The process of learning to abandon emotions

Rudolf chopped the stake into pieces with his wooden sword. He broke the sword hard, but his anger did not subside at all.

He recalled hearing the gossipy maids chatting in the corridor.

"It seems that the emperor's mistress's son has been born."

"It seems that Princess Sui Li went to see her again. Her temper has gone away. It's really scary. Will she drop the baby?

"I heard that she particularly hated her own children. She wouldn't even look at them and would scream if they came near her."

"The queen also went to see her. She was so kind. She took good care of other people's children and didn't allow others to bully her. How could there be such a kind-hearted princess?"

"I heard that she was just a girl from the countryside."

"She is actually the illegitimate daughter of a noble family."

"Ah, she's just like her mother. The son she gave birth to is just like her."

"As long as one has a pretty face, anyone can be the imperial consort. Who cares if she is a princess or not?"

The more Rudolf thought about it, the angrier he became. He bit his lower lip and broke the wood chips in his hand. He shook off the maid who followed him and ran straight to the palace where Madame Sissi lived.

It was a more remote palace of the imperial palace, built against the mountain and surrounded by streams and lakes. It was a palace where the royal family occasionally sought cool air in the summer.

Although Rudolf was still young, he was much more mature and strong than other children. After training for so long and running so far, he only took a few breaths.

He didn't quite understand some of the words the maids said, he just knew that his mother had gone there again.

Rudolf had been persuaded by the maids before, but this time he finally couldn't help it.

He hid in the bushes in the courtyard for a while, and through the gaps between the leaves he saw several people coming out of the palace.

Rudolf saw his mother's back at a glance.

The black hair was particularly similar to him, falling in slight curls on his well-shaped back.

"Oh, baby, can you hold me for a while?"

Rudolph heard the crisp sound and was stunned.

It was a very different voice from the shrill one she'd always used when she'd faced him, but it was definitely his mother's voice.

Sui Li turned around and saw a baby in her arms. Her face was rosy and her eyes were slightly closed. She held the child carefully and lowered her head with a gentle smile.

The bush branch that Rudolf was holding broke in his hand.

"Hahaha, so cute, he looks so much like you." Sui Li's laughter was as sweet as cool spring water in summer.

This was something Rudolph had never heard of.

A lady walked out from beside Princess Sui Li.

She was dressed simply, in a plain long dress with a shawl draped over her arms. She had no makeup on her face and no jewelry on her hair or neck. However, her golden hair and golden eyes were more dazzling than any gold, silver or gems, and her face did not arouse any hatred at all.

Rudolf was stunned for a moment.

A five-year-old child doesn't know what beauty is, he just can't take his eyes off that existence.

Shuli carried the baby and walked to the gazebo with Madame Sissi.

Rudolf's gaze followed their steps and he looked at Shuli, the mother who was said to hate children, who was holding the child lovingly.

Rudolf opened his palm, and sawdust pierced his hand and drew blood, the red blood piercing his heart.

The first emotion he learned was grievance.

His tears of grievance were met with screams and beatings from his mother.

Then he learned to be angry, the anger of being ignored, and he could only destroy anything within his reach. Like his mother, he turned his grievances and pain into anger and vented it on other people and other things.

The third emotion he had learned, which he did not yet know how to describe and which he would never admit to admit, was jealousy.

He confused his jealous rage with anger.

Based on what?

How can that child easily get the love that he will never get?

Why didn't his mother want to hug him even though he was her biological child?

He was too young to know the answer to this.

Rudolf watched his mother chatting with the lady, with a relaxed smile on her face all the time.

Rudolf couldn't stop crying. He dared not make a sound. He just bit his lips and wiped away his tears over and over again.

Sui Li asked with a smile: "What's the name of the child? Have you given it a name?"

Sissi answered, "Alex. His name is Alex."

Shu Li kissed the baby's forehead gently: "Ah, Alex, such beautiful hair and eyes, only such a name is suitable for you."

Rudolf whispered the name between his teeth.

"Alex...Alex..."

The fourth emotion he learned was hatred.

His half brother.

He was the first person he hated in his life.

