"The crown prince is here!" yelled the shrill voice of a eunuch. The cry resounded throughout the imperial palace, sparking more and more shouts of "The crown prince is here!"

Leading in the front of a long procession was the crown prince, Yang Yong, just back from his hunting sessions. Or as the emperor liked to call them, frivolous killing sessions. Ever since his crowning, the emperor Wendi was especially conservative and barely ever spent any money, which was why the imperial palace looked no different than a village house, albeit a little bigger. So when his eldest son would don golden armor and go out in shiny chariots shooting animals with silver arrows, he was no doubt pissed.

Following behind Yang Yong were his three brothers—no, four brothers. There was a small boy lagging way behind the other four. Compared to the silk and satin of his brothers, the boy looked nothing like a prince in his rough wool robes. Albeit being the second oldest of the brothers, the small boy was frail and short, barely taller than the fifth prince, who was only six while he was already ten.

Behind the boy were many, many soldiers all dedicated to protecting the crown prince, who was not to be hurt under any circumstances. That is, if they didn't want to die. Behind those soldiers were slaves, carrying all of the crown prince's prey.

"Father emperor, your child has come back from hunting," Yang Yong said, kneeling before the throne of the emperor. His other four brothers kneeled beside him, all except his second brother. He kneeled behind them, his small figure invisible behind the others.

"What did I say about hunting? You disrespectful child, wasting money like that. Money doesn't grow on trees!" Wendi raged.

"B-but I brought back prey!"

"Don't talk back to me! You think that a few petty animals matter to me?" Wendi shouted.

"Oh, emperor, don't be so angry. A-Yong is only trying to make sure we eat well," the empress said softly.

"Go kneel in the Fa Shi*, all of you. Don't come out until I tell you to. Also, copy your studies one hundred times."

*A/N: translates to "the punishment room"

"Father-" Yang Yong whined.

"GO!"

Scared shitless, Yang Yong quietly slunk away from the grand room with his brothers tailing behind him. When they were certainly out of earshot, Yang Yong let out a loud sigh and proclaimed:

"That old man has no idea what he's doing. it's not my fault all he does is make us do studies and never lets us have fun."

"Um, I don't think you should say that," the third Yang brother, Yang Mo, said.

"Bah, who cares! I'm the crown prince of Sui! There's not a single person under the sun which can hurt me!"

Yang Mo shrugged and continued his way down toward the Fa Shi, the oh-so-familiar cold room of punishment. They've been it so many times already, the Yang brothers could practically walk there with their eyes closed. Sometimes, they were even sent there multiple times a day, each time for escaping the last time.

Yang Yong pushed open the door of the Fa Shi and found the scrolls, books, and bottles upon bottles of ink already waiting for them. The crown prince grabbed a scroll and some ink and knelt down on the mat and began copying.

The rest of the brothers did the same, climbing onto the bamboo mats. However, after only a few minutes, Yang Yong threw down his brush and leaned back onto the wall.

"This is so stupid! Let's go out!" Yang Yong exclaimed.

"Didn't we get caught nearly every time?" Yang Cheng, the fourth brother asked.

"So?" Yang Yong replied nonchalantly.

"I'm leaving, who's coming with me?" he asked.

Nobody responded.

"You guys are no fun, all goody-two-shoes. Especially Yang Guang," Yang Yong said.

The second brother said nothing, continuing to copy down the scriptures. By now, he was almost done with a quarter of the text, the farthest out of all the brothers.

"Come on, we're leaving. A-Mo, A-Xiang, A-Liang, we're going," Yang Yong said.

When nobody answered, Yang Yong finally snapped.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING! THIS IS SO STUPID! I'M LEAVING!" he shouted, kicking over Yang Guang's ink tray. Then, he jumped up and leaped out of the window. Just after Yang Yong jumped out, the door gently slid open.

The empress and the emperor walked in to the Fa Shi to check on them. The first thing Wendi noticed was the missing crown prince. The second thing he noticed was that Yang Guang's ink tray was knocked over.

"Where's A-Yong?" he asked the four remaining Yang brothers. Nobody dared to say anything about their brother. Ever since they were little, their brother was especially violent, attacking anyone who dared to talk bad about him. And not only that, their mother would always find a way to punish whoever touched a single hair of the crown prince.

Empress Cui grit her teeth and clenched her fists, an action barely noticeable from under her many layers of sleeves.

"A-Yong's probably just out to get water," the empress said.

"Isn't that right?" she continued as she turned toward the Yang brothers.

"Yes, ma'am," the four all said in unison.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Wendi cast a look at the window before averting his gaze toward the ink splattered all over the ground and Yang Guang's completely ruined scriptures.

"A-Guang, what happened here?" he asked.

Yang Guang lowered his head replied:

"Sir, I was just being clumsy and knocked it over. I'm very sorry. I will go clean it up right away."

Wendi looked very suspiciously at the rest of the boys and asked:

"Is what he said true?"

The Yang brothers looked at each other and then looked at Yang Guang, who was sitting as still as a rock.

"Yes sir," they all said in unison.

"Qie*, what a clumsy child. Clean it up and then take him to the beating room. The rest of you should finish your scriptures," Empress Cui said, her voice dripping with spite.

*A/N: kind of like a phrase someone says when they're annoyed. Kind of like "Pei" but passive aggressive.

Yang Guang got up and walked toward the door, his head held low, especially when he passed by the empress. The empress looked down at him, as if wanting to slice him in half with her eyes. She slightly extended her leg toward the unsuspecting second prince just as he passed by, causing him to fall.

