Nikolai rose from the dead

　　"Uhhhh ..." the vertigo and the vague irritation on his forehead made Edward groan out, "I ... water ..."

　　"It's okay, Nikki!"

　　A foreign face with a high nose and deep eyes appeared in Edward's blurred vision.

　　"... water ..."

　　Licking his parched lips, the hairy, unbearable dryness of his throat allowed Edward to only murmur and spit out a few syllables vaguely.

　　Wait, this is Russian?

　　Edward's muddled consciousness hadn't completely reacted to what the hell was going on.

　　"Water, here you go Nikki, how are you feeling now?"

　　The face was familiar, but the words he spoke were clearly not pronounced in English, yet Edward understood them.

　　"I ... you ..."

　　Edward couldn't care less, reaching for the glass of water he gulped down a few mouthfuls of fresh water beyond that, and the blurry murmur of voices around him could be heard clearly enough, as a group of short, gibberish-speaking, unintelligible people bowed one after the other not far away.

　　Is this ... Japanese ...?

　　Edward's consciousness gradually cleared as the water went down.

　　"Nikki? Nikki!"

　　Seeing that Edward did not reply for a long time, this Russian in front of him looked as if he was in a hurry.

　　"No ... I'm fine, George."

　　Edward blurted out, in a trance Edward finally realized why he felt an affinity for this Russian, this was his own cousin's aunt's cousin, Prince George of Greece.

　　"Great! That scared the hell out of me at the time! God bless!" George sighed contently as he crossed himself in shock while touching the body of the confused person lying on the bed, not forgetting to turn back to the little men and rant, "Look at the terrible things you've done! Fucking Japanese macaques!"

　　"Wait a minute ..." After a few moments of trying to think Edward couldn't understand how the scene and the characters had changed so much in the space of a nap at work, so Edward asked the classic philosophical triple question, "Who am I? So Edward asked the classic philosophical three questions, "Who am I? Where am I? What's happening to me?"

　　"Ah!" George was also momentarily frozen by Edward's question, but it was the doctor who was watching over him who quickly picked up the conversation, "Your Highness, as the Crown Prince of the Russian Empire, you have just suffered a deliberate assassination by the Japanese!"

　　I am Nikolai!

　　There was a loud boom, but of course it was only a phantasmagorical exploding sound in Nikolai's own mind, a huge amount of memories sweeping across the momentarily dazed consciousness like a tidal wave crossing the ocean, so coincidentally Edward, no, Nikolai fainted again.

　　Am I really Nikolai?

　　The same Nicholas II who had been locked up in the basement and shot?

　　Incredible, unspeakable emotions rose from within Edward.

　　Edward never imagined that he would one day take a nap and cross over to become Nicholas II, the last emperor of the Russian Empire.

　　Wracking his brain, Edward barely pieced together some memories, he was still a little disoriented.

　　Wait, I'm Nikolai all right, but why am I in Japan?

　　Another question came to Edward's mind, he obviously didn't know about Nikolai's history of having traveled to the East as Crown Prince.

　　It was as if Edward was being dragged into Nikolai's memories, and in the depression Edward felt deep in his soul, it was like a bubble gushing out from under the surface of the water, each bursting allowed Edward's memories in Nikolai to be completed.

　　Edward's memories began to flood back from Nikolai's haziest early childhood, when he saw his grandfather Alexander II, whom Nikolai looked up to, followed by his parents Alexander III and Empress Maria.

　　Nikolai grew up within the walls of the Anichkov Palace and later rarely left the palace gardens of Gatchina.

　　Nikolai's education was accomplished at home with a teacher hired by the royal family, though Edward gained little of what Nikolai learned in class, as Nikolai was either dazed, distracted, or picking his nose.

　　Upon reaching adulthood, Nikolai was commissioned as a Cossack Getman and served in the Priobrazhenskoye Close Guard Regiment and the Hussars, where he was quickly promoted to colonel.

　　In 1890, the penultimate year of Nikolai's memory fragment, he was arranged by his father to undertake the traditional excursion as Crown Prince, but Nikolai was strongly admonished by one of his teachers, Duke Ukhtomsky, to make an exploratory trip to the East instead.

Edward briefly skimmed over Nikolai's journey in India, Nikolai's brother Georgi seems to have unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and returned home first, and after that it was Nikolai's trip to China.

　　Through Nikolai's eyes, one could see the dying and decaying empire of the oldest in the East, and Edward could still sense Nikolai's disdain for the condescension of the Qing court, but he was nonetheless pleased with the hospitality of the Qing people, especially at the meeting in Hankou with the governor of Hunan and Guangdong, Zhang Zhidong.

