Many people were gathered outside the Royal Academy, whispering among themselves.
“No exam? What the hell is an interview?”
“I heard that this time, to purge those disaster-bringing bastards, the Emperor had many court officials killed. This is an opportunity for us.”
“The ones ahead are so slow!”
The curtain in front of Fang Zhiyi was lifted, and a man walked in, glancing left and right without hesitation, then dropped to his knees with a thud.
“Your humble subject greets the chief examiner!”
“Stop the nonsense. What talents do you have?”
“Reporting to Your Excellency, I have been well-versed in the sacred texts since childhood.”
“And anything else?”
“That’s all…”
“Toss him out!”
The soldiers nearby stepped forward and grabbed him.
“Your Excellency! Your Excellency! I can write poetry!”
Fang Zhiyi rubbed his temples. He had been selecting candidates for three whole days now, and all he got were these kinds of riffraff.
“Do you not see, the waters of the Yellow River come from heaven!”
Fang Zhiyi stopped abruptly. “Drag him back!”
The young man’s face lit up with joy. “Your Excellency, I can compose many poems!”
Fang Zhiyi looked him over. His judgment hadn’t been wrong—no time traveler would resist the urge to become an official.
“Oh, besides writing poems, do you have any other skills?”
The time traveler thought for a moment and tentatively asked, “Your Excellency, have you heard of the Memorial to the Throne on Sending Out the Troops?”
Fang Zhiyi held back the urge to beat him to death. “This prince is asking if you have any other abilities, you know, survival skills?” His eyes were full of expectation.
The time traveler stared back, blinked for a long time, and then shook his head.
“Toss him out! Give him fifty lashes!”
The next person entered, dressed in men’s clothing, but Fang Zhiyi immediately recognized the person’s gender at a glance.
Fang Zhiyi froze for a moment, watching the woman disguised as a man walk up to him, then “accidentally” knock over a cup of water. Her tied hair conveniently fell loose, and a waft of fragrance filled the air.
Just as she was about to fall into Fang Zhiyi’s arms, he frantically scrambled away from his original position.
The woman hit the floor hard.
“Why didn’t you catch me!”
Fang Zhiyi looked at her, momentarily speechless.
“I, I…” The next moment, her eyes reddened, playing the dainty and delicate role.
“Guards, toss her out.”
“Prince Qi! I am from the shores of Daming Lake… What are you doing? Do you know what respecting women means? I’ll sue you for harassment, believe me!”
“No, seriously, since when did time travelers become this ridiculous?”
Little Black said nothing. It didn’t understand. Logically, its host should be avoiding time travelers, since he never knew which one might be hostile. But here he was, personally conducting interviews, determined to root them out.
Yet Fang Zhiyi was still disappointed. Thinking about it, any time traveler who had managed to survive this long in this world without showing themselves probably wasn’t much of a threat anyway.
Rather than waste time here, he might as well figure out his next move.
Just as he was about to head home, a eunuch hurriedly came to say that the Emperor wanted him at the palace for an urgent discussion.
“Him, lying around all day after eating—what urgent matter could he possibly have?” Despite his words, Fang Zhiyi still went.
The Emperor was holding something in his hands. When he saw Fang Zhiyi, he said, “Second Brother, perfect timing. Take a look at this. It was sent up from the provinces. They say it’s quite delicious.”
Fang Zhiyi reached out and took it.
He almost cried. Wasn’t this the potato he had been searching for? But why was it already cooked?
Seeing his reaction, the Emperor thought he liked it. “Second Brother, don’t be like that. There are several more. I didn’t even dare eat them myself; I waited for you to have them together.”
With that, the eunuch beside him brought out several more—all cooked.
Fang Zhiyi stared hard at the Emperor. “Imperial Brother, don’t tell me this is all of them.”
The Emperor nodded. “This is all. The newly appointed magistrate of Han County sent them, claiming they grant longevity or something…”
Fang Zhiyi spun around. “Investigate this immediately!”
The two eunuchs serving the Emperor looked at him, bewildered.
The Emperor nodded. “What Prince Qi says is as good as what I say.”
The results came back quickly. These potatoes had been found in the backyard of a noble family. The magistrate had originally planned to clear the land and distribute it to the people, but during the clearing, he dug up these things. After studying them and finding them edible, he sent them directly up.
Fang Zhiyi immediately summoned Leng Shaobai, the current Minister of War, who in turn brought in his subordinates.
Finally, someone remembered the incident.
“Oh, Han County—that’s the Feng family’s territory. When we entered the city, they tried to gather men to resist. I recall our chief ordered that no noble family was to be spared, and I thought their belongings were all moved out.”
Fang Zhiyi frowned. “When you led your troops in, did you see anyone unusual?”
“Unusual?” The man thought for a while. “No.”
Amid a burst of coughing, Zhu Hong walked in. He was now in full command of the Supervisory Bureau.
Seeing so many people in the room, Zhu Hong merely lifted his eyelids, looking half-asleep.
“Prince Qi.”
“Investigate whether any strange people have appeared in Han County.”
“Understood.”
Zhu Hong worked with extreme efficiency. Within just five days, the report reached Fang Zhiyi.
“Prince, our men interviewed the local populace. From an apprentice in a rice shop, we heard something.”
“It seems a man of unknown origin got involved with the Feng family’s daughter. The Fengs nearly beat him to death. Later, no one knows what he said, but the Fengs took him back. After that, he was never seen again.”
At this point, Fang Zhiyi had already guessed that the time traveler who brought the potatoes had likely died at the Fengs’ hands.
After all, growing potatoes isn’t that complicated. In a feudal society like this, once a noble family obtained the core technique, they naturally wouldn’t leave the man alive. He had underestimated the risks and ruthlessness of the ancient world.
Even a prince who had time-traveled could be manipulated, let alone an ordinary man?
“Send people immediately to search! Turn over every piece of land the Feng family owned!” Fang Zhiyi shot to his feet.
“Yes!”
“Let me just get lucky on this one,” he muttered, still holding the now-hard, cooked potato.
In early March, the imperial court distributed a new type of seed, said to have an extremely high yield. Most importantly, the Emperor, in his benevolence, declared a two-year tax exemption for anyone planting this crop!
The people were ecstatic. The Supervisory Bureau arrested people everywhere, corrupt officials were greatly reduced, long-forgotten cases were reopened for review, and the people’s grievances eased as they began planting potatoes.
But when this news reached the Liao Kingdom, its king grew restless.
“I struggled and climbed to this position, and now you tell me the Great Zhou has potatoes? System, didn’t you say other time travelers were useless?”
“Host, the time traveler who introduced potatoes is dead. It was the Great Zhou Emperor who discovered the crop.”
The king paced back and forth. The lack of border troop movements during the Great Zhou’s internal chaos had also surprised him. Perhaps one of the time travelers had altered the global situation.
But it didn’t matter. He still had his trump card.
“Summon my attendants! Take me to the firearms workshop to see the progress.”
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
