Reject Green Tea, I Will Be the Biggest Market Maker in the World

"What the..."

Wang Hao felt as if he had been struck by lightning, freezing completely in place. He quickly closed his eyes and frantically scoured the depths of his mind for his predecessor's memories.

A moment later, Wang Hao's expression turned as ugly as if he had just swallowed a live fly.

Memories surged forward. It was actually true!

That unlucky bastard of a predecessor had actually been a super, invincible, massive simp!

In his memory, that Li Wanru was indeed a national beauty, possessing a delicate, boneless, and pitifully cute appearance. His predecessor had scoured the world for rare treasures for her and obeyed her every whim. He practically held her in his hands for fear of dropping her, and kept her in his mouth for fear of melting her.

However, just by analyzing it slightly from a modern person's perspective, Wang Hao instantly saw through this woman's true nature.

This was no pure white moonlight; she was clearly a top-tier, peerless green tea!

In his memory, this woman maintained an ambiguous relationship with his predecessor on the surface, enjoying the Crown Prince's endless flattery and resources, but in reality, she never gave a clear answer. Not only that, behind his predecessor's back, she frequently went sightseeing and exchanged poetry with young masters from other noble families. She even entangled herself with genius disciples from hidden sects who had come down the mountain to gain worldly experience. Every time his predecessor got jealous and questioned her, she would shed tears and say things like, "I just see them as brothers, why won't you believe me?" or "If Your Highness thinks I am a fickle woman, then we shouldn't see each other anymore"...

And then his idiot predecessor would immediately admit his faults and continue frantically showering her with wealth!

"F*ck!" Wang Hao couldn't help but curse out loud. He felt an extremely intense wave of shame rush straight to the top of his skull, leaving him trembling with anger. "My lifelong reputation! This brain-dead predecessor has completely thrown away the face of the Great Zhou Dynasty!"

Wei Zhongxian watched the Emperor's expression constantly shifting. Thinking that the Emperor's old feelings were rekindling and that he was feeling torn, Wei Zhongxian quickly leaned in and whispered, "Your Majesty, the Empress Dowager's decree for the imperial draft has just been issued, and the Eldest Miss of the Li family anxiously rushed to the palace to request an audience. This servant guesses that she has her eyes set on the Empress's throne! As long as Your Majesty gives the nod, this servant will immediately open the middle gates and welcome her in with the imperial carriage!"

"Welcome your grandma's leg!" Wang Hao kicked Wei Zhongxian to the ground, clicking his tongue with a face full of disdain. "A green tea like her, worthy of laying a finger on my Empress's throne? She should piss and look at her own reflection!"

Wei Zhongxian rolled on the ground from the kick. Clutching his butt, his face was full of grievance and confusion: "But Your Majesty, she is the number one beauty in the capital..."

"I'm not seeing her! Tell her to scram! If she dares to keep yapping at the palace gates, have the Brocade Guards reward her with fifty spanks!" Wang Hao waved his hand irritably. Then, suddenly realizing something, he frowned. "Wait a minute, who bestowed this title of 'number one beauty in the capital'? Did the Ministry of Rites issue a document for this?"

Wei Zhongxian quickly scrambled up and answered cautiously, "Replying to Your Majesty, it wasn't bestowed by the imperial court. It is the hidden sect, the 'Heavenly Secrets Pavilion'. Every year, they release a 'Great Zhou Beauty Ranking' and a 'Great Zhou Prodigy Ranking'. The Eldest Miss of the Li family is impressively listed on this year's Beauty Ranking!"

"Ranked by the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion?" Wang Hao sneered. "Then what is her rank?"

Wei Zhongxian swallowed hard: "Ranked... ranked tenth."

"What?!" Wang Hao was genuinely shocked this time, his eyes wide as copper bells. This peerless green tea who had mesmerized his predecessor and driven all the young noblemen in the capital crazy was ranked tenth? Was this ranking bought? Or was the ranking blind? Even though he hadn't seen the first nine on the list, a green tea like her shouldn't even make it to the tenth spot.