He squatted in the bushes until sunset, then Princess Sui Li reluctantly took her people back.

His legs were numb from squatting, and he returned to his palace only after the people disappeared from the courtyard.

Rudolf smashed everything he could in his palace, then sat alone in the mess, curled up in his body.

The room was so big, but he was the only one there.

With such a small body, the damage it can cause is limited.

Rudolf thought that if he could ever break down the wall, he would demolish the palace.

Looks annoying.

Over the next few days, Rudolph deliberately made trouble for his mother and tried to hang around her every day.

"Ahhhhhh! Don't come over here!"

Sure enough, the reaction was the same as before.

The look of fear that he was about to faint was completely different from the look he had in the courtyard that day.

Rudolf was driven away by the people around her and locked back in his room, where he was angry and smashing things in the room, just like his mother whom he hated so much.

He perfectly inherited his father's appearance and his mother's temperament, but neither of them gave him any love.

Because the person who delivered the food didn't dare to come in, he went hungry for three days and almost died of hunger. He barely stayed alive by relying on the water in the vase.

He screamed and banged on the door for help, but no one came in to save him. Others thought he was going crazy again.

On the third night, a girl opened the door.

She was only two years older than Rudolph. She had a dark face and looked like she came from a coal mining village.

With red nose and eyes, she opened the door sobbing and saw him lying on the ground, nearly dead.

Rudolf, who barely escaped death of hunger, was nearly shaken to death by Arianna.

“Waaaaaaaah, don’t die! Wake up for me! I don’t want to be buried with you!”

Rudolph reached out and slapped her loudly, saying expressionlessly, "I'm hungry."

Arianna was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously slapped him in the face.

Rudolf was stunned and his eyes widened.

Arianna immediately threw him to the ground and cried even harder: "Waaaaaaaah I didn't mean to do that!"

Then ran out.

Rudolf looked up at the ceiling: "…"

After a while, Ariana came back with a basket.

Rudolph looked at her and opened his mouth.

Ariana spread her legs with a look of despair, sat on the ground, picked up the cold bread, and stuffed it into her mouth. She ate while crying.

Rudolf: “…”

Arianna was looking at the moon outside the large French window, choked, and opened a bottle of milk and took a sip.

Rudolf's throat rolled twice, and he sat up and swallowed the food voraciously.

Arianna took out a knife and cheese jam and spread it on the hard bread desperately.

Rudolph followed her example.

The bread was terribly sweet. It was the sweetest bread and milk he had ever tasted in his life.

After the two children finished eating, they fell to the ground and snored as if they were drunk.

From then on, Ariana became his personal maid.

In fact, she was sent by the Queen to be his maid.

Although she always acted as if she wished him to die sooner and be reborn sooner, after that night, no matter how he tortured others, smashed things, or lost his temper, he never hit Arianna again.

Three years later, Arianna's sister was born and her mother died in childbirth.

Becoming a mother at the horrible age of ten.

Rudolf knew he disliked her sister, but Arianna was watching him too closely for him to do anything.

But he knew he didn't dare to do anything. He could only compete with that little thing in secret.

Ariana regarded the little guy as her life and dared not leave him for a moment.

He learned from Arianna that Madame Sissi had asked the Queen to take her son to the western border.

It is one thing to turn a blind eye to something, and he was even happier when he saw that Princess Sui Li, who loved to stick to Madame Sissi, was becoming more and more manic day by day.

One day when he was ten years old, Ariana suddenly handed him a gift box.

“A birthday gift.”

"who?"

"you."

Ariana looked at him uneasily, "…Princess Sui Li had someone give it to me."

Rudolf: “…”

Arianna thought he would tear up the gift box.

Rudolf simply took it, opened it and looked at it.

Inside is an elaborately embroidered black shirt.

Ariana looked at him in surprise.

Rudolph repackaged it and said, "Please keep it safe for me."

There were gifts every year thereafter.

Ariana handed them to him personally, and he would look at them and then let Ariana keep them properly.

Rudolf didn't think too much about it. He didn't want to use the gift she gave him, nor did he want to throw it away, so he could only leave it there.

It would be nice for him to visit occasionally.

