Chapter 86 The fake prince ascends the throne as emperor!
Seeing that Si Yuan disliked his legitimate son so much, the Emperor regretted that he had attacked the Duchess of England and caused her to die in childbirth. If he had spared her life and just replaced the child during the chaos, the Duchess of England might not have discovered that the child had been replaced, and his precious son would have surely lived a good life of being loved in the Duke of England's mansion.
But the emperor was still selfish. He could barely tolerate his beloved son calling the Duke of England "father", but he could not tolerate his beloved son calling another woman "mother". He would feel that his beloved Li Zhaoyi would be replaced by another woman as the mother in his son's heart.
This is why the Emperor murdered the Duchess of England.
It was only when he saw Si Yuan taking his anger out on the child because of the death of the Duke of England's wife that the emperor felt a little regretful.
Seeing that Si Yuan was unwilling to spend a huge price to nourish his son's body, the emperor had to take the initiative to send a large amount of precious medicinal materials to nourish his son's body. However, on the surface he had to pretend that he valued the Duke of England and that was why he rewarded him with these medicinal materials.
Si Yuan knew very well the reason why the emperor rewarded him with medicinal herbs, but he pretended to be ignorant. Except for the necessary herbs, he was too lazy to use these good herbs on an ungrateful person. He turned around and secretly sent these herbs to the cold palace to subsidize him, the son of the original owner of this body.
The emperor did not have enough control over either the harem or the court, otherwise he would not have been able to protect his beloved Li Zhaoyi in the harem, nor would he have been able to hold power in the court.
The reason why the emperor was able to carry out the child replacement so perfectly was simply because no one was paying attention to the prince in the cold palace and the Duke of Ying's Mansion. Who would care about the son of Zhaoyi whose mother was banished to the cold palace? And no one paid much attention to the Duke of England's mansion when the Duke of England was away.
No one could have imagined that the emperor would exchange his prince in the cold palace with the legitimate son of the Duke of Yingzhou, which gave the emperor the opportunity to secretly exchange the son without anyone noticing.
Only an emperor with a unique way of thinking would do such a whimsical and incredible thing.
The emperor did not have much power and could not even control his own harem, so Si Yuan could easily avoid the emperor's eyes and ears when he went in and out of the cold palace.
Because the emperor knew that the prince in the cold palace was a fake, he really didn't care about the prince in the cold palace. So, the imperial concubine and other favorite concubines didn't even remember that there was a prince in the cold palace. They were all busy vying for favor and having children, trying to get to the throne and become queen, and no one paid attention to the cold palace.
Si Yuan pretended to miss his deceased wife in the Duke of England's mansion and didn't care about other people and other things in the mansion. At the same time, he secretly went to the cold palace to cultivate feelings with his son Zhou Xi.
It can be said that Zhou Xi grew up day by day under Si Yuan's nose. Si Yuan also found a way to make the people who served Zhou Xi closely find ways to transfer away one after another through their own connections or after something happened, and replaced all the people around Zhou Xi with people arranged by him.
Si Yuan did not hide these people from Zhou Xi. He seemed to treat Zhou Xi as an ignorant child, but in fact, he never avoided Zhou Xi when he instructed these palace servants to take good care of Zhou Xi. He used this way to tell Zhou Xi that these palace servants were arranged by him to take care of him.
The still young Zhou Xi thought that he had disguised himself very well and that his biological father did not avoid him because he regarded him as an ignorant child. He felt very satisfied when he saw the eunuchs and palace maids who took care of him respectfully and attentively.
Fortunately, his biological father was also reborn. With his father's help, his life in the cold palace was much more comfortable than in his previous life.
Although he was still surrounded by people left behind by Li Zhaoyi in his previous life, those people did not take good care of him at all. At most, they made sure he would not die, but they did not provide him with more careful care.
Therefore, the first thing he did after he was released from the cold palace in his previous life was to deal with all these stubborn slaves.
Now that all the people serving him were replaced by his biological father's people, Zhou Xi finally realized how wonderful it was to have his biological father's love.
After Si Yuan finished scolding the palace maids, he sent them away. There were only father and son in the room. He held Zhou Xi's soft little body and said apologetically, regardless of whether Zhou Xi could understand him or not: "Xi'er, Daddy is sorry for you. The emperor has been watching you too closely. Daddy has not been able to find a chance to exchange you for that fake one. Now you two look less and less alike..." Si Yuan sighed worriedly.
Zhou Xi knew that if the two were switched back when they were still babies, it would not be easy to tell the difference. After all, babies see few people every day, and the secret could be kept secret by dealing with the wet nurse who served them personally. But as the children grew up, the difference in their appearance became greater and greater, and they saw more and more people, so it would be almost impossible to switch the children back without making a fuss.
And once the emperor knew about the exchange, the Duke of Ying's mansion would be in great trouble.
However, Zhou Xi did not want to be exchanged back to the Duke of Yingguo's Mansion. Although he lived in the cold palace now, he was still loved by his biological father. He did not care much about returning to the Duke of Yingguo's Mansion or not. So he wanted to stay in the palace and have a legitimate identity as a prince. Then, taking advantage of the opportunity that the emperor wanted to make him the crown prince to make him a target for Zhou Jing, he could obtain the identity of the crown prince and directly ascend to the throne as emperor without giving the emperor time to expose his background.
Why would you go back to being a duke when you can be a crown prince?
In Zhou Xi's heart, his biological father is important, but after all, the father and son have not been together for long and their feelings are not that deep. His ambitions and aspirations are more important.
So when Zhou Xi heard Si Yuan say that there was no way to exchange him and Zhou Jing back, he felt relieved.
