"Host, I'm feeling a bit sleepy," Little Hei said listlessly within the swirling vortex.
"Are you even listening to yourself? You're a... huh?" Fang Zhiyi stared at Little Hei, noticing a faint glow emanating from its belly as its form grew more solid.
Little Hei rubbed its tiny eyes with its hands. "I can't hold on anymore..." Then it plummeted downward.
"Hey—?" Fang Zhiyi instinctively reached out to grab it, only to jolt upright in bed the next moment.
Before him stood a eunuch, clearly startled by his sudden movement.
"Your Majesty, did you have a nightmare?" the eunuch asked cautiously.
Fang Zhiyi ignored him, scanning the room left and right but finding no trace of Little Hei. He called out mentally, but there was no response. Could it be evolving? A pang of worry struck him. This world didn’t matter much—he could let things unfold naturally—but if something happened to Little Hei...
"Your Majesty, the envoy sent by Prime Minister Sima will arrive soon. You must rise and prepare," the eunuch said, bowing his head.
Fang Zhiyi glanced at him. "Prime Minister Sima?"
The eunuch sighed inwardly. It wasn’t Fang Zhiyi’s fault. His mother had been a princess, but she’d backed the wrong faction, leading to the entire family’s exile from the palace. Fang Zhiyi had grown up in commoner’s circumstances, and his parents had long been executed under false charges by the senile late emperor.
Had the old emperor not succumbed to illness, this young master before him would likely have met the same fate.
No wonder Fang Zhiyi knew nothing of the court or its ministers.
Still, he was now the eunuch’s master, and propriety had to be maintained.
Seeing Fang Zhiyi’s bewildered gaze darting around the room, the eunuch lowered his head further. "Your Majesty, my name is Fuhai. From today onward, I shall serve you."
Fang Zhiyi racked his brain, trying to piece together the situation, but it was no easy task.
A clamor erupted outside as a flood of people poured into the modest room. Armored soldiers lined the sides, followed by a retinue of civil officials. At the center strode a man in a vermilion robe—clearly a high-ranking official.
Though Fang Zhiyi wasn’t well-versed in court ranks, he had once been an emperor himself.
The man looked at Fang Zhiyi and bowed deeply. "This subject, Sima Ci, has come to escort Your Majesty."
The assembled officials and generals behind him dropped to their knees in unison. "We welcome Your Majesty!"
Fang Zhiyi noticed the faint glint of disdain—and calculation—in Sima Ci’s eyes as the man glanced up at him. Though unfamiliar with the specifics, Fang Zhiyi knew the game being played.
"What are you—what are you doing? Stop joking around!" Fang Zhiyi waved his hands frantically.
Sima Ci straightened slowly, stroking his beard with a smug smile that quickly morphed into benevolence. He stepped forward and gripped Fang Zhiyi’s arm with surprising strength. "Your Majesty, this old subject would never dare jest!"
This old fox is a military man! Fang Zhiyi thought, startled. But the act had to continue. He let himself be hoisted onto an ornate carriage outside, and the entourage swiftly departed.
A sense of foreboding settled over Fang Zhiyi.
Half a day later, Fuhai timidly lifted the carriage curtain and helped him disembark. Outside, rows of ministers knelt in perfect formation—except for Sima Ci, who stood tall, and another figure seated not far away.
Seeing Fang Zhiyi’s hesitant gaze, Fuhai leaned in and whispered urgently, "Your Majesty, don’t just stand there. Greet the Empress Dowager!" The eunuch was genuinely anxious. His master’s predecessor had died not long ago under his own mentor’s watch. If this new emperor proved equally foolish, Fuhai’s life would be forfeit.
Fortunately, Fang Zhiyi played along. He tried to kneel, but his legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground. "E-Empress Dowager..."
His pitiful display drew a flicker of satisfaction from Sima Ci’s eyes. The Empress Dowager, however, narrowed her gaze before breaking into a smile. "Oh, child, it’s only been a decade, yet you’ve grown so distant. Quickly, help him inside."
Fang Zhiyi allowed Fuhai and a few other eunuchs to support him into the palace.
The situation was becoming clearer. Sima Ci was undoubtedly a power-hungry minister, and he was the puppet emperor. As for the Empress Dowager... his instincts screamed that the old woman was no saint. Watching Fuhai scurry about, Fang Zhiyi’s eyes gleamed with realization.
His identity was unmistakable—the Lonely King.
A figurehead with no backing, propped up by scheming ministers. The fate of his predecessors was easy to guess: disobedience led to their demise. The shabby home he’d woken in confirmed it—they’d scoured for a legitimate heir to the throne and dragged him into the palace. If he stepped out of line... tsk.
Little Hei had landed him in quite the mess.
"A game of chess... how interesting," Fang Zhiyi mused, recalling Sima Ci’s demeanor. It reminded him of his own days as a power broker.
The next day, Sima Ci and his faction swiftly enthroned Fang Zhiyi as emperor. The Empress Dowager presided over the ceremony, but Fang Zhiyi could feel their collective gaze boring into him.
The days that followed were a mix of routine and novelty. Dawn-breaking court sessions, dragged along by Fuhai. The one silver lining? Sima Ci handled all the memorials—a hallmark of a controlling minister. He and his cronies monopolized the channels to the throne, leaving Fang Zhiyi with little to do.
Feeding fish in the imperial garden, Fang Zhiyi felt a rare ease. Maybe he’d just coast along. What a cushy setup—no worries, no responsibilities! If only there were more ministers like Sima Ci!
Lost in his thoughts, a voice called from afar. "Zhiyi!"
He turned to see his empress—his original wife, the daughter of a small winery owner. The match had been arranged by his late steward, who’d worried about his solitary life. To his credit, her father had honored the promise, marrying her to him despite his lack of status.
But her love belonged to the original Fang Zhiyi. He couldn’t bring himself to take advantage, so they maintained a cordial, distant act.
"Do you not love me anymore?" The empress trailed her fingers through the lake water, her mind elsewhere.
Fang Zhiyi shook his head vigorously. "Of course not! It’s just... just..." He lifted his hands, staring at his dragon robes. "I’m still not used to this. It feels like countless eyes are on me. I can’t relax."
The empress turned to him, pursed her lips, and gently smoothed his disheveled hair. "I never dreamed you’d become emperor—or that I’d enter the palace as empress. I thought you might choose another consort."
Fang Zhiyi chuckled. Not a chance. First, he owed it to the original Fang Zhiyi’s family. Second, such a move would reassure the Empress Dowager and Sima Ci—his attachment to sentiment proved his lack of ambition.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
