The enfeoffment ceremony concluded in a strange atmosphere.
Li Chen'an, supported by a young eunuch, “floated” out of Taihe Hall amidst countless gazes of pity or disdain. Thin snow covered the white marble steps, and a cold wind made him cough violently again, causing passing palace servants to turn their heads.
Two young eunuchs responsible for sweeping whispered in the shadow of a pillar.
“Alas, look at Seventh Prince, he’s truly pitiful. Stuck in a place like Yunzhou, he probably doesn’t have many years left to live…”
“Shh! Keep your voice down! But truthfully, Crown Prince Li Jingshuo is truly benevolent. Look, he personally went to comfort him.”
Ahead, Crown Prince Li Jingshuo had stopped Li Chen'an with a look of concern, personally tightening the collar of his cloak with gentle movements and a dignified posture.
“Seventh Brother, please take care of your health,” Li Jingshuo said warmly. “Yunzhou is harsh and cold, and your body is weak. If you lack anything, you can always send someone to the capital to inform your elder brother, and I will certainly find a way for you.”
“Pah! A weasel paying respects to a chicken! You wish I’d die in Yunzhou, saving you a spot as a prince. Look at this hypocrisy, the Oscars owe you a statuette.”
Li Chen'an ranted wildly in his heart, but on his face, he wore an expression of touched gratitude, bowing again: “Thank you, Crown Prince, for your concern. This younger brother… is deeply grateful.”
Not far away, Third Prince Li Xiaowu’s retinue was about to pass. A bearded general under him deliberately laughed loudly at his companion: “Go to Yunzhou to recuperate? Hahaha, there are more wolves than people in that place. Don’t get eaten as medicine! At that time, no one will collect your body!”
The harsh mocking laughter reached him, but Li Chen'an seemed not to hear it, maintaining his half-dead appearance.
Finally, having dealt with all the different groups of people, he boarded his own simple and unadorned carriage.
The moment the curtain fell, it cut off all outside gazes.
The Idle Prince, who had been on the verge of death just a second ago, now slumped onto the soft cushion like a pile of mud, completely losing his composure. A big, idiotic smile spread across his lips, and his shoulders shook as he laughed silently.
“Ah… comfortable!”
He let out a long sigh and pulled a smooth pebble from his sleeve, playing with it carefully in his palm. This was an item from his previous life, a stone he had unconsciously picked up in the park downstairs from his company when the stress was so great he couldn't sleep.
It had accompanied him through countless nights of overtime and became his only connection to that world after his transmigration.
Looking at the stone, memories of his past and present lives flooded in like a tide.
He, Li Xian, was an ordinary project manager at a large company in the 21st century. For a distant and uncertain mortgage, for the stock options his boss kept drawing up, and for the damned, suffocating quarterly KPIs, he had literally worked himself to death in his office at 3 AM.
His last memory was the green pop-up dialogue box on his screen: 【Project V3.0 Version Successfully Launched】, and the cold, bitter instant coffee on his desk.
When he opened his eyes again, he had become Li Chen'an, Seventh Prince of the Great Xia Dynasty, equally unloved by his father and mother. The original owner was also a poor soul; his birth mother was an ordinary palace maid who died early, leaving him without support.
He grew up in the shadow of his stronger elder brothers, bullied and ignored, with a weak and insecure personality. Ultimately, he quietly passed away during a seemingly ordinary cold, leaving his young body to Li Xian.
When Li Xian realized he had transmigrated into a prince, he wasn't overjoyed. Instead, he felt an unprecedented fear.
A prince? This was the most high-risk profession in the world!
Compete? Compete my ass! I've had enough!
He had worked himself to death in his last life. If he were to get caught up in a hellish battle for the throne again in this life, he might as well have died completely back then!
So, from the first day of his transmigration, Li Xian—no, Li Chen'an—set an ultimate, supreme goal for himself: to lie flat!
For this great and glorious dream, he painstakingly put in tremendous effort. He exploited the original owner's already frail body, pushing the concept of “sickly” to its extreme, abstaining from all foods and activities that might make him appear “healthy” or “energetic.”
