Chapter 17: Mistaking a Deer for a Goat...
"My...my name is Li Zhi, my sister told me to come, it's none of my business..." The little kid pouted and looked like he was about to cry.
I quickly changed into a gentle and kind smile, and gently patted the future Tang Dynasty Emperor Li Zhi's head: "Don't cry, brother will give you candy to eat..."
"Who is your seventeenth sister?" La, the future Emperor, sat on a fallen withered tree trunk, took out a piece of maltose from his pocket, which was originally put in my pocket by Green Butterfly as a snack for the morning. No choice, first bribe Li Zhi, this little classmate, to avoid being retaliated against after he becomes emperor for scaring him before.
The crisp sound of "ga ga", Li Zhi pouted his mouth and said unclearly: "It's Li Hu, the Princess of Hepu."
"Oh... originally it was that lass." No wonder, Li Zhi's eyes were not right, bad, didn't notice, actually blurted out the word "lass", the crime of disrespect to the princess would be placed on my head.
"Wow! ... What is this thing?" He exclaimed in surprise, pointing at the small bow on the boy's back and shouting to shift his attention first.
Li Zhi, who was eating maltose, was startled and almost dropped the candy: "This is a bow, a gift from my father last year." Li Zhi proudly took off the bow and swung it in front of me.
He grabbed it and weighed it in his hand: "Less than a stone, I'd say?" He looked at Li Zhi with a slanted gaze.
"Jun... Jun brother, what are you talking about? It's obviously one and a half stones!" Li Zhi couldn't take it anymore, his face flushed red with anger, and he snatched it back.
"Oh... try mine." Not bothering to argue with the kid, he handed over his precious bow. Li Zhi took it with one hand and almost pulled himself along with the bow to the ground.
"...so heavy, Brother Jun, this bow of yours is probably a three-stone heavy bow, right?" Li Zhi's gaze held a hint of admiration.
I don't speak, and very quietly stretch out one, two, three, four, five... hmm, the fifth one is retracted first.
"Wow!" Little Zhengtai's exclamation was crisp and clear, his eyes changing from admiration to frenzy.
"How many prey have Brother Jun shot?" Li Zhi blinked his bright eyes at me.
"...I'm quite benevolent, if I don't make a move, then so be it, but once I do, there will definitely be bloodshed." The big hero waved his hand grandly, still holding my precious bow and making slashing motions with an air of unfinished business.
"But I just saw you shoot..." Li Zhi was a bit afraid of me staring at him, his voice getting smaller and smaller...
"Can you also shoot arrows?" The old man's eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets, and the little kid took down a toy-like short bow from his back and shot an arrow that killed a four-legged animal with ease.
"Of course, a gentleman must master the six arts, this is something that even princes must possess..." Li Zhi's head lifted high, his small face excited to the point of being slightly red, his tail almost twitching upwards.
"What's the big deal? It's just shooting a deer!" I gave this little kid a deep, slanted glance: "In my day, I single-handedly tore apart tigers and leopards..."
"This is a raccoon dog......" Li Zhi's face turned slightly red. Do you need to blush for this young master?
"You know, roe deer and deer belong to the same order of even-toed ungulates, a family of ruminant mammals, so you can call deer roe deer, or call roe deer deer, get it? That's biology." I furrowed my brow, looking very serious with an air of being a zoologist.
"Hmm...I see." Li Zhi glanced at the iron bow in my hand, which was gesturing as if it could be used as a deadly weapon at any time, and quickly nodded.
"Your Highness, the King of Jin... Your Highness, the King of Jin..." Just as he turned his head, he saw two guards rushing over with sweat dripping from their brows.
"What a flustered and disheveled appearance, didn't you see that I, the king, was hunting with Lord Fang's son here?" Li Zhi raised an eyebrow, what a presumptuous little brat.
As expected... This kid knows how to take advantage of kindness and fear strength. It seems he's indeed a promising talent, no wonder Old Li would pass the position to him.
"Boss Fang, I want to see you fight the tiger and leopard..." The little kid's eyes were shining with excitement, eager to see a human-beast battle scene. Behind him, two burly guards glared at me with green eyes, looking like they wanted to tear me apart bare-handed.
"Let's do it another day... the scene is too bloody, think about those tigers and leopards having their bellies torn open by me, their hearts, livers, spleens, and lungs bleeding all over the ground. That scene will make you lose your appetite for meat... don't believe me? Ask them." He pointed at the two guards who were half a head taller than him.
The two guards nodded their heads like chickens pecking at rice, and the look in their eyes towards me, this master of opportunism, changed from contempt to respect.
Li Zhi quietly pulled me and asked, "What's up?"
"Don't tell my sister I hit her..." The chin jerked towards that head of ruminant mammals.
"Why?"
"Seventeen doesn't like me killing small animals, says it's inhumane for kids to kill small animals..." Big eyes blinked at me, with cold sweat dripping from the forehead, sinister little brat, bloodthirsty little boy.
"Is that okay? Brother Fang, if you don't let Seventeen Sister come next time, she won't take me out to play again..." Tugging at my cloak and acting coquettishly, is she still trying to tear off my cloak?
"...Back off, or I'll scream, I promise you, but... hehehe..." I smiled slyly. It seems that my hunting plan is already taking shape.
"Alright! ...Little brother, today I'll take charge for you..." He untied a quiver of arrows from his body, just like handing over a flag full of my hopes and dreams, very solemnly into the hands of this little general who was only up to my chest...
