Oskar had absolutely no idea that his older brother had just signed his death warrant.
He did not know Wilhelm had once already killed the original boy who had owned this body—with one vicious shove down a marble staircase, with the crack of skull against stone, with blood spreading across polished steps beneath a face that had gone terribly still.
He did not know Wilhelm had prayed that boy would stay dead, so no one would ever learn what the Crown Prince had done in a moment of petty, impulsive cruelty.
He did not know that, hours later, when Tanya had run through the palace crying that Prince Oskar lived, Wilhelm's buried panic had risen again and driven him toward a second attempt.
In the dead of that night, while the palace lay quiet and the doctors had withdrawn, Wilhelm had slipped back into Oskar's darkened room with a knife hidden up his sleeve, intent on finishing what he had started.
"Time to die, Oskar," he had whispered.
And then he had stopped.
Because the face staring back at him was wrong.
Dazed, confused, empty of recognition.
The boy in the bed had looked at Wilhelm as if he were a stranger. Not with fear. Not with accusation. Not with the horror of someone who remembered being pushed.
Instead, this "Oskar" had smiled with exhausted, baffled politeness and said in clumsy, earnest German:
"My man… nice day."
Wilhelm had frozen. The murder in him had faltered. His expression had shifted from rage to something colder: relief, contempt, and a faint, cruel amusement.
To Wilhelm, that babbling proved the boy was ruined. Brain-damaged. Harmless. No longer a threat.
Killing him then would have been riskier than letting this broken version stumble through life as a joke.
So Wilhelm had left without drawing the knife.
Oskar, of course, remembered that night very differently.
To Zhang Ge—the Asian man who had woken inside a German prince's skin—it had been nothing but pain, terror, and confusion.
He had opened his eyes in 1903 in a strange teenage body that felt too young, too pale, and absurdly weak. His head throbbed. His limbs felt like wet noodles. He lay in a bed draped in expensive fabrics, surrounded by unfamiliar furniture, unfamiliar faces, and the sound of a maid sobbing beside him.
There were bandages around his skull. Blood still crawled warm and sticky down one side of his face from a wound that had not fully closed.
When Tanya saw his eyes open, she had looked as if Heaven itself had answered her. She had begun speaking at him in rapid German, crying harder with every word, and she had even hugged him.
He had stared at her in panic, and patted her back softly, while not understanding a word she had said.
German, in that concussed, exhausted mind, was not a language. It was scrambled audio.
From online language-learning apps, war films, half-remembered memes, and old clips of Second World War soldiers shouting over gunfire, only two usable words surfaced through the fog.
"My man…"
Tanya had fled the room crying even louder.
Zhang Ge had assumed, quite reasonably, that he had done something wrong.
He was terrified.
If they realized that this white boy had been replaced by some confused Asian truck driver who barely spoke their language, what would they do?
Well he had no idea what they might do, because he didn't even know who he was ,he could only assume he was rich and in Germany. So he tried to act like a good Caucasian German boy.
And just as he had come to this primitive conclusion, the door had creaked open and a tall figure had stepped into the darkened room.
A narrow upright looking guy, who also seemed expensively dressed, probably important, but at that moment it was more silhouette than man.
Oskar did not know then that it was Crown Prince Wilhelm. He saw only someone important-looking and immediately squeezed his eyes shut, pretending to sleep to avoid questions he could not answer.
But the figure came closer.
Stopped beside the bed.
Stared down at him in silence.
Then whispered something in German—low, tense, full of emotion.
Oskar understood only one word.
The name that was spoken, that he figured was probably his, "Oskar."
He had two choices: say nothing and risk looking rude or suspicious, or use the only German greeting his panicked brain could still produce.
So he opened his eyes, gave what he hoped was a polite smile, and said with full confidence, "My man… nice day."
It was midnight.
The room was almost pitch black.
And he had just said those words to the Crown Prince of Germany.
Wilhelm's face changed.
The rigid fury drained away, replaced by baffled amusement, then by relief so sharp it almost looked like approval. His mouth twitched. His eyes softened—not with love, but with the contempt of a man who had just discovered that danger had become entertainment.