If anyone dared to move, he would chop off their hand.

But he only let Arianna touch those things, and Arianna was also very tactful and gave many instructions to the other maids.

Rudolf didn't want to think about what his mother was thinking, he just waited for her to come see him.

But she didn't.

Ariana gradually became unhappy. He could see that she was smiling very reluctantly, but he couldn't find out the reason and didn't want to expose her fake smile.

When he was seventeen years old, he went to the street to buy gifts for Ariana and came back and overheard the conversation between other maids and Ariana.

"You do this every year. He is a prince, do you think he needs a little gift?"

Yes, when he was young, no one remembered his birthday.

When he grew up, he received too many gifts to keep them all, even though he didn't want any.

“………”Ariana didn’t reply.

"You gave him a gift, but it's getting more expensive every year. How much money can you save? You still have to support your sister, right? And you even pretended that it was given by Princess Sui Li. How could Princess Sui Li have ever thought of him? You silly girl."

Ariana dragged the water bottle and smiled tiredly, seeming not to want to argue.

"...You don't really like him, do you?"

Ariana was silent for a while, then said calmly, "Who else would like someone like him except me?"

"Ha... That's right, there's something wrong with your brain."

"Whatever you say."

"You know you can't be together."

"Thank you, you don't have to remind me again and again."

Rudolph looked at the gifts he had picked out several blocks ago, looking confused.

He suddenly knew what had been bothering him.

The fifth emotion he learned was love.

He thought he would never have pure love in his life.

It took him a long time, after he had learned to hate, to learn to love.

Princess Sui Li went to the western border to visit Madame Sissi.

Later he learned that his mother had poisoned Madame Sissi, who had almost lived in seclusion, and soon committed suicide.

Rudolf knew that it must have been the Queen who did it.

He was not strong enough to compete with the queen, so he was sent west and thrown into the mountains where monsters were everywhere.

Only Arianna chose to stay with him again.

From that moment on he swore that he would kill those he hated and protect those he loved.

***

Ariana was not only a maid who took care of his life, she also secretly helped him place spies inside and outside the palace. She had a unique talent in intelligence work.

Although he didn't want to overwork her, he couldn't trust anyone except her.

Arianna never complained either. She was a girl who would rather do more than say more. She had been like this since the first time they met. She would do what she was supposed to do even if she cried.

Ariana is so perfect, she only has one weakness, her sister.

When she learned that the queen had sent her sister to Alex's palace, she did not conceal the deep hatred in her eyes at all.

When Rudolf hugged her, his heart was filled with uncontrollable excitement.

The more their life trajectories became similar, he felt, the closer their souls became.

That little thing has never been needed, and keeping it is just a burden.

But he couldn't get rid of her with his own hands, and the queen happened to help him.

Not long after, the queen gave him another chance.

Although the hypocritical queen was also on his kill list, at least he was grateful to her for these two things.

Rudolf lay in ambush deep in the forest for two days, waiting for Alex to come.

His younger brother, whom he hadn't seen for a long time, was the first person he hated.

At that time, he just wanted to get him to the goddess as soon as possible.

But he didn't expect that the little wizard beside him could actually save him in such a situation.

However, he did not feel sorry.

Because he seemed to have found a good way to torture Alex.

That is a punishment more satisfying than death.

The young wizard seemed very smart and had great magical power. He actually sent him directly to the southeastern region of Liweier.

Thanks to this, he easily met his grandfather, Longdo Livier.

I also met Duke Amiel on the southwestern border.

It is easy to feel from the conversation the anger and sadness of having their only daughter sent to a foreign country and tortured to death.

Although he cannot empathize, he can make good use of this blood relationship.

When Rudolf saw Alex in court, he noticed that

"It's interesting that he didn't die."

The expression on Alex's face made him laugh involuntarily.

However, he was looking forward to it more and more.

What would he do if the wizard really died in front of him?

Ariana finished writing the letter and asked, "Is this all right?"

Rudolph nodded.

The peregrine falcon with the letter tied to its feet flew out from the west, and after a few days, it crossed half of the Chuone and arrived at the capital.

(Heh. The title was intentional.)