Chapter 2: CH 2

Yi Yin lay on his back on the snow, watching Pei Di wave the small whip in his hand and yell at him condescendingly: “See if you can run! You little bastard!”

Pei Di was well fed by the Great Yan-zhi. He was chubby and looked like a little furry bear. When he spoke, the flesh of his cheeks shook, and Yi Yin couldn’t help laughing when he saw it.

Seeing that instead of begging for mercy and surrendering, Yi Yin curled his lips and smiled, and the object of his ridicule seemed to be him, Pei Di lashed him with the whip and cursed: “What are you laughing at! You little bastard born to a bitch!”

Yi Yin rolled on the ground and dodged Pei Di’s whip, which was not strong enough or fast enough; but as soon as he stopped, a boy, taller and fatter than Pei Di, stomped heavily on his back.

Seeing this, Pei Di rushed over, raised the whip and whipped Yi Yin on the back. Even though it only hit his clothes and didn’t hurt him, after Pei Di finished, he said to the ‘big Pei Di’, “Zhe Zhe, you’re great!”

Although Wei Zhao had no status, for his own ulterior motives, Helian Zhuo spent more nights in his palace than with any other concubine, and because he had a son, the Great Yan-zhi looked at Wei Zhao with particular displeasure and wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible.

Pei Di had heard a lot from the Great Yan-zhi, so he was also very disgusted with Yi Yin, the younger brother who was born to steal what belonged to him. He loved to take his little buddies to bully Yi Yin if he had free time, and would not stop until Yi Yin was bruised and battered, crying and begging for mercy.

Who knew that Yi Yin had grown a temper today; not only was he not afraid, but he even dared to laugh at Pei Di. If he didn’t beat him into submission now, his surname would not be Helian!

“What do you want to do?” Yi Yin pushed off Zhe Zhe and struggled to get up, glaring at Pei Di defiantly. Do you think he was the same little kid who was originally at the mercy of others?

Pei Di was a little surprised to see that Yi Yin still didn’t admit defeat, but he soon smiled brazenly and said, “Kneel down and kowtow to me three times, and say ‘Grandpa, I was wrong! I won’t dare to do it again!’ Then I’ll let you go. What do you say?”

“Not possible!” Yi Yin tilted his head up, his childish face full of stubbornness. He would never do such a humiliating thing as kowtowing to a five-year-old kid and admitting his mistakes.

Pei Di didn’t expect that Yi Yin would react like this at all. He was stunned for a while. After recovering, he immediately yelled: “Xianhan, Zhe Zhe, you all go, beat this little bastard for me until he begs for mercy!”

Pei Di’s friends were all the children of the Fuyu nobles. They all followed Pei Di’s orders and surrounded Yi Yin as soon as they heard Pei Di’s words. Some punched him and some kicked him. They beat Yi Yin severely, cursing Wei Zhao as shameless and Yi Yin as a bastard.

While protecting his vital parts with his hands, Yi Yin looked carefully at the children surrounding him. He was alone and there were six of them, including Pei Di, and the youngest was older than Yi Yin. It was impossible to fight them, and he could only outsmart them.

The tallest one was Xianhan, the one who could use the slingshot very accurately. But he was not hitting too hard. Compared to the other children’s uncontrolled punches and kicks, he was obviously practising martial arts. Yi Yin didn’t think that Xianhan was trying to be lenient with him, but he was older and knew what was important. Yi Yin was still Helian Zhuo’s son, and when beating a dog, one had to look at its master. It didn’t matter if Pei Di had damaged his brother, he had the Great Yan-zhi to support him, but they were different. It would be hard to explain to Helian Zhuo if they really caused any harm to Yi Yin.

The hardest-hitting one was Zhe Zhe. He was about the same age as Pei Di, but bigger than him, so his strength was not small and his fists hitting Yi Yin’s body were heavy.  As for the others, they were just following along with the fun and hitting with sloppy punches, without much killing power.

Pei Di didn’t hit. He waved his whip as a conductor, yelling non-stop. Seeing that Yi Yin had been beaten so hard that he couldn’t get up, he shouted, “Surrender? Admit defeat? Now you have to kowtow five times and call me Grandpa five times!”

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Just when Pei Di was pleased with himself, Yi Yin took his chance and broke out of the encirclement, rushing onto Pei Di and tackling him to the ground.

What followed was a storm of punches. Yi Yin’s fists rained down on Pei Di’s face and body from left and right, instantly beating him to the point that even the Great Yan-zhi might not have recognised her son if she saw him.

Although Yi Yin was only three years old at the moment, he had taken after Helian Zhuo in terms of height and had been taller than children of his age since he was little. If someone said  that he was four or five years old, no one would doubt it.

On the other hand, Pei Di was not short, he was half a head taller than Yi Yin, but he was fat and wore a lot of clothes, and his actions were very inflexible. Pinned down by Yi Yin, he had no room to fight back.

What’s more, Yi Yin had a background of martial arts of more than twenty years from his previous life, and even though he was physically constrained, he was still much better than Pei Di, who was too spoiled by the Great Yan-zhi and had not yet started training at the age of five.

Pei Di couldn’t have imagined that Yi Yin, who had always been bullied by him, would perform so bravely, and was so completely stunned that he forgot to cry and didn’t know how to ask for help.