Oskar, who understood none of that, drew the only conclusion available to him.
Ah, so "my man, nice day" must be a proper polite German greeting at night.
And so, from that night onward, he used it.
With guards, with the maids, with the servants. Sometimes even with startled ministers.
Some smiled. Some answered awkwardly. Some looked confused but said nothing. No one corrected him in a way he could understand, and perhaps no one quite dared. He was a prince, after all. If Prince Oskar wished to speak like a concussed foreign student in a war film, that was apparently his business.
By the time he finally learned enough German to understand how ridiculous the phrase was, it had already become part of him, a sort of habit and a joke, his signature.
And all because Wilhelm had once mistaken his confusion for harmless ruin—and Oskar had mistaken Wilhelm's relief for approval.
Oskar knew none of that.
He did not know about the shove.
He did not know about the knife.
He did not know that the first "kind" reaction he had received from his older brother had been the reaction of a murderer deciding his victim was no longer worth killing.
To him, those first days in this new life were only a knot of embarrassment, fear, pain, and confusion he preferred not to examine too closely.
Even now, in the present, Oskar still believed Wilhelm might change.
Especially now that Wilhelm was married and about to have a household full of kids.
He imagined a future in which their children played together in palace gardens, where their families sat at the same dinner table laughing over minor dramas, where time, age, duty, and shared blood might one day turn rivalry into something like respect.
To Oskar, the Hohenzollerns were no longer dead names from history books.
They were his family.
And he loved them, stubbornly, despite all their flaws.
Yes, Karl had once warned him, quite seriously, "One day someone might try to kill you, Your Highness."
Oskar had laughed it off like a golden retriever in a giant body.
He genuinely believed he was untouchable because in the history he remembered, no German prince died young. The Hohenzollerns were historically safe until the very end of the empire.
He knew he'd changed a lot, but in his mind those changes were something like, "cool improvements, nice upgrades, little detours."
Nothing world-shattering yet.
Germany still seemed headed for WWI more or less on schedule.
The real test, he thought, would come there, if he could prevent or reshape the Great War.
Until then, why would anyone want to assassinate him?
He was only trying to help everyone.
And lately, Oskar thought things between him and Wilhelm were actually improving.
When Cecilie had given birth in early July to a healthy baby boy, Oskar had been genuinely happy. Proud, even. He'd held the tiny wriggling prince in his arms and offered name ideas with the unselfconscious enthusiasm of an older cousin.
"What about Kai? It means 'victory' in Chinese. It's a good omen, no?"
"Or Uriel, like the angel of wisdom and light!"
The reactions had been… mixed.
The Empress had smiled thinly.
The Kaiser had tried not to laugh out loud. Some older aunts had nearly dropped their teacups.
Wilhelm's expression, however, had turned stiff and cold.
By the evening, he had formally announced the baby's name to be, "Wilhelm."
Just like himself. Just like their father. Just like half the portraits in the corridor.
When Oskar had joked, carefully, about whether they planned to number the baby "Wilhelm the Third," no one laughed.
Still, it was a joyous day.
Oskar felt like a real uncle.
He told himself this meant things were healing. That Wilhelm, now a father, would surely grow more responsible, less anxious, and eventually see that Oskar wasn't his enemy.
"We're brothers," he thought. "In the end, we'll figure it out."
Meanwhile, as Oskar happily clung to his illusions, reality turned darker.
He didn't take sidelong glances seriously. He didn't notice how each new success carved another line into Crown Prince Wilhelm's face. He didn't see how some older nobles watched him with accusing eyes, measuring, weighing, resenting.
The Crown Prince saw a rival. The generals saw a saviour. The people saw a hero. The Kaiser saw a second rising sun.
And Oskar saw only… family.
So he shrugged off tension, smiled like always, and went where life pulled him next.
On 15 October 1906, that meant Essen.
He stood in a side room of the church at Villa Hügel, adjusting the collar of an overly stiff formal suit, trying not to sweat through the fabric.
