"Uhhhh ..." The vertigo and the vague irritation on his forehead made Edward groan, "I ... water ..."
"It's okay, Nikki!"
A foreign face with a high nose and deep-set eyes appeared in Edward's blurred vision.
"... water ..."
Licking his parched lips, the unbearable dryness of his throat allowed Edward to murmur and spit out a few vague syllables.
Wait, this is Russian?
Edward's muddled consciousness hadn't fully grasped what was happening.
"Water, here you go, Nikki. How are you feeling now?"
The face was familiar, but the words spoken were clearly not in English, yet Edward understood them.
"I ... you ..."
Edward couldn't care less, reaching for the glass of water and gulping down a few mouthfuls. As he drank, the blurry murmur of voices around him became clearer, and he noticed a group of short, gibberish-speaking people bowing one after the other not far away.
Is this ... Japanese?
Edward's consciousness gradually cleared as the water went down.
"Nikki? Nikki!"
Seeing that Edward did not reply for a long time, the Russian in front of him looked worried.
"No ... I'm fine, George."
Edward blurted out. In a trance, Edward finally realized why he felt an affinity for this Russian—this was his cousin's aunt's cousin, Prince George of Greece.
"Great! You scared the hell out of me! God bless!" George sighed contentedly as he crossed himself in relief while touching the confused man lying on the bed, not forgetting to turn back to the small men and rant, "Look at what you've done! Damn Japanese macaques!"
"Wait a minute ..." After a few moments of trying to think, Edward couldn't understand how the scene and the characters had changed so much in the space of a nap at work. So, Edward asked the classic philosophical triple question, "Who am I? Where am I? What's happening to me?"
"Ah!" George was also momentarily frozen by Edward's question, but it was the doctor watching over him who quickly picked up the conversation, "Your Highness, as the Crown Prince of the Russian Empire, you have just suffered a deliberate assassination attempt by the Japanese!"
I am Nikolai!
There was a loud boom, but of course, it was only a phantasmagorical sound in Nikolai's own mind. A huge amount of memories swept across Edward's dazed consciousness like a tidal wave, and he fainted again.
Am I really Nikolai?
The same Nicholas II who was locked up in the basement and shot?
Incredible, unspeakable emotions rose within Edward.
Edward never imagined that he would one day take a nap and cross over to become Nicholas II, the last emperor of the Russian Empire.
Wracking his brain, Edward barely pieced together some memories, still feeling a bit disoriented.
Wait, I'm Nikolai all right, but why am I in Japan?
Another question came to Edward's mind. He obviously didn't know about Nikolai's history of traveling to the East as Crown Prince.
It was as if Edward was being dragged into Nikolai's memories, and in the depression Edward felt deep in his soul, it was like a bubble rising from underwater, each burst allowing Edward's memories of Nikolai to become more complete.
Edward's memories began to flood back from Nikolai's haziest early childhood, when he saw his grandfather Alexander II, whom Nikolai looked up to, followed by his parents Alexander III and Empress Maria.
Nikolai grew up within the walls of the Anichkov Palace and later rarely left the palace gardens of Gatchina.
Nikolai's education was accomplished at home with a teacher hired by the royal family, though Edward gained little from what Nikolai learned in class, as Nikolai was either dazed, distracted, or picking his nose.
Upon reaching adulthood, Nikolai was commissioned as a Cossack Hetman and served in the Preobrazhensky Lifeguard Regiment and the Hussars, where he was quickly promoted to colonel.
In 1890, the penultimate year of Nikolai's memory fragment, his father arranged for him to undertake the traditional excursion as Crown Prince. However, Nikolai was strongly advised by one of his teachers, Duke Ukhtomsky, to make an exploratory trip to the East instead.
Edward briefly skimmed over Nikolai's journey in India. Nikolai's brother Georgi unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and returned home first, and after that, it was Nikolai's trip to China.
Through Nikolai's eyes, one could see the dying and decaying empire of the oldest civilization in the East, and Edward could still sense Nikolai's disdain for the condescension of the Qing court, though he was nonetheless pleased with the hospitality of the Qing people, especially during his meeting in Hankou with the governor of Hunan and Guangdong, Zhang Zhidong.
