Son of Consort Liu and the first designated Crown Prince under Li Zhi's reign
Li Zhong is the son of Consort Liu of Preciousness and was designated as the first Crown Prince during Li Zhi's reign. As the child of a former maidservant elevated to consort status, his position is precarious and heavily dependent on Empress Wang's favor.
Appears in Road to Empress II, central to the succession arc
Li Zhong is the first designated Crown Prince of Li Zhi’s reign in Road to Empress II, and he holds that title on borrowed ground. As the son of Consort Liu — a woman who was once Empress Wang’s maidservant before her elevation — his claim to the succession is entirely contingent on his mother’s patron remaining in power. For the player, Li Zhong is not a character you befriend so much as a decision you repeatedly make: support him, undermine him, or decide whether he lives or dies. He sits at the center of the game’s succession arc, and the choices orbiting him are among the most consequential in the late chapters.
On paper, the Crown Prince is the second most secure man in the empire. Li Zhong’s reality is the opposite. His mother’s low birth means his legitimacy is a political construct maintained by Empress Wang’s dominance; the day her grip slips, his title becomes a target painted on his back. The game is blunt about this architecture — his key traits state outright that his position depends on Empress Wang’s continued power.
Within the court’s faction map, Li Zhong functions less as an actor than as a vessel. Consort Liu’s absolute loyalty to the Empress is, by her own character profile, at least half maternal ambition: the higher the Empress rises, the brighter her son’s future. That makes Li Zhong the load-bearing piece of the Wang faction’s long game — and therefore the piece Wu Yuanzhao must decide whether to preserve or remove.
Li Zhong’s MBTI is listed as XXXX, and the game never grants the player the unguarded access needed to type him — fitting for a prince seen mostly through the schemes of others. His favor attribute is Duty, and it describes his role more than his temperament: he is a boy carrying an empire’s worth of other people’s expectations.
What personality the story does show emerges through consequence rather than dialogue. In Chapter 29 he appears on the character favor list, and the choices around him reveal a prince dangerous enough that direct confrontation is treated as political suicide. Whether that danger is his own ambition or the reflexes of a cornered heir is left deliberately unresolved. He exemplifies the game’s recurring exploration of how the innocent are weaponized: he did not choose his mother, his birth, or his title, yet his fate is decided entirely by the players of the game around him.
Li Zhong’s confirmed appearances cluster in the mid-to-late chapters of Road to Empress II. Chapter 21: Unnecessary Mother is built around his succession claim: Consort Liu fights for her son’s position, the poisoned earring incident exposes how far mothers will go, and the player is asked directly who should be crown prince. Supporting Li Zhong as “the eldest legitimate heir” aligns you with tradition but against the empress’s wishes — a neutral outcome — while backing the empress’s choice is the safe, alliance-preserving path.
Chapter 29: Mother of the Nation Part 1 shows his sharper edge. With An Ning lying dead and the killer to be dealt with, one option is to “expose Li Zhong’s true face” — and it is an immediate Bad Ending (BE 077), because direct confrontation with a prince is political suicide. The safe path is to frame the Empress instead, redirecting blame where it serves your goals. Finally, Chapter 36 confirms that a Scene 145 choice — kill or spare Li Zhong — reverberates forward, affecting the options available when the protagonist seizes the moment during His Majesty’s illness. His life or death is literally a flagged variable in the game’s branching logic.
His four defining relationships form a closed trap. Consort Liu is his mother and his engine — her loyalty to Empress Wang exists largely to secure his future, and her downfall in most playthroughs previews his own vulnerability. Empress Wang is his benefactor: her rise secures his future, and her enemies become his by inheritance. Li Zhi is his father and emperor, the source of his title and the one man who could revoke it. And Wu Yuanzhao is his rival in the succession struggle — supporting Li Zhong preserves a status quo that favors the Empress, while opposing him opens the throne to Wu Yuanzhao’s own line at the cost of devastating retaliation.
Li Zhong has a favor presence in Chapter 29, but his real gameplay function is as a recurring strategic fork. Guidance consistent with the chapter data: first, in Chapter 21, decide your succession alignment early — supporting Li Zhong is viable but picks a fight with the Empress, while backing her choice preserves your most powerful alliance; players report the safe option typically smooths the next several chapters. Second, never confront him directly: the “expose Li Zhong’s true face” option is a documented Bad Ending, and the game consistently punishes open attacks on royalty. Third, treat the kill-or-spare decision at Scene 145 as a genuine route commitment, since it modifies later main-path options in Chapter 36 — sparing him typically keeps more diplomatic branches open, while killing him hardens the late game. In most playthroughs, the princes you cannot afford to fight are the ones you must outlast instead.