Yang Guang climbed back up again speed walked away from the Fa Shi, ignoring the empress's snickering , as if not wanting to spend a second more in that place. And probably for good reason too. During his time at the Fa Shi, he had been beaten the most out of all the brothers, no matter by his parents or his siblings. Every time his siblings climbed out to escape, he was the one copying their scriptures, and by the time Wendi came to check on them, Yang Guang had only barely finished the others' work and had just started his, causing him to be called illiterate by his mother.

When the well was finally in sight, Yang Guang grabbed a bucket from nearby and dipped it into the well, drawing only half a bucket of water. His little arms dragged this bucket all the way back to the Fa Shi, to see that the empress was still there, although Wendi was now gone.

He silently sucked in a breath because, without his dad to protect him, Empress Cui could do whatever she wanted to him. Heck, she could even kill him and blame it on an accident! The only reason he was still alive was that the empress found far too much fun in ridiculing him.

He silently walked into the room and grabbed a towel, feeling the ice cold stare of the empress trained on his back.

"Nobody help him. Do your own work," she said flatly to the other brothers.

For a while, Yang Guang scrubbed the floor, desperately trying to get the ink off the ground. Fortunately, it was wet enough to be scrubbed off with only a little bit of effort, but even that much was a lot for the small and fragile boy.

When he was finally done, the other brothers were almost halfway through their scriptures.

"Oh, you're done. Now go and receive your punishment," the empress said once she noticed that Yang Guang had finished.

Shakily, Yang Guang stood up and walked out of the Fa Shi and toward the ever inevitable beating room. It was merely a small shack with a couple of servants stationed inside, and always the faintest scent of blood. He opened the small door and walked in.

Upon hearing the sound of the doors opening, the servants looked up from their small circle on the ground.

"Oh, you're back? What did you do this time?" one of them asked.

"Knocked over an ink tray," Yang Guang said almost matter-of-factly. In front of these servants with whom he was comfortable with, he almost sounded like an entirely different person. Although his voice was still soft, it was no longer shaky and scared.

"You knocked over an ink tray?" another servant asked. After spending his entire life stepping on eggshells, Yang Guang was possibly one of the most deliberate people they'd met, and added with the fact that he worked extra hard on his physical cultivation, it was unlike him to knock over an ink tray.

"Well no, but you didn't hear that from me," Yang Guang said while kneeling down on yet another bamboo mat. This mat was pretty much engraved with his knee prints by now.

The servants looked at one another and turned back toward Yang Guang. He was still sitting completely still and his face was almost serenely calm.

"Who's...whipping him?" one of the servants gently whispered.

All of the servants went silent and sucked in a breath of cold air. Nobody wanted to whip this child, but if they didn't they would be threatened with punishment themselves.

"Well then, who has the weakest arm?" one of the servants asked.

Nobody answered until another servant stepped up and said;

"I guess I'll do it."

He took the whip on the wall and unraveled it.

"Make sure to go easy on him," the servant from earlier called.

"There's no need," Yang Guang said, his voice stone cold.

The servants looked at each other once again and tried to understand his words. However, only after a few seconds, the first whip fell.

Yang Guang clenched his fists and tried not to flinch, reminding himself that he was used to it. Every whip hurt like irons thrown across his back, but even this was one of the lighter punishments. When he had committed some horrible atrocities like kicked his brother on his first day, he was practically beaten to death with a giant wooden board.

At the end of the twenty whips, Yang Guang felt an overwhelming urge to fall onto the ground and faint. His head was spinning and his eyes felt like they were going to pop out.

The servant who whipped him quickly threw down the whip and picked the small child off the mat and carried him out the door. He was about to walk even further when he heard a shout.

"The empress told us not to help him!"

The servant paused for a second and set Yang Guang down. He looked between the prince and the servants before squatting down and patting the prince's head. The small boy smiled politely before turning away and limping toward the Fa Shi.

There, waiting for him, was a brand new sheet of paper and a new ink tray. Yang Guang looked gratefully at where his brothers were, thinking it was probably the work of one of them.

Awkwardly, he picked up a a pen and flipped open his scriptures before starting to copy. By the time he was done with the pages upon pages of his book, he closed the book and put it away. His back was aching with pain and the fact that he had to walk all the way back to his bedchamber at the other end of the palace didn't help. The sky was already dark, and in the shadow of the imperial palace, it was even darker around the boy.

After slowly limping around for a while, Yang Guang saw a servant running toward him. At first he ignored him until the servant ran right up to him and grabbed his shoulders. Yang Guang flinched.

"Second prince, our emperor know's you've been punished and gave you this for your back, but don't let anyone see you use it." With that, the servant ran off again, as if he didn't want to be seen with this second prince. Nobody could really blame him either, as Yang Guang was frequently called "dirty" and "messy" and other names that were much, much worse, and unless you were the lowest of servants, being with him would ruin your reputation. And if you were the lowest of servants, you never had a reputation to begin with.

Yang Guang gazed at the little medicine pouch in his hands and was about to shrug when he remembered the condition of his back. Silently, he walked back to his room, went inside, and closed the doors.

He took a cold bath and applied some of the medicine on his back before putting on his nightgown. For the entire night, he slept on his stomach, and when morning came, he really wanted to puke.

When he was awoken by a knock on his door, the sky was still dark. However, this was completely normal, as usually the Yang brothers would have to wake up earlier than even the birds to go to lessons. That is, except for special cases where the crown prince throws a tantrum and then gets to go and play outside.

Personally, Yang Guang really hated school. He was practically forced by his brother to do poorly on the tests so that his brother could look better. This would lead to hours of scoldings and being forced to copy everything 100 times. By now, Yang Guang could write "Third ancient text of the second century" with his eyes closed. His least favorite part, however, was cultivation. It was basically just an excuse for him to be beat up by everyone else.

Yang Guang wasn't sure what was worse: the streets of Luoyang or the (horribly shabby) imperial palace. Probably the former though.