“Are you all deaf?” He stood up in anger.
But a person slowly walked out—it was Mu Ling.
“Perfect timing, Mu Ling. I need you to immediately…”
Mu Ling, his face dark and sullen, interrupted him: “Your Majesty, you swore this war would be won. Why have so many soldiers lost their lives? And where are those expensive firearms we invested in?”
The King of Liao was stunned, then erupted in fury: “Are you questioning me? Have you forgotten your place?”
“I haven’t forgotten. I am the Chancellor of Liao.”
The King stared at that face, laughed in exasperation, and spat: “Chancellor? A sham chancellor! I say you are one, or else you’re nothing!”
“Your Majesty, you have lost your mind.”
“How dare you! Guards! Drag him out and give him fifty—no, a hundred strokes of the rod!”
A hundred strokes was a death sentence for anyone.
But the King’s order was given, and no one moved.
“Where are they? Guards!” He looked around and suddenly realized his trusted men were all missing.
“Your Majesty, I have already dealt with the corrupt officials who have been clouding your judgment,” Mu Ling said slowly.
“You…” The King suddenly sensed danger.
“Guards! The King has gone mad. Escort him back to his chambers!”
At Mu Ling’s command, a squad of guards rushed in, grabbed the King, and dragged him backward.
“You—this is treason!” he shouted, struggling furiously but unable to break free.
As the King’s voice faded away, Mu Ling turned to the assembled ministers: “I propose we apologize and seek peace with the Zhou kingdom. Who agrees? Who opposes?”
The court officials exchanged glances but remained silent.
That very night, the King of Liao suffered a relapse of madness, hacked himself over a hundred times with a blade, and died in his palace.
Fang Zhiyi, who was en route back to the capital, also received the news.
He merely chuckled and tossed the paper out of the carriage window.
Seated across from him was a man with an utterly ordinary face.
“Your Highness, as you predicted, Mu Ling is no easy character either. Our paid informants noted that on the very night the King died, several squads of men in black raided our brothers’ homes, but they’ve all pulled back now.”
Fang Zhiyi just smiled.
When Wang Qingzhi reported that the King of Liao was looking to smuggle ironware through him, Fang Zhiyi had grown cautious. After a few deals, he indeed discovered that the other party was dabbling in firearms, fully exposing his identity as a time-traveler.
Everything that followed was staged. The real person to back was Mu Ling, not Xue Qingsong. Xue Qingsong, after all, was merely a Zhou native; reaching the Ministry of Personnel was about as far as he could go. To elevate him, Fang Zhiyi had his hidden agents in Liao continuously buy loyalties, spending gold and silver lavishly to push him up step by step. The goal was to embroil him in purging the faction of the stubborn Prince Zuo, and at just the right moment, turn him into a stepping stone for Mu Ling.
Once the firearm secrets were leaked, the time-traveler’s overbearing mentality was bound to offend the established nobility of Liao even further. When he prepared to start a war, that’s when Mu Ling would rally popular support—and with the ministers who had taken bribes, the whole affair went almost without a hitch.
“Your Highness, even though Liao is now seeking peace, they will still be a threat eventually,” Zhu Hong muttered from the corner.
Fang Zhiyi grinned broadly: “I can prop up one Xue Qingsong in Liao’s court, and I can spend money to create a second or a third Xue Qingsong.”
“Your Highness, don’t mention that. We still have to account to His Majesty for the deficit in the state treasury.”
“Ahem, this is no time for dampening the spirits.”
Just then, Fang Zhiyi’s expression suddenly changed. Zhu Hong sensed something wrong and immediately waved his hand. Tan Jiu leaped out of the carriage in a flash.
But he saw nothing suspicious—front and back were full of escort guards.
Inside the carriage, Fang Zhiyi was staring at the contorting form of Little Hei, looking grim. Little Hei’s body twisted into all sorts of shapes, as if something was kneading it, then its once-tiny frame suddenly swelled to twice its size.
“Hahaha, that idiot really thought he could catch me!”
When that familiar voice came, Fang Zhiyi breathed a sigh of relief.
Little Hei turned to look at him and synced with its own clone’s memory: “Brilliant! I knew you wouldn’t come out on the losing end.”
“Did you… leave yourself a backup?” Fang Zhiyi asked.
Little Hei was quite proud: “Obviously! That thing was on my tail relentlessly. You don’t know how close it was—if I’d been a second slower, you’d never see me again.” It paused. “And you’d never see Yue Anyao either.”
Fang Zhiyi rolled his eyes. “Ready now?”
Little Hei stretched contentedly: “Almost. Now I just wait for a signal.”
Fang Zhiyi didn’t ask how it had done it; he could see Little Hei had been put through the wringer this time.
Little Hei looked at him again: “Just do what you need to. Even though I need time to recover, I can still protect you.”
It took three months before a new King of Liao was chosen. Just when the candidate was being decided, the highly respected Mu Ling died bizarrely in a latrine.
The government of Liao, already leaderless, was thrown into turmoil once more.
In the end, a child from the original royal family inherited the throne.
To guide him, three regent ministers were appointed to the court.
Looking at the intelligence reports, the Emperor scratched his head in confusion: “Prince Qi, I must say, the situation in Liao feels strangely familiar. Yes, yes—just like our father’s time, almost identical!”
Fang Zhiyi chuckled: “Just wait. The bombs we’ve planted for them will probably go off in a few years. After all, their foundations aren’t as deep as those of Great Zhou.”
“Uh… what is a ‘bomb’?” The Emperor looked at Fang Zhiyi with curiosity.
Fang Zhiyi realized he’d slipped up and immediately changed the subject, starting to ask about the Emperor’s need for an heir.
This Emperor was a peculiar one when it came to romance; he insisted on waiting for the one he truly loved.
It made Fang Zhiyi wonder if the man was caught in some sweet-love story script.
But his mind was elsewhere anyway, waiting only for Little Hei to recover. To confuse that unknown entity, Little Hei had actually thrown its original body to the thing. As it put it, it could always grow a new body—it was admirably carefree.
Then, out of the blue, the Emperor announced his grand wedding. Fang Zhiyi was somewhat surprised.
How had he not gotten word ahead of time?
It felt strange.
Since the Emperor was about to marry, as Prince Qi, he ought to offer congratulations. But when Fang Zhiyi arrived at the long-unvisited palace gate, he was stopped.
Looking at the unfamiliar faces, Fang Zhiyi raised an eyebrow, said nothing, and simply turned away.
“Looks like you’re not as popular as you thought,” Little Hei quipped lazily.
Fang Zhiyi sighed: “It’s not that I’ve lost my touch. It’s that the man sitting inside is starting to act more and more like a true Emperor.”
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
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."