The Krupp clan and half of Germany's industrial aristocracy had filled the pews. The vaulted ceiling glittered with chandeliers and coloured light from stained glass. Cameras with flash powder were being fussed over at the back. The organ tested chords.
On paper, everything was perfect.
Prince Oskar as Best Man, by Bertha's insistence. Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach as the groom. Bertha Krupp as the radiant bride.
The Krupp family wanted the Fifth Prince visible, friendly, supportive. He was now one of their most important partners, steel from their works fed his shipyards, his designs fed their profits, and his very presence lent prestige to any event. Having him as Best Man was like parking an expensive car where everyone could see it.
In practice, Oskar felt like he was being slowly sawed in half.
The church was packed: nobles, officers, foreign attachés, ambitious merchants who had clawed high enough to be invited. The choir sang. The pastor spoke. The smell of incense mingled with perfume and polished wood.
And there came Bertha.
Walking down the aisle in a fitted white dress that showed the strength she'd built in the gym and saddle, she looked every inch the confident heiress, less a shy girl, more a woman who knew she was formidable.
To everyone else, she was the image of a bride in love.
Oskar knew better.
Yes, she smiled brightly at Gustav. Yes, she said "I do" in a clear, steady voice. Yes, she kissed him when the pastor said the words.
But every time her eyes lifted, they didn't rest on her new husband for long.
Her gaze slid past Gustav and landed, always for a heartbeat too long, on the tall figure just behind him, "On Oskar, the Best Man."
He stared at the floor, then the ceiling, then the stained glass. Anywhere but her eyes.
Once, against his better judgment, he glanced up just as Gustav leaned in for the ceremonial kiss.
Bertha's eyes were on him.
She gave him a tiny, wicked little smile that tied his stomach into knots.
Thank God there are no 4K cameras yet, he thought. In another age, the memes alone would get us both killed.
But no one seemed to notice. The ceremony went "well." With all the things a wedding needed, rings, vows, blessing, applause. Rice and confetti. Photographers barking instructions. Guests lining up to congratulate the couple.
Gustav looked genuinely, innocently happy.
Under Bertha's perfect dress and controlled blush, though, a secret was already growing.
Almost a month old now, if what she'd told Oskar was accurate.
She had even brought a small prepared blood bag with her, tucked discreetly among her things, ready to "accidentally" stain the bedsheets on the wedding night just enough to satisfy older relatives watching for proof of untouched purity.
Oskar hated the idea.
It felt cruel to Gustav, a decent man who had done nothing wrong, and monstrous to Oskar's own sense of fairness.
Then he would remember the history in his head, "Eight children would be born. One frail heir. The Krupp line tottering under the weight of its own bad luck."
If just the first heir changed, if the child who would inherit the firm carried his absurdly robust genetics, the dynasty's fate might be very different.
Gustav would still have seven children of his own.
The business would flourish.
Bertha would be happier.
Germany would be stronger.
That was how Oskar tried to justify it.
He still felt like a bastard.
But in his mind, this was one more grim, necessary sin in service of something larger than himself.
As the final hymn swelled and Bertha and Gustav walked arm-in-arm down the aisle, showered with flower peddles and blessings, Oskar clapped and smiled with everyone else.
Never suspecting that, outside the world of flowers and vows, a very different kind of ceremony was being prepared in his name.
Far to the north, near the Baltic coast, Grand Duke Frederick Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin sat alone in his study, Crown Prince Wilhelm's letter lying open on his desk.
He had read it once, then tried not to look at it for days. Every attempt to ignore it failed. The paper seemed to glow from the corner of the room, dragging his eyes back again and again.
The message was not explicit. It didn't need to be.
It was not the first letter of that sort. Always the same theme, couched in anxious, deferential phrases, "This fifth prince is dangerous for Germany's stability." "He undermines moral order." "Someone should consider… more permanent solutions."
By birth, Frederick Franz III was a middling sovereign in the German world, a Grand Duke, not a Kaiser.
