"So what do you think? Did I do a great job appeasing the people or what?" said the King, smoking a Cuban cigar as he sank into his comfy royal armchair.
"A superb job, Your Majesty," said Li, the Chief Eunuch and royal aide to the King.
They were in the King's parlour, a luxurious room in the Royal Palace designed to receive foreign ambassadors and emissaries.
The royal aide served the sovereign his favourite drink: a scotch on the rocks.
The King took a sip of the beverage and set it down on a gold-plated coffee table. "This time, I took a page right from the book of the ancients. You see, the masses need to be distracted from all the social problems rampant in my Kingdom, you know, the usual poverty, corruption, inefficiency. The Romans called it bread and circuses. You give the people some cheap food and stage an amazing spectacle like a gladiator fight in the Coliseum and for a moment, they forget all about rising up against their ruler. They're immediately appeased and gratified."
"It's brilliant, my lord King," said the eunuch.
"I know, right?" said the King, taking another puff of his cigar. "The people also want a fairy tale ending. They want to believe that they too can go from rags to riches. They want to be one of us. We want to encourage that impossible dream. It's just an illusion, of course. As long as they think there's a glimmer of hope or even a slim possibility that they can become upper class, they'll accept the status quo and work hard, even though if it'll get them nowhere. I mean, look at the typical garment-factory worker. $100 a month? Gimme a break. That can't support even one person living in Lotus Hill, let alone a whole family."
"Yes, my lord," said Li.
The King took yet another puff. "But one very lucky contestant will indeed go from rags to riches; that is, if he is deserving, of course. He must embody all the characteristics I'm looking for and he must assemble all the ingredients I need for my...you know...."
"I know, Your Majesty," said Li.
The King continued, "Hiring specialists to obtain the rare ingredients would have been too expensive. My royal advisors calculated it'd be what? Like over $50,000,000? Paying $1,000,000 a year seems like such a bargain compared to paying that much of a lump sum upfront."
"Yes, Your Majesty," said the eunuch.
"Yeah and having five contestants get it all for me and forbidding them from advancing to the next stage unless they have it is a good insurance policy, isn't it? This way, I will be guaranteed one item from each place."
"Yes, sire," replied the royal aide.
"Killing two birds with one stone," said King Omito. "The Nobel-Prize committee should give me some sort of prize in genius politics for my idea. This way, I can appease the people and assemble the ingredients at the same time."
Even though it had been all eunuch Li's idea, he allowed his monarch to hog all the credit. He didn't dare open his mouth to contradict his king because that would mean certain death.
The King smoked some more and let out a breath. "Ah, that's better. Sometimes, I just have to sit down and let my balls hang loose."
Suddenly, the King began coughing and wheezing and coughing and wheezing.
The eunuch looked concerned. "Are you alright, sire?"
Red in the face, the King gasped out, "I will be, once all the ingredients are assembled."
The eunuch nodded.
The King finally recovered from his cough. "I need the ingredients to make that elixir, the legendary elixir of immortality."
YOU ARE READING
Theo the Street Kid and the Extraordinary Competition
PertualanganA rags-to-riches story, a street kid picks himself up and succeeds against all odds.
