Aunty Lin hummed as she adjusted Long Yue's blanket. The nursery had settled into a rhythm of small noises: the scratch of a brush, the clink of porcelain, the metallic whisper of the palace gears far off. There was a soft confidence in the motions of those who had handled emperors' children for decades. They had fingers made of habit and eyes that remembered tragedy and triumph with equal clarity.
[Empress Wu:] "Bring the tutor forward. Let the child hear a wise voice early."
SYSTEM: Tutor assignment in progress. Recommended: Scholar Zhao (calligraphy & classics). Affinity forecast: +18 to Education node.
Long Yue felt an odd flutter—like anticipation, but it activated the system's little readouts as well. Scholar Zhao arrived with ink-stained fingers and the air of someone who had spent too many nights arguing with paper.
[Scholar Zhao:] "Your Majesty, honored to be of service. I will be gentle."
He bowed low, then looked at the baby with a scholar's curiosity: not the greedy curiosity of a courtier, but the practical curiosity of someone who measured the world in ink and paper.
[MC / Long Yue:] (thought) "Gentle. Good word. Gentle tends not to stab."
SYSTEM: Passive detection: Scholar Zhao — honest temperament; teaching aptitude high. Unlock: Early Rote Learning module.
Scholar Zhao began with simple things—rhymes, the sound of characters traced with a dampened brush. Long Yue couldn't form words yet, but the system siphoned information and fed it as digestible packets to his fledgling neurons. It was not the same as conscious learning; it was more like software installing subroutines.
SYSTEM: Memory Palace Protocol queued. Suggestion: map nursery objects to Classics text lines. Efficiency +22%.
The idea of a memory palace sounded ridiculous from the vantage of a person whose most elaborate interior had once been a college dorm poster. But Scholar Zhao's voice had that lilt that made images easy to place: a toy horse here, a cracked bowl there. Long Yue blinked and the world rearranged itself into a mnemonic lattice—crib corner = Analects line, hanging lantern = Book of Changes hexagram.
[Scholar Zhao:] "When he is old enough, he will recite with clarity."
[Empress Wu:] "Then teach him clarity."
They practiced small rituals: the way the brush was held, the manner of lowering one's gaze before an elder. Long Yue did not yet understand humility, but the system prompted him to mirror expressions and to time his cries to maximize goodwill.
SYSTEM: Infant Charisma I progress: +8% this session. Recommend: mimicry of Scholar Zhao for academic favor.
He matched Scholar Zhao's furrowed brow with a puckered concentration. The scholar laughed softly—surprised, delighted—and made a small mark in a ledger he kept for favours.
Outside the nursery, wheels turned of a different gear. Minister Li sent a deputy to observe the child's progress. Court politics were a perennial stream: fertile and dangerous. The Empress read the currents without haste.
[Empress Wu:] "Observe. Favor cannot be assumed — it must be justified in the eyes of the court."
[Bodyguard Shen:] "Nobody will harm the child while I stand watch."
Bodyguard Shen's voice made the nails on nervous courtiers' plans splinter. He was a veteran in a child's bodyguard's clothing—large hands folded into a small posture of patient menace.
Long Yue's system pinged an invisible tally. Allies seeded: Scholar Zhao (education), Aunty Lin (care), Bodyguard Shen (security). Progress: 3/3 low-level allies established.
He was proud in a way only an infant with a gamified conscience could be. Scholar Zhao's regular lessons became a kind of lullaby; the brushstrokes became a heartbeat. Little by little, the mnemonic scaffolding took root.
[MC / Long Yue:] (thought) "If I can remember a thousand poems before I can walk, exams will be boring."
SYSTEM: Gamified goal added: Recite 30 couplets by age 5. Reward: Memory Palace Technique unlocked early.
The tutor paused, a smile softening his face as he looked at the child who was listening in a manner even scholars found unnerving for an infant. The Empress watched, hands folded, calculating futures as one calculates routes across a map.
Long Yue, wrapped in silk and strategy, felt simultaneously ridiculous and powerful. The palace was teaching him the language of influence, one brushstroke at a time.