiny little kid. I'm worried about him going to school alone. It's too dangerous. What if he gets kidnapped? Let's wait until his younger brothers are older and can accompany him to school, then we can all go to the Prince's Academy together."

Now, all you teachers, please take the trouble to travel a long distance to deliver the lessons to their homes.

Ying Zheng originally thought that after he finished speaking, he would definitely be criticized by the scholars of the Imperial Academy, especially those Confucian scholars who liked to say "without rules, there can be no order". But to his surprise, after he finished speaking, the scene fell silent because... not a single person raised any objection.

Poor me, I even prepared so many speeches.

Ying Zheng, who had already been dubbed "the most arrogant father of Qin" by the scholars of the Imperial Academy, thought with a touch of regret.