Pulling Li Zhi's hand, they walked out of the forest with a high spirit, behind them, two guards carried a large pile of prey on their shoulders, fully loaded and returned, with the momentum of a victorious general. The eyes of that little woman Li Shu also changed a bit.
"What's wrong with you?" Li Yu uncertainly pulled Li Zhi over, ignoring the little brat's complaints about men and women not being close, staring at me.
"Need you ask?" With a flourish, he waved the empty quiver in front of his eyes, plucked two fingers on the bowstring, gave a cold laugh, and walked away with an air of killer, leaving behind a stunned little woman.
"Is that you, Zhi Nu?" Li Yu had a very sisterly aura, with her hands on her hips and her beautiful curved moon-shaped eyes turned into grape-like question marks, calling out to Li Zhi's nickname.
"It wasn't... it was indeed House Big Brother who hit him... don't believe me, ask them." Li Zhi hastily pulled the guards who had put away the hunting prey to his side.
The guard's face was like he had just been trampled on, gasping for air: "Yes, yes, Young Master Fang's soul-snatching and life-taking arrow, his archery skills are indeed extraordinary, simply astonishing heaven and earth, and moving ghosts and gods to tears. Every shot is guaranteed not to miss... In short, it's very deadly..."
Li Yu's eyes rolled back, and he almost kicked his legs and choked to death: "Pursue... what? Shocking heaven and earth, and crying ghosts and gods, what kind of shameless nonsense is this?"
Li Zhi's little classmate simply hugged his stomach and rolled on the ground with cramps, without any royal etiquette or momentum.
"Yes, yes, Master Fang taught me to praise him like that..." The guard was still weak and listless, and I, who was hiding behind a big tree eavesdropping, almost wanted to jump out and scold him.
Perhaps it's the reputation of my Soul-Stealing Arrow that makes people not dare to look down on me, so for the entire afternoon, every single person who saw my clothes and the young girl, as well as the servants looking at me with an eerie gaze, an eerie gaze that made me want to slap them, you go first...
"This stupid kid at home, no matter how I scold him, he can't be as good as Young Master Fang's second son... it's so infuriating."
"Alas, originally so foolish, how could he become a prodigy? And yet, he can compose poetry in seven steps, it's too infuriating."
"Do you know? That's Fang Lao Shang Ye's ultimate skill, the Seven Steps Soul Severing Hand. With one palm strike, seven steps will definitely sever your soul and take your life away. If you can survive without dying and make it through the 49-day coma period, you'll become as intelligent as Fang Er Shao Ye..."
I've only been in Tang Dynasty for two or three months, and yet rumors about me have spread several times in Chang'an. I don't want to bother with these people.
The old man was delighted with the gossip that I was beaten by him to become clever, and every time he came as a guest, he would point at me. He kept talking nonsense like "the stick produces filial sons" and "one can't become talented without being beaten", and all I could do was to smile foolishly, showing my two big front teeth... What kind of world is this? Can't even let a young man from the Tang Dynasty make a living?
Just a month ago, the old man threw me into Hongwen Academy on the grounds that my body had recovered, letting a group of old men who were as gloomy as if they had lost their wives and children educate this flower of the motherland, this future sprout.
A group of old men in their sixties and seventies, with gloomy faces, raised eyebrows, holding the Four Books and Five Classics in their left hands, and a ruler in their right hands. What for? To recite books, if you can't recite them, stretch out your tender little hand to get beaten. Luckily, I was a genius in rote learning education, a memory prodigy who could recite pi to 1,000 decimal places after memorizing it. I had won many awards, including the "Good Boy" award, "Three Good Students" award, "Excellent Student Cadre" award, First Prize in the Intelligence Competition, Provincial Excellent Young Violinist Award, City's Top Ten Middle School Students, City's March 8th Red Flag Bearer... uh... those were my mom's awards. Anyway, I had many stunning titles that made people stare. If I hadn't gone crazy about computer hacking techniques in my third year of high school, maybe I would have been the top student in both liberal arts and science back then.
Shaking my head, following the old masters humming and muttering, I'm too simple to memorize this stuff.
The one sitting behind me is none other than Li Zhi, that little brat. And on my left, unfortunately... Li Shu, that girl with a bad temper, sat in the seat to my left, making a face at me when Old Master wasn't paying attention, almost tearing up her book and making a paper doll to curse me. Didn't I just beat her at Go yesterday afternoon? What a petty woman! And our Third Prince Li Ke, now that he's come of age, no longer has the qualifications to hang around the Imperial Academy waiting for death, continues to lead his gang of spoiled brats rampaging through the streets of Chang'an. He even boasts that before I graduate from the Imperial Academy, he'll hook up with two more chicks and have two more kids... My god! That royal stud horse.
Chen Lao appeared like a ghost in front of Li Yu's desk: "Your Highness, have you memorized it yet?"
"Ah?!...". The little old woman who was scolding me with a split mouth and bared teeth only then discovered that the old man in front of her had a black face. Who is Chen Lao Fuzi? He's the number one dark-faced king of Hongwen Hall, not to mention a princess, which royal relative or high-ranking official hasn't been spanked by this guy? Want to find someone to complain to? No way! The great Emperor has granted these old men the right to use force. Who dares to say no?!
"Teacher, I have a question to ask you..." My eyes started twitching, I twisted my waist, sighed, and then... stood up very solemnly, holding the book in my hand, with a respectful face.