Si Yuan looked at Zhou Xi with serious eyes, and seeing the slightly changing expression on that young face, he basically guessed what Zhou Xi was thinking.
However, this point had been considered long before others created the reborn person. Not only was he not angry, but he was quite relieved.
It would be best if Zhou Xi could remain calm and rational and focus on his career. He doesn't want to support an impulsive and reckless fool.
After that, Si Yuan never mentioned to Zhou Xi what he had exchanged with Zhou Jing again. Every time he came to the cold palace to accompany Zhou Xi, he would bring some books to teach him.
After Zhou Xi escaped from the cold palace in his previous life, the emperor showed great favor to him in order to bring him out to compete with other princes. He invited famous teachers for him and appointed him as the crown prince. Naturally, he also received top-level royal education.
But Si Yuan's teaching method was completely different from that of Zhou Xi's previous life's tutor. He used fables to tell him many ways of dealing with people, and taught him how to control his subordinates, how to balance the forces of all parties, how to use one group to fight another, and how to kill someone with a borrowed knife...
Zhou Xi had thought that Si Yuan was going to teach him some sage teachings and had prepared himself to just do it perfunctorily. However, he did not expect that Si Yuan would teach him all the practical stuff. He immediately became excited and studied very seriously.
Si Yuan knew clearly that Zhou Xi was not actually a real reborn person, and he had not really experienced the life as a fake prince. The so-called previous life in his memory was all a dream created by Si Yuan based on the original plot, which made Zhou Xi spend decades in the dream. The dream was even so real that Zhou Xi mistakenly believed it to be true.
But fake is fake after all. What he experienced in the dream were all scripts written by Si Yuan, not the real world, so Zhou Xi still had to learn the knowledge he should learn.
Si Yuan couldn't believe that the black sesame glutinous rice dumpling that he raised with his own hands would not be as good as the fake prince in the original plot when he grew up.
Fortunately, Zhou Xi is also a studious and thoughtful child, and Si Yuan feels a sense of accomplishment in teaching him.
Compared to Zhou Xi's intelligence and cleverness, Zhou Jing, who grew up in the Duke of England's mansion, is much inferior.
It's not that Zhou Jing is not stupid. In fact, the difference between children is not that big at the beginning. But Zhou Jing is not like Zhou Xi, who has Si Yuan's "A Dream of a Hundred Years" to enlighten his mind and Si Yuan's patient teaching.
Si Yuan treated Zhou Jing purely by letting him do what he wanted. He treated the illegitimate sons and daughters of the original owner, Duke Yingguo, better than he treated Zhou Jing.
However, Si Yuan would not allow anyone to treat Zhou Jing harshly. He stated to the public that although he did not like Zhou Jing for causing his beloved wife to die in childbirth and being born a jinx to his mother, he could not tolerate anyone treating the only bloodline left by his deceased wife harshly.
In fact, Si Yuan knew that if the people from the Duke of Ying's Mansion dared to treat Zhou Jing harshly, it would inevitably cause the emperor's dissatisfaction and make the emperor take other small actions, such as taking revenge on Zhou Xi in the cold palace.
The emperor was a petty-minded coward. When he couldn't deal with Si Yuan, who held military power, it was not impossible for him to take revenge on an innocent child.
Therefore, in order to protect Zhou Xi, Zhou Jing cannot be treated harshly in the Duke of England's mansion.
But cold violence is also a kind of violence. Si Yuan treated Zhou Jing coldly and ignored him, and other people in the Duke of England's mansion also kept their distance from Zhou Jing.
Nanny Huang felt that her young master was pitiful because he lost his mother at birth and was not loved by his father. As a servant, she could not do anything to help the young master, so she could only do her best to pamper him.
Zhou Jing was hurt by the distant, respectful, yet evasive attitude of others. He was young and didn't know what to do, so he could only use pranks or mischief to attract everyone's attention.
Si Yuan always ignored and indulged Zhou Jing in his dealings with others. He would neither scold him angrily nor show concern and care for him. He just gave some compensation to the victims of the prank and told them to stay away from Zhou Jing.
The more naughty and noisy Zhou Jing was, the more he pushed people around him away.
The more pranks and mischief failed to attract other people's attention, the angrier Zhou Jing became. When a child gets angry, he will throw a tantrum. The only one who cares about him, Madam Huang, only knows how to spoil him and indulge him. Si Yuan, the only one who can discipline him, never cares about him. Gradually, Zhou Jing becomes both inferior and spoiled.
He felt inferior because he was not favored by his father, but he was also arrogant because he was the legitimate son of the Duke of Yingzhou and his status was more noble than those of illegitimate sons and daughters. He was the "little prince" in the eyes of Nanny Huang.
But Si Yuan never thought of asking for the title of Crown Prince for Zhou Jing, but Si Yuan also didn't think of asking for the title of Crown Prince for any other bastard's son. After all, in the original owner's mind, the position of Crown Prince should belong to his legitimate son, that is, Zhou Xi, and he would rather leave it vacant than be occupied by a fake or a bastard's son.
Si Yuan knew that even if he wanted to confer the title of Crown Prince on his other son, the emperor would definitely not agree. The emperor would not allow the Duke of Yingguo's illegitimate son to surpass his beloved son.
Either Si Yuan doesn't want to be crowned as the Crown Prince, or if he wants to be crowned as the Crown Prince, he can only crown Zhou Jing, the fake one, as the Crown Prince.
Time passed year after year, and soon ten years had passed.
When Zhou Xi was ten years old, the emperor finally released him from the cold palace.
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