Zhou First
Regent Sai: Serene Minister Zhou is called to speak. Serene Minister, the Empress hears you. Minister Zhou: I am unworthy to be heard.1 Yeah, so, in terms of the funding for the Spring Festival celebrations-- Minister Chin: Is this really so urgent we must talk of it here, in Her Divine Presence? Regent Sai: Clement Minister, you are reminded that the Serene Minister has precedence over you to speak. Minister Zhou: As I was saying, I want to allocate ten thousand crowns more to the budget. Minister Chin: Ten thousand! Minister Zhou: It is the ten thousandth year of Her Reign, so, it's thematic. Regent Sai: To what purpose would the additional funds be used? Minister Zhou: Not sure yet. I'll think of something. Minister Chin: This is absurd. We can't allocate ten thousand crowns if we don't know what it will be used for. Regent Sai: How will you answer the Clement Minister's concerns, Zhou? Minister Zhou: The Clement Minister's wisdom would overflow a hundred oceans. I withdraw my request. Minister Chin: Oh. Thank you. Minister Zhou: Clement Minister, if I may be so bold as to enquire how you shall use the ten thousand crowns, instead? Minister Chin: Pardon? Minister Zhou: The ten thousand crowns the Faction of Clemency requested yesterday from the Imperial budget. How will you be using them? Minister Chin: It is for expenses. Minister Zhou: Which expenses? Minister Chin: It has yet to be determined. Minister Zhou: Splendid Regent, it occurs to me that Minister Chin's wisdom overflows, and perhaps spills away entirely. Regent Sai: Zhou, beware your tongue does not cut your mouth.2 Both requests for funds are to be denied. So She is Satisfied. Transcript of High Council MeetingZhou First, Serene Minister and Left Hand of the Regent, is the nephew of Regent Sai and was oncee of the most powerful people at Court before falling out of favour with his aunt. Head of the Faction of Serenity, Zhou is the younger brother of Rin Eighteenth, who was originally intended to take his current place in government before her arrest. He fell in with the fey in a bid for power, and is currently masquerading as dead, with his head in the material plane and his body in the feyplane. He is the fey candidate for the Regency after they topple Sai, and he intends to help them institute a council of rulers and a liberal democracy in exchange for his ascendance. As a younger son, Zhou was engineered to be married off to another family, as per tradition. He had all magic suppressed and was educated entirely in the fine arts of performance, music, and persuasion, as opposed to the more strenuous and extensive education of his sister. Despite this, he shows unusual ambition. He took great glee in running the games during his aunt's 'indisposal,' and had already gained a significant number of admirers amongst the aristocracy prior to his faked death. His youth and beauty made him popular along the younger generation, although his ill-defined politics made many weary of him. Zhou has shown a surprising amount of sympathy to the participants of the Gauntlet and made a number of decisions during The Gauntlet of the Star to make the games 'less gauche', including allowing Team Eight to skip an entire tower, and preventing the children from having to fight in a combat. Despite this, Noa in particular is insistent that he is not to be trusted, calling him 'fundamentally selfish'. It was Zhou who revealed his sister's marriage to Sai, although he claimed to Team Ten that he did so because he thought it was the only way she could be saved, seeing her discovery as an inevitability.
1. Customary greeting given by Court members before speaking at Council.
2. Roughly equivalent to, 'don't be a smart aleck'
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