Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1: From today onwards, I am a Royal Prince

Cheng Yan could sense that someone was calling him.

“Your Highness, please wake up…”

He turned his head away, but the sounds he’d heard didn’t disappear, they actually proceeded to get even louder instead. Then, he felt someone gently tug on his sleeve.

“Your Highness, my Royal Prince!”

Cheng Yan’s eyes snapped open. His familiar surroundings had disappeared, his work desk was gone, and the familiar walls filled with post-its were gone. They’d all been replaced by a strange landscape. A round public square that was enclosed by small brick houses, and the gallows that were erected in the center of the square now dominated his field of view. He himself sat at a table across the square from the gallows. There wasn’t a soft rotating office chair under his butt, but a cold hard iron chair instead. There was also a group of people sitting with him and watching him intently. Several of them were dressed as medieval lords and ladies from those Western flicks, and were trying to suppress their giggles.

What the hell? Wasn’t I just rushing to finish my mechanical blueprints before the deadline? Cheng Yan was at a loss as he thought to himself. For three consecutive days, he had been working overtime. Thus, he was both mentally and physically at his limit. He could only vaguely remember that his heartbeat had become unsteady, and that he’d just wanted to lie down on his desk and take a break…

“Your Highness, please declare your ruling.”

The speaker was the one that had secretly tugged on his sleeve. His face was old, seemingly in his fifties or sixties, and he wore a white robe. At first glance, he looked a bit like Gandalf, from The Lord of the Rings.

Am I dreaming? Cheng Yan thought as he licked his dry lips, Ruling? What ruling?

As he quickly glanced around, his confusion was swept away. The people surrounding him were all looking in the direction of the center of the square, at the gallows. Many townspeople were also in the plaza and were waving their fists while they shouted and even threw an occasional stone towards the gallows and the figure on it.

Cheng Yan had only ever seen such an ancient instrument of death in movies. The gallows consisted of two pillars extending upwards about 4 meters from a raised base, with a crossbeam extending between the two pillars with a thick yellow hemp rope around the middle of the crossbeam. One end of the rope was tied to the gallows, and the other end was tied into a noose around a prisoner’s neck.

In this strange dream Cheng Yan thought he was in, he found that he was able to see everything clearly. Usually, he’d even need to wear his glasses to see the words on a computer screen, but now Chen Yang could see every detail of the gallows, which were fifty meters away, without his glasses.

The prisoner atop the gallows had their head completely covered with a hood and had their hands tied behind their back. They wore dirty grey clothes that were little more than rags draped over a frame so thin, it seemed you could easily wrap your hand around their exposed ankle. Cheng Yan judged the prisoner to be female by her faintly bulging chest, and looked on as she stood there shivering in the chilly wind, but still trying to stand up straight to face her fate on her feet.

Alright then, Cheng Yan thought to himself, what crime did this woman commit that caused so many people to be so outraged, and to wait for her to be hanged with such rage and hostility?

Cheng Yan’s memories appeared, almost as if they’d suddenly been turned on and he realized the cause of the situation, and the answer to his question, at almost the same time.

She was a “witch”.

She was considered to have fallen to the temptation of the devil and was known as an incarnation of evil.

“Your Highness?” The Gandalf lookalike cautiously urged.

Cheng Yan glanced at the old man. Well, Cheng Yan’s new memories told him, the old man wasn’t called Gandalf, his real name was Barov, and he was an Assistant Minister of Finance dispatched by the Roland’s father to assist in the governing of the territory.

Cheng Yan’s identity was that of the 4th Prince of the Kingdom of Graycastle, Roland, and he had been sent here to govern this region. The residents of this border town had caught and seized the witch, immediately turning her over to the local guards to question. Questioning? No, She was immediately sent to be sentenced with no opportunity to defend herself. The execution of suspected witches was usually overseen by the local lords or bishops, but since he’d assumed control of this territory, issuing such orders had become his obligation.

Cheng Yan’s memory answered his questions one by one, it was unnecessary to filter and read through them, it was as if they had always been his own experiences. He was momentarily confused, there was absolutely no way a dream could have so many details. Then, Cheng Yan thought, was it possible that this wasn’t a dream? I’ve really traveled through time, to the dark ages of medieval Europe, and have become Roland? I’ve gone from a pitiful mechanical engineer with his nose down in his papers to a grand 4th Prince overnight?