Wei Zhongxian smiled bitterly: "Your Majesty might not know, but this ranking from the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion claims to encompass all women in the world. Those ranked ahead of Eldest Miss Li are mostly Holy Maidens from hidden major sects, Demonesses from demonic cults, or secretly nurtured legitimate daughters of thousand-year-old secluded noble families. They all possess profound cultivation and fairy-like temperaments. Although Eldest Miss Li has exceptional looks, she falls short in cultivation and temperament, so she genuinely sits at tenth place."

Wang Hao stroked his chin, a dangerous glint flashing in his eyes: "You just said... Heavenly Secrets Pavilion? That name sounds a bit familiar."

Wei Zhongxian's expression turned solemn, and he said in a low voice, "Your Majesty remembers correctly. The ones who previously spread the rumors wildly among the populace that 'the Demon Star descends, the Great Zhou will fall', and even secretly incited some prodigies with great destiny to rebel, is this very Heavenly Secrets Pavilion that supposedly divines the secrets of heaven!"

"Good! Very good!"

Wang Hao slapped his palm heavily onto the imperial desk, the killing intent in his eyes boiling over without any concealment.

"An illegal organization without even official certification from the imperial court dares to spread demonic rumors within my Great Zhou's borders? Not only do they dare to spread rumors of the Great Zhou's subjugation, but now they even overstep their bounds to rank the women of the world! Why don't they just hold court and govern the state for me?"

Wang Hao gritted his teeth in anger. These hidden sects really treated themselves as gods reigning above imperial power. If he knew where the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion's lair was, Wang Hao swore he would immediately take the Thunder Abyss Demon Suppression Pagoda over there and blow those pretenders to smithereens!

Wei Zhongxian was so frightened he knelt on the ground, not daring to make a sound.

But just a moment later, Wang Hao stroked his chin and paced back and forth in the hall, making tsk-tsk sounds, looking exactly like a thousand-year-old fox scheming against a fat sheep.

"Your Majesty... what is wrong?" Wei Zhongxian looked at the Emperor's creepy smile, his heart trembling.

"Companion Wei," Wang Hao stopped pacing and suddenly patted Wei Zhongxian's shoulder amiably. "Tell me, who are the hardest people to manage in this world?"

Wei Zhongxian froze for a moment and answered tentatively: "Is it... the rebellious mobs?"

"Wrong!" Wang Hao wagged his finger. "Mobs are easy to deal with. Once Zhang Jing's four hundred and eighty thousand capital camp troops march over and chop off a few heads, they will quiet down. The hardest people to manage in the world are those self-important, arrogant 'people of great destiny' and the so-called 'peerless prodigies'! Ye Chen is a prime example."

Wisdom flashed in Wang Hao's eyes as he spoke slowly: "These people have some skills in their hands and some fortuitous encounters behind them, so they think they are the main characters of heaven and earth. Every day they think about defying the heavens, always shouting 'my fate is up to me, not the heavens'. Rebelling against the imperial court is even a required course for them to flaunt that they rise from the mud unsoiled."

"If we let them continue to collude and cause trouble in the dark, assassinating a governor today and robbing official silver tomorrow, the Great Zhou will be bled dry by them sooner or later. Although our ancestors were formidable, they can't chase these flies all over the world to swat them every day, right?"

Wei Zhongxian nodded in deep agreement: "Your Majesty is wise. These martial artists and people from hidden sects are indeed like loaches, impossible to catch them all."

"Therefore!" Wang Hao suddenly turned around, resting both hands on the imperial desk, his smile growing even more radiant. "We have to lure them out! Find something for them to do, attract all their attention, and preferably make them fight each other until their heads bleed for the sake of vanity and face, ideally slaughtering each other!"

"And what in this world can provoke the nerves of these young people the most?" Wang Hao snapped his fingers. "It is fame! It is beauty! It is status!"

Wang Hao looked at Wei Zhongxian and ordered loudly, "Grind the ink for me immediately! I am going to issue an imperial decree!"