By marriage, he had risen higher than many old houses dared hope, "His daughter, Cecilie, was Crown Princess of Germany."
If Wilhelm became Kaiser, Cecilie would be Empress. Their sons and daughters would shape the Empire's future. Mecklenburg-Schwerin would bask in imperial light.
That had been the plan.
Then Oskar appeared, and all he did, objectively, was good.
He raised wages and improved conditions for workers. He invested in housing, safety, public health. He poured private wealth into naval development and now into the Army. He wrote books that made people healthier. He invented products that enriched the country.
But the very scale of his "goodness" disturbed the old order.
Industrialists grumbled because his labour laws and social projects cut into their free hand to exploit.
Religious conservatives, especially among the older elites, were scandalised by his open cohabitation with two women, his refusal to marry either, his daring fashion designs shorter skirts, tighter fits, stockings that made older men accuse him of, "corrupting womanly modesty."
And then there was his ethnic policy.
In Oskar's mind, it was simple, "I look after my people first. Germans must stay in Germany. They must feel it is worth staying and building a future here."
So he had quietly put in place, "laws and policies that especially advantaged ethnic Germans, hiring practices in his companies that favoured those who spoke German fluently, those of "German blood," those of the state church or compatible Protestant background."
In his heart, he saw this not as hatred, but as "taking care of his own team."
But for those who saw themselves as,."Polish, Danish, Jewish, French-speaking Alsatians, or anything other than "pure German" …it looked very different."
They saw, "The People's Prince" who used the word "people" to mean "not you."
Yes, they could lie about their identity. Yes, there were other employers. But no one else paid like the Oskar Industrial Group, or offered such security and benefits.
Everyone wanted to work for him.
Most weren't willing to abandon their language, religion, or heritage to do so.
And slowly, quietly, resentment grew.
Some blamed the system. Some blamed Prussia. Most blamed Oskar.
Frederick Franz III understood all of this.
He also understood that he could refuse Wilhelm's desire, tell him it was madness, sacrilege, a crime against blood and God and Empire.
However, if he did that and Wilhelm became Emperor, his house would be shut out. And if Oskar somehow became Emperor, they would have gained nothing either.
His little Grand Duchy would slide back into irrelevance in both scenarios.
So, for the sake of his family's position, he convinced himself, "I must show Wilhelm I am loyal.
At least once. Let him see I am still on his side."
And Oskar as fearsome as he appeared, was still just one man.
Royal or not, men died. Popular men died. Brilliant men died.
And Oskar, ironically, made it easy, "He went everywhere with minimal personal security, trusting in his image and his Eternal Guard's focus on protecting his women and children."
Frederick Franz stared at the letter a long while.
Then he reached for fresh paper.
He did not write back "yes" or "no."
Instead, he wrote names.
Relatives in Denmark with old links to radical student circles and smugglers. Contacts in eastern Prussia who knew bitter, jobless Polish veterans angry at being shut out of the new order. Old "friends" in Hamburg and Danzig with ties to the shadowy side of Baltic commerce.
In a Germany that had swallowed many small nations, there was no shortage of people who dreamed of breaking pieces off the Empire. All they needed was money, weapons, and a target.
Oskar had become a perfect one.
Frederick did not send a single neat contract to a single neat assassin.
He dispersed the work. One group instructed to recruit men eager to "strike against the oppressor-prince who favours only his own," another was told to find hot-headed "patriots" who could be pointed at a palace and promised funding for their cause, another paid simply to arrange weapons, lodging, and escape routes.
Layers upon layers of deniability.
"If it is done quietly," he murmured to his empty office, "no one will know. The boy is careless. Popular men make many enemies. They will blame anarchists. Or Poles. Or the French. Or whoever it is convenient to blame."
He sealed each letter with different wax, addressed through different channels, and dispatched them on their way.
The decision was made.
Threads had been cast into the dark.
And somewhere far to the south, in a church filled with music and flowers, Prince Oskar clapped for Bertha and Gustav and smiled for the crowd, utterly unaware that beyond the walls of Villa Hügel, his first true army of enemies had just begun to gather.