When Li Jun was born, the First Empress extended her help to the Third Empress — not with kindness, but with something colder.
She helped her give birth.
She ordered midwives. Brought medicine. Stayed nearby.
The Third Empress, frightened and young, believed it was generosity. That perhaps, despite court tension, the First Empress bore her no ill will.
But she was wrong.
At the time, she didn't understand "why" the First Empress helped her — why the woman who ruled the inner palace with an iron smile would bother with a concubine giving birth to a third prince.
It wasn't until the day of her death that the truth hit her.
She had been allowed to live... just long enough to give birth.
The help was not to save her — it was to ensure the child was born safely. A child of royal blood. A chess piece.
And once her purpose was served, she was discarded.
---
As children, the Crown Prince and Li Jun were inseparable.
They had met as infants — the palace nursery their shared world.
The Crown Prince, only three years older, grew fond of the boy who clung to his robes and followed him like a shadow.
Their bond was deep, innocent, and untouched by politics.
They trained together, played together, studied together.
But at Li Jun's thirteenth year , it all shattered.
That was the year his mother — the Third Empress — was accused of treason.
No trial. No defense.
Only a swift imperial decree.
The Emperor ordered her execution.
She was killed not for what she did — but for who she had become.
Too graceful.
Too beloved.
Too dangerous.
And Li Jun watched it all happen.
A boy who once held his mother's hand now stood in a shadow soaked with silence.
After that, nothing was the same.
The Crown Prince, then sixteen, was pushed into court life.
The Emperor ensured he would no longer see his brother — not out of hatred, but as strategy.
And Li Jun was isolated.
At fifteen, broken and alone, he began visiting the court of the forgotten Second Empress — Lady Lee, the woman whose own child had died long ago.
She had been silent for years, left to fade away quietly.
But to Li Jun, she offered something no one else did.
Not affection.
But space to breathe.
She said nothing at first. Simply let him sit beside her while she painted or tended her bonsai.
And in that silence, he found strength.
When he turned sixteen, the Emperor sent him to the northern military garrisons.
Ostensibly for training.
But everyone knew: it was exile.
But they underestimated him.
Because by then, Li Jun no longer belonged to this world.
Somewhere between the death of his mother and his long nights in isolation, something awakened.
A mind that remembered strategies and knowledge from a modern world — another life he could not fully explain, but carried like muscle memory.
He used that knowledge.
He built networks in the military — not through flattery, but with information, insight, and respect.
He understood logistics in ways even seasoned generals didn't.
He could read people, predict supply chain issues, organize reinforcements before orders were given.
By the time he was eighteen, he returned not as an exiled prince, but as a man with power.
More than that — his information network had already surpassed the Empress's.
Her messages took days to reach her.
His arrived in hours.
She still ruled through charm, pressure, and reputation.
But Li Jun moved quietly — through soldiers, scholars, forgotten nobles, and unseen hands.
And still, despite it all, the Crown Prince rarely acknowledged him.
Once brothers in spirit — now strangers.
But Li Jun hadn't forgotten.
Not the warm hand of his mother on his cheek.
Not the sound of her final scream.
Not the truth buried under court silence.