Although Wei Zhongxian did not know what the emperor was planning to do, he still nimbly rolled out the bright yellow imperial scroll and soaked the imperial brush with ink.

Wang Hao stood with his hands behind his back, cleared his throat, and said aloud, "Do not say that women are not heroes; night after night, the Longquan sword sings on the wall! The women of the Great Zhou harbor lofty aspirations, and their steadfast actions bloom with brilliance!"

As Wei Zhongxian wrote, he was secretly astonished. His Majesty's poem was simply majestic, vividly capturing the heroic spirit of all women in the world to the fullest!

Wang Hao's style suddenly changed, and his tone became incomparably majestic and domineering:

"However, recently, an illegal organization known as the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets has, without the imperial court's permission, privately compiled the so-called Beauties List and Prodigies List. These two lists are not only shoddily made, carrying immense bias and shady dealings, but they also severely despise the laws of the Great Zhou and recklessly judge the heroes of the world!"

"From this day forth, the Great Zhou imperial court shall not recognize any rankings compiled by the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets! They are deemed fake lists!"

"Coinciding with the Empress Dowager's decree for the imperial selection, the Great Zhou imperial court is determined to set things right! In one month, an officially certified World's Number One Beauty Pageant will be held in the capital! Not only will looks and temperament be judged, but literary and martial examinations will also be established to determine the true Official Great Zhou Beauties List!"

"At the same time, taking advantage of the national examinations, the imperial court will establish the Great Zhou Prodigy Martial Arts Tournament to rearrange the official Great Zhou Prodigies List!"

Wang Hao grew more excited as he dictated, his eyes seemingly sparkling with the light of gold coins, "Proclaim this to the world: Anyone who enters the top ten of the official Prodigies List and Beauties List will be rewarded with two hundred thousand taels of silver, granted a golden seal, a Heaven-tier cultivation method, a Heaven-tier pill, and a Heaven-tier weapon! For the top one hundred, the imperial court will fund the engraving of their deeds on stone steles to establish their biographies, which will be praised throughout the thirty-six provinces of the Great Zhou, leaving their names in history!"

Finishing the last stroke, the hand with which Wei Zhongxian held the imperial decree trembled violently.

Ruthless! Too ruthless!

His Majesty's move was simply a drastic measure to solve the problem at its root, destroying them both physically and mentally!

This meant that the Great Zhou imperial court was directly stepping into the arena, stealing the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets' livelihood, and becoming the dealer themselves!

The imperial court refuses to recognize the rankings made by the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets! The court is organizing an officially certified one, not only giving fame but also money, cultivation methods, pills, and even helping you advertise to the whole world!

Those holy maidens and prodigies from hidden sects usually pretended to be aloof and above it all, and that was because the secular world could not give them what they wanted. But now, who could resist the temptation of leaving their name in history? In literature, there is no true first place, but in martial arts, there is no second. If the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets ranks me second, I will not accept it! I am going to the official arena in the capital right now and beat the crap out of the first place!

What is more, this was an imperial decree issued by the emperor himself, directly roasting the competitiveness and vanity of everyone in the world over an open fire!

"Your Majesty's move... is absolute genius!" Wei Zhongxian sincerely gave a thumbs up. "Once this decree is issued, those Children of Destiny, prodigies, holy maidens, and demonic witches hiding in the shadows will definitely swarm into the capital like sharks smelling blood, just to prove they are not frauds on a fake list!"

"Exactly!" Wang Hao laughed heartily, laughing like a great villainous demon king. "As long as they come to the capital, they are on my turf! Even a dragon must coil up, and a tiger must lie down! When the time comes, I will just sit on the city tower and watch them bite each other like dogs! If anyone dares to cause trouble, my Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda is not to be trifled with!"

"As for that so-called number one beauty of the capital, Li Wanru, a two-faced schemer who cannot even make it into the top three, how dare she come bother me?" Wang Hao snorted disdainfully. "Tell her to get lost and prepare well for the official exams. If she cannot make the top three, she will not even have the qualifications to fetch my footbath water!"