It was only when Yi Yin hit him too hard and knocked out two of his front teeth that he reacted and cried out, “Xianhan, woo… Zhe Zhe, you guys… come to save me, woo…” While crying and sobbing, he couldn’t say anything coherently.

In fact, Xianhan and Zhe Zhe were also dumbfounded. Now that they saw Pei Di crying so miserably, they immediately came back to their senses and swarmed around them, trying to rescue Pei Di.

Yi Yin was able to knock Pei Di down earlier, which was unexpected, and now he was surrounded again and had no power to fight back, but with his last strength, he grabbed Pei Di’s sleeve and wouldn’t let go.

Anyway, he was beaten but he refused to suffer by himself. He had to have some compensation. With this idea in mind, Yi Yin kept punching and kicking Pei Di, and finally even used the rogue tactic of biting.

Xianhan and Zhe Zhe tried to break his grip, but Yi Yin had somehow managed to hold onto Pei Di so tightly that they were afraid of hurting Pei Di and didn’t dare to use too much force.

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So, a somewhat funny circular situation was formed. Yi Yin was beating Pei Di, clinging to him with a deadly grip. Pei Di couldn’t do anything but cry. Why was his brother so terrible? He wanted to go back to the palace. He wanted his mother…

Zhe Zhe kept hitting Yi Yin, and his blows were not light, but Yi Yin seemed to feel no pain and ignored it all. Anyway, if Zhe Zhe hit him a few times, Yi Yin would hit Pei Di a few times, so he would not lose out.

Xianhan tried his best to break Yi Yin’s grip. He was looking at the two little princes with bloody faces, and his head was aching. His instincts told him that the day was not going to end well. The remaining three, who were harming more than helping, had been called aside by him.

In fact, the main reason why things had reached this point was that both Yi Yin and Pei Di had sneaked out without their nannies and maids, otherwise someone would have come up to stop them.

Pei Di was the son of the Great Yan-zhi, and he had more attention paid to him. Before Xianhan could separate the four of them, Pei Di’s nanny rushed over with the maids.

When the chaotic battle finally ended, Pei Di threw himself into his nanny’s arms but didn’t even have the strength to cry. Xianhan, Zhe Zhe and the others stood in a row with their heads hanging in despair, knowing that nothing good expected them when they got home today.

The nanny saw how badly Pei Di was injured and that his mind was a little confused, and she panicked. Pei Di was the only son of the Great Yan-zhi, cherished like the apple of her eye. Now that he’d been beaten like this, who knows how the ones who served him would be dealt with.

If someone else had hurt Pei Di, the nanny would have told someone to teach him a lesson. But Yi Yin was different. No matter how low Wei Zhao’s status was, Yi Yin was also the son of the king. The king could discipline him, but they were not qualified. So she just scolded Xianhan and the others severely and hurriedly carried Pei Di back to the palace so that the shaman doctor could take a look at his injuries.

The nanny hurriedly took Pei Di away, and his little buddies dispersed. They all had to go home and report to their parents about today’s events so that they could discuss countermeasures. No one had time to take care of Yi Yin, who was lying on the ground and couldn’t move.

In the end, it was just the body of a three-year-old child. When Yi Yin beat Pei Di severely, he relied on perseverance to support himself. Now, he really had no strength left at all.

The snow that had stopped falling in the morning started to fall again and was getting heavier and heavier, gradually covering up all traces of the fight on the ground.

Yi Yin’s underwear was soaked in sweat and he was lying on his back in the snow, cold and wet. He knew he couldn’t go on like this, he would get sick, but after struggling for a long time, he just turned himself over and couldn’t move anymore.

As he looked at the snowflakes falling from the sky, Yi Yin’s thoughts involuntarily went back to that bright spring day some years later, and he had a vague feeling that today’s scene was somewhat like the day Wei Yang made him drink the poisoned wine.

On that day, Wei Yang gave an order that no one was allowed to enter Daidang Palace. Yi Yin could only lie alone on the cold ground, feeling that his body was slowly losing its warmth. But at the end of his memory, he still saw Jun Hua pushing the door into the hall. After all, there was still someone who remembered him.

But what about today? When the Great Yan-zhi was missing Pei Di, she sent people everywhere to look. And what about Wei Zhao? Would he look for him? Perhaps it was more likely that his nanny would find him.

But the place where they fought today was so remote that no one would normally come here, or Pei Di’s nanny wouldn’t have been so late and they might not have fought at all.

So Yi Yin was very worried; would he fall asleep by the time the nanny came looking for him, and if that was the case, would Wei Zhao be sad?

He didn’t know how long it took; so long that Yi Yin was almost unconscious when he heard the sound of footsteps.

Who was it? Who had finally noticed that he was missing? Yi Yin tilted his head and turned his eyes in the direction of the visitor, and saw a pair of black deerskin boots.

Yi Yin struggled to lift his head a little and a white ferret cloak came into view. He opened his mouth and mumbled a two-syllable word, not knowing that he hadn’t actually made any sound.

The man picked him up and wrapped him tightly in the cloak, his hands trembling slightly.

Yi Yin reached out and put his hand over the man’s, trying to tell him he was all right, but the man trembled even more severely, then hugged him and left the secluded, isolated courtyard.