System: Transcending Happiness (BoyxBoy)

Arc 2.4

A/N: *Screams obscenely while running around my room* Oh my Yaoi! Thank you so much for reading my book, giving it Votes, and leaving encouraging Comments. My book is #1 on the System Search. I'm incredulous. I wasn't certain that my book was going to be good enough for people to read it but I'm extremely happy that it's well received. OTL Thank you. 

Zhong Er Ju had gone back to the palace to await Lu Ah's gathered information. Since he didn't have anything else to do he began writing a correspondence to the troops he had been raising in secret. There was a grouping of Mountains on the outskirts of the Capital that people believed was run by bandits. They were so lethal that even the Emperor's army darent interfere; however, they didn't wantonly attack commoners so the Emperor didn't want to waste his troops on unnecessary things. 

Surprisingly, these 'bandits' were actually Zhong Er Ju and Zhong San Su's secret army that they have nurtured these past four years. It had first began as the Empress' army that she'd begun cultivating after the Emperor had cast her aside and the 1st Prince was turned to waste. Zhong Er Ju was the only one out of the pair of twins that the Empress had told the truth to; about Zhong Yi's poison. 

The Empress had known how ambitious Consort Mei Ren was and had tried to keep Zhong Yi, Zhong San, and Zhong Er within her courtyard for the most part. When the 1st Prince was poisoned the Imperial Doctor had told the Emperor that nothing was wrong with him, he was just a 'lazy good for nothing'. However, the Empress didn't believe this because the 1st Prince had been invited to have tea with Consort Mei, the Emperor and the 4th Prince prior to him 'becoming a lazy good for nothing'. 

She snuck another Doctor into the palace to check over Zhong Yi's body and found out he was poisoned with something found within the Long Empire borders; no cure could be procured from the Zhong Empire. It was a hopeless situation and the Emperor removed Zhong Yi from the Western Courtyard belonging to Empress Jin Fu Louyang

Zhong Er had heard his mother crying that night and attempted to comfort her but she gripped his hand and poured all her grievances out. 

*Flashback*

Zhong Er stared at his Mother's tears rolling down her beautiful face and wished he could do something to ease her pain. Empress Jin took hold of her son's small jade hands and looked into his eyes with a misty layer in her own.

"Ju'er, you must become stronger. Your father is incompetent and is blinded by that snake woman. It's because she looks so much like his dead sister. She poisoned the 1st Prince with a poison only found within the Borders of the Long Empire; it must be a ploy of the Long Empire's Emperor," she paused in her speech before squeezing a bit tighter and forming bruises on Zhong Er's tiny wrist before continuing, "Zhong Yi is the Emperor's sister's only son that she had before being killed by assassins. If it wasn't for Rei'er I would've never married the Emperor and entered the palace, nor would I have raised her child as my own. She was my only friend.. Ju'er, there's an army in Qin Forest that I will one day pass to your brother and you. No matter what happens, never turn your back on your brothers. No one else within the palace is to be trusted. Understand?"

Zhong Er Ju was confused about a lot of what she said since he was still young but nodded his head obediently. She smoothed his hair out and gave him a watery smile before saying 'Good Child.'

*Flashback end* 

Now that he was older, he knew what she had been telling him all that time ago. 

He was in the midst of writing when his door was burst open and knew that it was yet again his twin. 

"Ah, 2nd Brother, I ate delicious pork with my true love today! I wish you would've joined us. It felt wrong that you weren't there," Zhong San flopped backwards on Zhong Er's bed and pouted at his twin.