　　After this, when Nicolas had just set foot on Japanese soil, this mysterious country made Edward feel Nicolas' strong curiosity.

　　The Japanese geisha seemed to leave a deep impression on Nicolas, who felt that Japanese women in kimono were gentler and more refined than Western women.

　　Up to this point, Nicolas seemed to have a good impression of these short Japanese monkeys.

　　Until Nikolai and George by rickshaw in the narrow streets of sightseeing, he suddenly felt above the right ear received two consecutive heavy blows, Nikolai saw a Japanese police officer is holding up a saber waved at him.

　　... A blackness came over him, and that was all Edward could read of the memory.

　　Edward was able to read Nikolai's intense resentment, as if the ghost couldn't be dispersed if Edward didn't do something about it.

　　"Don't worry, Nikolai. I'll help you teach the Japanese a lesson."

　　Edward made a promise, with a special flashback in his mind to the two atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

　　And the Romanovs ...

　　Nikolai's resentment was a good deal less, but he still seemed to have his heart in the right place.

　　"No problem, I'll continue to rule and prosper the Russian Empire as Romanov Czar."

　　Right after Edward made those two promises, the suffocating feeling that was like sinking into chilly water dissipated violently.

　　"Nikki? Nikki!"

　　Nikolai opened his eyes languidly, and this time his head was no longer spinning.

　　"Nikki? Are you okay?"

　　Cousin George looked anxiously at Nikolai, who was waking up for the second time, and the trained doctor on the sidelines was all set to physically wake up the Crown Prince.

　　"No, it's fine."

　　Although there was still the fiery touch of the wound on his forehead reminding Nicolai, it was very different compared to the first time he woke up in a stupor.

　　Could it be that in the very beginning it was because Nicola's wronged spirit hadn't dissipated yet?

　　There were still some doubts within Edward, but who could answer those questions to him anymore, now that he was Nikolai.

　　"Here, water."

　　The attentive George handed over another glass of water, as he saw the way Nikolai would still lick his dry, cracked lips from time to time.

　　"I'm ... coughing, much better now, thanks."

　　"That's good to know it's okay, Nikki."

　　After George shushed him, Nikolai excused himself by saying that his headache wasn't completely gone and that he wished to rest quietly for a while.

　　With that almost everyone was cleared from the cabin of the warship where Nicola was lying.

　　In the sudden quiet of the cabin, Nikolai let out a slow sigh.

　　Now, I am Nikolai.

　　It is the year 1891.

　　The Sino-Japanese War is 1895.

　　The Russo-Japanese War is 1904.

　　The First World War is 1914 ...

　　Hiss ... so counting there are still twenty years or so.

　　Nicholas suddenly realized, as if there is really no hurry!

　　What is the concept of 20 years?

　　Assuming that it is 2000 to 2020, that is simply a sea change, so the Romanov dynasty is saved or not?

　　Yes!

　　It's a memory from his predecessor, though the former Nikolai's sense of self has always swung back and forth between ignorant inferiority and arrogance from the offerings of those around him.

　　What was more reliable at the moment was a combination of Edward's eyes and intellect in fine detail.

　　What is known is that the Russian Empire seemed to be on the upswing after a series of changes by Alexander II, collectively known as the "Great Reforms," to the point where Nicholas' father, Alexander III, was able to negotiate with the European powers through diplomacy rather than through Russia's traditional use of force and intimidation.

　　Alexander III left few impressions on future generations, but is perhaps best known for famously saying, "The Russian tsar is still fishing, Europe can wait for now."

　　This was true abroad, so what about at home?

　　As far as his predecessor's memory goes, the turbulence of his grandfather Alexander II's later years was calmed at his father's hands, and there seems to be no way to connect it to the storm.

　　On that account, then, it seemed, Nikolai breathed a sigh of relief that at least he hadn't traveled directly to the end of a fiery dynasty, and that all was not lost!

　　But ...

　　The Japanese, the British, the Germans ...

　　Rebels at home, radical revolutionaries ...

　　Thinking about it in this way, Nicholas had quite a few domestic and foreign enemies he needed to face if he was to fulfill his promise.

　　But Russia's geopolitical environment, natural resources and demographic resources are what kind of kingly base Nicholas does not yet know?

　　A wave of excitement welled up inside him.

　　Because Nikolai is the Crown Prince, the future undisputed Tsar of Russia!