Lu Bao P.O.V

My name is Lu Bao. I am the Crown Prince of the Empire of China, the greatest Empire ever created in the whole Orient.

My Father, the Emperor, His Majesty Wu Ma, was at first my greatest support, and then he turned out as my worst torturer.

We got along in my childhood and in my adolescence, we hated each other.

I remember when I was a five-year-old toddler, he proudly showed off in front of his guests that I was the most handsome infant that had ever seen the light of day in the centenary imperial palace.

I sat on his right knee and leaned on his chest while he discussed important matters with army generals, entrepreneurs, scientists, professors, martial arts masters, engineers, and musicians.

However, he refrained from doing so in front of other Rulers such as the Emperor of Japan, for he always wanted to appear strong and invincible.

Hence, there was no time for clowning. And also he wanted to protect me from them in case they had planned to invade the empire.

He had taught my mom, Empress Wang La, how she would escape with me and change my identity so I would never live in captivity and grow up unknown till I became man enough to raise an army of my own and defeat the enemies.

The first ten years of my infancy were peaceful. I was the most loved child of my father. He did love my junior brother too, Prince Chao Ming, but he thought he resembled our mother the Empress, whereas I was his spitting image.

When I turned eleven and began the initiation process to the throne of the Empire of China, my father became so strict with me that I began to despise the imperial courses and my teachers reported me to His Majesty who had instructed them to give him a full account of the classes.

He scolded me for not taking my future charge seriously and told me that at the same age, he was one of the smartest Crown Princes ever in the Lang Dynasty. He made his father, my grandfather, the late Emperor, His Majesty Bu Bang, the proudest parent that could be.

Therefore, he promised himself that his son would be like him, if not better.

But for me, at that time, very young that I was, he was just an odious father that was asking too much of a teenager who wanted to be like others and enjoy his childhood.

My father the Emperor, became even more awful when he forbade me to leave the imperial palace to stroll around Beijing every Sunday as I did before. He conditioned my promenade to the results that he was expecting me to get from my initiation to the most powerful position in the Empire of China.

But the kid that I was, never listened to him. He got angry and ultimately decided to bother less about me and focus on my junior brother, Prince Chao Ming, who was a more obedient kid than me and was nine years old, that was to say two years younger.

Though I was the Crown Prince, my father commenced behaving as if he was preparing a coup against me. He treated my little brother like the Heir to the throne and even the servants of the imperial palace began to give him more consideration so that if one day he would sit on the imperial Chair, he would remember their kind attention.

Powerless that I was, I became jealous of my brother and hated my father who hated me as well, for he felt like I betrayed the hope that he had placed upon me.

So I turned myself to the pleasures of the world. I started to secretly drink alcohol and all sorts of hard beverages that made me fly to the sky.

And when I reached the age of fourteen years old, the vice grew stronger. I went out in the middle of the night, having stolen money from the imperial accountant's office, who never knew about it, and corrupting a poor imperial guard who let me get inside his carriage while he was going outside during his leave of absence.

I went to a brothel, not quite crowded, in a narrow and dark street in Beijing, where I smoked opium and tasted the bodies of the most beautiful women that the Mistress of the house presented to me. No one ever knew who I was but just that I was a spoiled kid from a rich family in the city.

And also the business was doing fine, for I spent all the money that I brought to the extent that the Mistress of the brothel had to pay from her pocket a taxi coach to the location where the crooked imperial guard waited for me so we went back together to the imperial palace.

I had managed to get a room outside the main building of the compound and lived alone and undisturbed in a dependence on the right side.

However, two years later, my cheat burst out in plain sight. I was now sixteen years old when my father the Emperor was informed of my disgraceful habits and summoned me to the hall of the imperial palace where he was sitting on his gilded Chair with my mom the Empress by his side.

The big voice of my dad pierced the ceiling of the venue as I just stepped inside. He commanded me to come closer and out of the blue with the back of his right hand, slammed my yellow cheek that turned red.

The impact was so powerful that I was unbalanced and fell on the ground. My poor jaw swelled instantly and my teeth shook and threatened to derail from their roots.

And while I was asking the divinities why they allow such a thing to happen, my father came up with a sentence I didn't see coming. He declared emphatically that I was banished from the imperial palace for one year and that I would come back only after I was a better man worthy to be the next Ruler of the Empire of China.