My Rebellion Failed, and I Learned I Was Born to the Tyrant

After a flood, the brand-new house Wei Mao had just built and his nearly ripe fields are completely washed away.

He and the villagers are left homeless, fleeing in desperation. After barely surviving, they receive not disaster relief from the imperial court, but an edict conscripting them to build an Immortality-Seeking Terrace for the emperor.

"Seeking immortality, my foot! Heaven is dead; the Yellow Sky shall rise!" In a fit of rage, Wei Mao rebels. He and his companions first kill the corrupt officials and greedy magistrates and open the granaries to feed the people, then ambush the emperor during his tour and try to assassinate him.

Unfortunately, the assassination fails, and all their efforts come to nothing.

Just as Wei Mao steels himself and shouts, "You can kill me, but there'll be others after me!" the cloth covering his face falls off.

The entire crowd falls silent.

The emperor jolts to his feet and strides down from the high platform, the beads on his crown rustling. In a low voice, he says, "Raise your head."

"I won't! If I do just because you tell me to, I'll lose face!" Wei Mao stubbornly keeps his head down.

The emperor snorts, grabs his face, and forces him to look up.

Two almost identical faces, differing only in age and expression, meet each other's gaze.

Wei Mao is stunned. So are all the officials in court.

"Why do you look a little like me?" Wei Mao blurts out.

The emperor laughs in exasperation. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen!"

"Impossible. You're sixteen."

"I'm eighteen! How could you know my age better than I do?"

"Why couldn't I?" the emperor says quietly. "You stubborn little fool, you're my own son."

"I'm not stubborn, and I'm not a fool!" Wei Mao shouts.

The emperor ignores him and immediately orders the guards to drag Wei Mao into a small, dark room, then tells the palace maids to strip him.

Wei Mao's mind immediately goes in the wrong direction. He clings to his trousers, fighting with all his might. "You tyrant! Don't you dare violate me!"

The tyrant stares at the birthmark on his backside, then says with disdain, "So you want to rebel?"

"What if I do?"

"No need. Get yourself ready to be crown prince."

"Huh? But don't you already have a crown prince?" Wei Mao is completely confused.

"That one is fake."

It takes Wei Mao sixteen years to discover that he's the real crown prince in a story about the real and fake crown prince.

Other people get real and fake daughters or real and fake sons. Why does his story turn into real and fake crown princes? Isn't that taking things a bit far?

He becomes crown prince in a daze, assuming that once he gets back to the capital, he'll have to fight to the death against the fake crown prince, the empress, the empress's brother, and all their factions. Instead, the emperor takes care of everything for him.

"Why?" Wei Mao doesn't understand.

"Because I gave birth to you myself," the emperor stresses the word "myself."

Theme: A loving father and a filial son.