After this, when Nikolai had just set foot on Japanese soil, this mysterious country made Edward feel Nikolai's strong curiosity.
The Japanese geisha seemed to leave a deep impression on Nikolai, who felt that Japanese women in kimonos were gentler and more refined than Western women.
Up to this point, Nikolai seemed to have a good impression of these short Japanese people.
Until Nikolai and George were riding in a rickshaw in the narrow streets of sightseeing, he suddenly felt two consecutive heavy blows above his right ear. Nikolai saw a Japanese police officer holding up a saber and waving it at him.
... Darkness enveloped him, and that was all Edward could read of the memory.
Edward could feel Nikolai's intense resentment, as if the ghost couldn't be dispersed if Edward didn't do something about it.
"Don't worry, Nikolai. I'll help you teach the Japanese a lesson."
Edward made a promise, with a vivid flashback in his mind to the two atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And the Romanovs ...
Nikolai's resentment diminished significantly, but he still seemed to have his heart in the right place.
"No problem, I'll continue to rule and prosper the Russian Empire as a Romanov Tsar."
Right after Edward made those two promises, the suffocating feeling like sinking into chilly water dissipated violently.
"Nikki? Nikki!"
Nikolai opened his eyes languidly, and this time his head was no longer spinning.
"Nikki? Are you okay?"
Cousin George looked anxiously at Nikolai, who was waking up for the second time, and the trained doctor on the sidelines was all set to physically wake up the Crown Prince.
"No, it's fine."
Although the fiery touch of the wound on his forehead still reminded Nikolai, it was very different compared to the first time he woke up in a stupor.
Could it be that in the very beginning it was because Nikolai's wronged spirit hadn't dissipated yet?
There were still some doubts within Edward, but who could answer those questions to him anymore, now that he was Nikolai.
"Here, water."
The attentive George handed over another glass of water, as he saw Nikolai still licking his dry, cracked lips from time to time.
"I'm ... coughing, much better now, thanks."
"That's good to know it's okay, Nikki."
After George shushed him, Nikolai excused himself by saying that his headache wasn't completely gone and that he wished to rest quietly for a while.
With that, almost everyone was cleared from the cabin of the warship where Nikolai was lying.
In the sudden quiet of the cabin, Nikolai let out a slow sigh.
Now, I am Nikolai.
It is the year 1891.
The Sino-Japanese War is 1895.
The Russo-Japanese War is 1904.
The First World War is 1914 ...
Hiss ... so counting there are still twenty years or so.
Nicholas suddenly realized there was really no hurry!
What is the concept of 20 years?
Assuming it is 2000 to 2020, that is simply a sea change. So, can the Romanov dynasty be saved?
Yes!
It's a memory from his predecessor, though the former Nikolai's sense of self always swung back and forth between ignorant inferiority and arrogance from the offerings of those around him.
What was more reliable at the moment was a combination of Edward's eyes and intellect in fine detail.
What is known is that the Russian Empire seemed to be on the upswing after a series of changes by Alexander II, collectively known as the "Great Reforms," to the point where Nicholas' father, Alexander III, was able to negotiate with the European powers through diplomacy rather than through Russia's traditional use of force and intimidation.
Alexander III left few impressions on future generations, but he is perhaps best known for famously saying, "The Russian Tsar is still fishing; Europe can wait for now."
This was true abroad, so what about at home?
As far as his predecessor's memory goes, the turbulence of his grandfather Alexander II's later years was calmed at his father's hands, and there seems to be no way to connect it to the storm.
On that account, then, Nikolai breathed a sigh of relief that at least he hadn't traveled directly to the end of a fiery dynasty and that all was not lost!
But ...
The Japanese, the British, the Germans ...
Rebels at home, radical revolutionaries ...
Thinking about it this way, Nicholas had quite a few domestic and foreign enemies he needed to face if he was to fulfill his promise.
But what kind of kingly base does Russia's geopolitical environment, natural resources, and demographic resources provide?
A wave of excitement welled up inside him.
Because Nikolai is the Crown Prince, the future undisputed Tsar of Russia!