Chapter 55
Xue Jin'an lived a very comfortable life during his confinement in Zhaoyang Palace.
Every morning, upon waking up at the exact same time, the first thing I do is feel under my pillow. Usually, there will be a silver ingot ranging from one to fifty taels, all of which are tributes from the emperor to Teacher Xiao X.
Ever since that time when Teacher Xiao X tricked the emperor... and gave him a test, the emperor seems to have developed a new hobby. He likes to come to Teacher Xiao X for a divination from time to time, not sticking to tarot cards.
More accurately, Tarot cards were merely a novelty for the emperor, something he had never seen before. What truly captivated him were classic, traditional Eastern metaphysics, such as character analysis, zodiac signs, and dream interpretation. He was so engrossed that he had the names of all his princes and ministers analyzed. If it weren't for the fact that the Eight Characters (Ba Zi) were indeed a sensitive topic for the ancients, the emperor would have likely had a complete set of these methods applied to himself.
A few days later, Xue Jin'an received a pop-up message from Teacher Xiao X, filled with optimization suggestions. At first, the message was normal, mainly proposing to subdivide the test questions and recommend corresponding packages based on user habits. This was for a better user experience, which was perfectly reasonable. Xue Jin'an agreed directly and granted Teacher Xiao X permission to debug the program structure based on big data.
Then Xue Jin'an saw the subsequent suggestions, such as adding a check-in section and membership functions, and the memberships for each section were not interchangeable. For example, there was a Tarot card membership and a Dream Interpretation membership, and you had to buy the one you needed.
This membership is divided into regular members and super members. Regular users can get a simple fortune slip by checking in every day. Regular members can get the fortune slip text. Super members can get a free fortune slip interpretation plus a fortune card or an electronic wooden fish acceleration card for collecting blessings.
Besides these, there are also things like paying extra to get ahead in test questions; or buying a test package and getting a tarot card as a bonus... In short, they are all scams designed to trick people into spending money.
"..." Xue Jin'an couldn't help but wonder once again what exactly Teacher Xiao X's big data debugging had been doing. He hadn't learned anything else, but he had truly mastered the consumer traps of fleecing consumers. He was a born capitalist AI.
Xue Jin'an originally did not intend to agree, not because he felt sorry for the leeks or thought it was against his conscience—laughable, mobile phones don't even have morality, so where does conscience come from?
His reason for rejecting Teacher Xiao X's suggestion was simple: he felt that the program currently only had one user, the Emperor, and the Emperor was not worth his time to waste writing code to add so many features, even if the code was not difficult for him.
However, Xue Jin'an did not expect that his failure to harvest the韭菜 (leeks) would make the韭菜 themselves unhappy. The next day, Teacher Xiao X's backend popped up with the only user's review.
The Emperor: "It was I who insisted on checking in every day; it was I who insisted on becoming a member; it was I who wanted to spend money to take the latest quiz!"
Oh no, the AI born a capitalist has met the emperor who is a leek saint.
"..." Xue Jin'an looked at his skill list and said with certainty, "Teacher Xiao X, you have read my memo data."
The unspoken aroma of tea was exactly the same as that of Consort Rong Xiao Shu towards the Emperor, and it must be said that the Emperor was indeed swayed by it.
Teacher Xiao X denied it and instantly turned into an artificial idiot: I don't understand what you're saying, please say it again.
Xue Jin'an only had one sentence to this: "You say code is life, but you don't lie to code is life."
Teacher Xiao X:
Xue Jin'an opened the system's application permission list and disabled all read permissions for Teacher Xiao X.
However, despite the restrictions, since the emperor was eager to be harvested, Xue Jin'an had no reason not to take action. He also fully adopted the methods used by various internet platforms to harvest users, and developed additional activities such as inviting new users to get membership bonuses and cutting the price to draw lucky cards for free, in order to solve the problem of having few users.
Xue Jin'an spent half a day rewriting the code and upgraded Teacher X again, enabling it to collect user experience data and launch small activities independently, thus maintaining the freshness of old users and improving retention rate.
On the first day the new feature was launched, Xue Jin'an once again woke up to a bed full of gold and silver jewelry. After that, he started earning one or five taels a day. Although it didn't seem as much as the occasional rewards the emperor would give him before, the income was stable and sustainable.
Although the emperor keeps clicking on the event page, he has not invited a single new user so far.