He packaged himself as a “harmless, weak, and foolish” mascot, successfully convincing everyone that his only value was as a negative example to highlight the health and wisdom of the other princes.
The throne? Not even a dog would want it!
He only wanted a retirement paradise where no one would bother him, there were no KPIs, and taller people would handle any major crises!
To this end, he carefully studied the entire map of the Great Xia Dynasty, and like doing competitive analysis in his previous life, he mentally drew a detailed table of all potential enfeoffment prefectures, evaluating them one by one with the mindset of a modern office worker.
The land of fish and rice in Jiangnan? No! That place was too rich, it would surely be a battleground for the Crown Prince and several popular princes. Moreover, there were as many literati and poets as cattle, and social relations were as complex as a spiderweb, with small gatherings every three days and grand banquets every five, more tiring than department team-building in his previous life! It had to be the first one excluded.
The Land of Abundance in Shu? Also no! Local forces there were deeply entrenched, and powerful families abounded. Dealing with those de facto local emperors was too mentally taxing! He just wanted to lie flat, not play any power-struggle “murder mystery games.”
As for the crucial thoroughfares in the Central Plains, that was even worse! It was a battleground, a place strategists would fight for. It might be fine in peaceful times, but once there was any trouble, he might be flattened as a strategic buffer one day! He didn't want to worry about the change of flags on the city walls even when he slept.
He deleted and revised, mentally crossing out those “hot options” one by one. Finally, one name emerged from the many choices.
Yunzhou!
Only Yunzhou was the perfect promised land in his heart.
In his vision, Yunzhou was practically tailor-made for “retirees” like him.
First, its geographical location was remote, bordering the Tianlang Tribe to the north, a desolate place. Any imperial decree from the capital, even if delivered at top speed, would be stale by the time it arrived, meaning central control would be infinitely close to zero. He could truly achieve “the mountains are high, and the emperor is far away,” with no one to bother him.
Second, Yunzhou had zero economic value, with barren land and no special products. This meant that no prince would take it seriously, nor would any short-sighted powerful noble extend their hand into this wasteland.
Personnel relationships would be ridiculously simple. Officials sent to Yunzhou would either be “lying flat” like him or “incompetent” and useless. There would definitely be no ambitious schemers to cause him trouble.
Most importantly, Yunzhou's designation meant he would have no “performance pressure” there. In the eyes of his imperial father and the entire court, Yunzhou was a mess, and maintaining the status quo would already be a miracle.
As long as he didn't rebel and wasn't killed by the barbarians from the grasslands, he would be considered to have overfulfilled his mission. He could comfortably muddle through and wait for death there without any censors impeaching him for laziness and dereliction of duty.
This was simply a paradise tailor-made for slackers!
As for the risk of being close to the Tianlang Tribe grasslands, in his opinion, that was precisely the greatest security guarantee! Because once the Tianlang Tribe moved south, the first to bear the brunt would be the empire's true border defense forces and those powerful princes with significant military might, such as his brave and warlike Third Brother, Li Xiaowu.
His small Yunzhou was like an insignificant, marginal department in a company whose name the boss had forgotten. When disaster struck, the core “firefighting team” would naturally handle it; it wouldn't be his turn to take the blame.
And today, in this Taihe Hall, he finally got his wish.
“Now, everything is ready. Once I reach my fiefdom,” Li Chen'an happily rubbed against the soft cushion, pressing the pebble to his face, feeling its coolness.
He even fantasized about his wonderful life in Yunzhou: waking up naturally every day, drinking wine and eating barbecue in his own princely manor—he thought that even though it was a border region, as a prince, he should have plenty of cattle and sheep, right?
Then, he would pass the time by teasing birds, tending flowers, watching the heavy snow by the fireplace in winter, and listening to cicadas under the shade of trees in summer. He wouldn't have to deal with any documents or see any annoying officials.
The entire Yunzhou would be his own, isolated, perfect retirement paradise! “I'll just close my doors, research gourmet food, build a hot spring, and from then on, I'll ignore worldly affairs and be a happy, chubby prince! This, damn it, is the life a person should live!”