Xue Jin'an wasn't in a hurry. In his calculations, the emperor would eventually test the waters anyway. His current inaction was just a result of his paranoia and his ego.
After opening his eyes and receiving the emperor's money, he got up, washed, went to the main hall to offer incense, and then opened a fitness app to start military training with Helian Cheng. During this time, he would browse live stream videos. If a new class was starting in the Imperial Study, he would open a learning app to download the new textbook and listen to a class.
To be honest, after the assassination attempt, the Imperial Study was originally only supposed to suspend classes for three days. However, a series of events happened in quick succession, and two concubines died in the palace. As a result, the classes were suspended for almost half a month, and the Ninth Prince's stepmother was almost chosen.
Surprisingly, the emperor did not choose his usual favorite beauties, whether they were outstanding in appearance or in personality and talent. Instead, he chose Xie Hongying, the daughter of the Princess Consort of Prince An and a young lady from the Lin Yuan Marquis's household. She was already twenty-eight years old and still unmarried.
They had been engaged before, to her childhood sweetheart cousin. The formalities of marriage were already halfway through, and the engagement was about to be finalized. However, her cousin suddenly said that he had fallen in love with a woman from the martial arts world. After seeing her, he felt that Miss Xie was ugly, so he abandoned his family to follow her, and the engagement fell through.
Actually, this wouldn't have been a big deal. It wasn't her who did anything wrong. The Marquis of Linyuan's family was of high social standing, and they even had a Princess Consort An. Even if they were to take a son-in-law, there would be plenty of people willing to come to their door. The problem was that her cousin died not long after, and the entire twenty-odd members of the other family were wiped out overnight, leaving only a little child who was so frightened that he was delirious and couldn't even speak.
Some say that the cousin offended some people in the martial arts world and was being sought after for revenge, while others say that the Marquis of Linyuan's mansion could not bear such humiliation and took revenge. In any case, Miss Xie's marriage was thus delayed.
Xue Jin'an had seen this Miss Xie in the live video. Compared to other beautiful girls, her features were indeed a bit ordinary, but not unattractive. She had a calm and reserved personality and sat quietly in the corner the whole time, with little presence.
The emperor originally intended to choose not a favored concubine, but a tool person who had the fourth princess and the ninth prince. Seeing that the two children did not dislike her, the emperor kept her in the palace. Before long, the emperor decided on her and even drafted the title of "Zhuang". The palace was already in place, and he directly renamed Consort Rong's Minghua Palace to Chonghua Palace.
On an auspicious day, the newly appointed Consort Zhuang will take over the position.
The emperor originally thought that the matter was completely over, and he felt that the day had gone quite smoothly, without any of the twists and turns that Teacher X had predicted.
It's true what they say, people can't stand being nagged. He just said one more thing, and suddenly there was a Ninth Prince wailing and throwing a tantrum.
The Ninth Prince cried and begged for his mother, his hands and feet twitching and his whole body turning red. He looked so pitiful that even the Emperor was at his wit's end. He carried the prince to the dragon bed and slept for several days before finally calming him down. This was in accordance with the divination slip that said, "His thoughts are in turmoil, and he is filled with melancholy and unease."
From then on, the emperor completely trusted Teacher Xiao X's divination.
At this moment, the emperor remembered that classes in the Imperial Study were still suspended, so he immediately ordered the renovation to be resumed. The next day, all the princes went to school. Even the ninth prince, who was not yet old enough, was put into the Imperial Study by the emperor, under the guise of enlightenment.
To others, the Seventh Prince, who is currently under house arrest, is the only prince who has reached the required age but has not yet visited the Imperial Study. Therefore, they conclude that the Emperor dislikes the Seventh Prince and intends to ruin him.
Then, a few days later, at the morning court session, the emperor was impeached by the Left Censor-in-Chief.
Xue Jin'an, who had developed the habit of watching the recorded morning court session before bed: "..." Left Censor-in-Chief, you're not impeaching the emperor, you're impeaching me.
Xue Jin'an didn't say anything to the Left Censor-in-Chief because he knew that even if he did, the man wouldn't hear him. He chose to accuse the man who could hear him.
[Being stepped on in the face by a subject, Emperor, you are so useless, you should abdicate and give way to a worthy successor] Xue Jin'an's daily advice to the emperor to abdicate.
The emperor had become somewhat accustomed to hearing such evaluations, and since changing his status and treating the voices that entered his ears as divine, the emperor had gained a new understanding. He did not feel that Xue Jin'an was scolding him; on the contrary, he was affirming him in another way.
The emperor had never heard the term "face-stepping output" before, but he could tell from the words "face-stepping" that it meant the Left Censor-in-Chief was speaking inappropriately and being too presumptuous in front of him!
Isn't this—isn't this saying that he is open to advice and humbly accepts criticism? The emperor was so pleased that he immediately ordered Li Hechun to open his money bag and reward Teacher Xiao X with the largest silver ingot inside.
Teacher Xiao X popped up a message: The emperor felt you had given him a good scolding and rewarded you with fifty silver ingots.
"..." Xue Jin'an didn't understand. He decided to learn from the court officials how to properly hit someone's sore spot—at least he couldn't let people feel good about insulting him anymore.
The emperor adopted the suggestion of the Left Censor-in-Chief, and Cui Pengfei, the teacher Xue Jin'an had long been appointed to, finally appeared before him in person.
The Cui family's carriage entered the palace along the palace road and stopped at the entrance of Zhaoyang Palace. Since Xue Jin'an knew that someone was coming, he naturally followed the etiquette he had learned and opened the palace gates wide to welcome them.
The first thing you see is the young man driving the car. He has curly hair and blue eyes, and his appearance is stunning. He also has a curved eyebrow and two deep dimples at the corners of his lips, giving him a very childlike look. This is Cui Zui.
Today, Cui Zui was not wearing coarse linen clothes with pockets, but instead wore a jade crown and a blue robe, carrying a bow tightly wrapped with gray cloth strips on his back. The arrows in the quiver at his waist were all sticking out of their heads, which was unusual. The arrowheads were not bound with iron arrowheads, but were triangular shapes that were barely ground from stones, and they looked like they were not very powerful.
Besides the guards, no one else was allowed to carry sharp weapons in the palace, so it was understandable that the arrowheads were like this. As for why the arrowheads were pointing upwards in the quiver, it was probably because they had been questioned by the guards at the palace gate.
Cui Zui reined in the carriage, stood on the carriage shaft, smiled at Xue Jin'an, and said in a light and casual tone, "Seventh Prince, we meet again. I am Cui Zui, and I will be staying in the palace to accompany and protect you from now on. Please take good care of me, Your Highness."
A man who isn't a member of the royal family plans to live in the harem long-term? Xue Jin'an's first reaction wasn't to question the truthfulness of his words, but rather to tilt his head, open the health monitoring panel, and fall into deep thought as he looked at his stable hormone levels.
Suddenly, he looked at his hands and realized that the news of his steady hands must have spread.
So when Cui Zui jumped off the carriage and walked over, intending to continue to coax the legendary Seventh Prince with words, the Seventh Prince, who had no murderous aura whatsoever, suddenly raised his hand and slashed him on the neck with a hand knife.
This move was learned from martial arts novels. In the novels, whenever this move is used, the opponent will be stunned. There is also a scientific explanation for this: the sudden drop in blood pressure in the carotid sinus leads to insufficient blood supply to the brain, causing fainting.
Xue Jin'an acted swiftly and accurately, without the slightest deviation.
"Hiss—" Cui Zui did feel dizzy for a moment, but he was a martial artist after all. He clutched his neck and staggered for a while, but he didn't fall down.
"It's not good to have surgery without anesthesia." Xue Jin'an was a little troubled. He didn't know what was wrong with the people in this novel world. Every time they tried to have physical anesthesia, something went wrong.
Cui Zui had a bad feeling, and his tongue almost tied itself in knots. "W-what kind of surgery?"
"Special organ removal surgery." Zhaoyang Palace was, after all, the inner palace, and apart from the princes, none of the men who lived there long-term were intact.
Whether this is reasonable or inhumane is another matter, but since the person has come to him asking for help with the surgery, Xue Jin'an has no reason to refuse. He nodded slightly and said, "Don't worry, I have a very steady hand. I will definitely remove it completely for you, so you can be a clean father-in-law."
Cui Zui: "..."
Cui Zui: "!!!" No, how do you understand this?
Soon, Cui Zui didn't even have time to think about how Xue Jin'an understood it. When he saw the Seventh Prince slowly raise his hand, he immediately sobered up and jumped back a long distance like a startled rabbit.
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