To be honest, he hadn’t seen the emperor in a long time. To avoid trouble, he had handed over all affairs without a second thought. Fang Zhiyi believed that with those people in place, the court could keep running on its own.
As for himself, he had simply chosen to kick back and slack off.
But as with most historical tales, when the once-gentle emperor tasted true imperial power, the so-called brotherly bond with Fang Zhiyi no longer mattered much.
Just as Fang Zhiyi returned to his residence, a eunuch hurried over.
“Prince Qi, His Majesty has issued a decree!”
Fang Zhiyi stood casually and offered a perfunctory bow.
The eunuch frowned. “His Majesty says: I hear Prince Qi’s business has grown enormously. The Great Zhou is now in ruins and awaiting revival. We hope Prince Qi will prioritize the nation’s interests and repay the silver owed to the national treasury.”
Fang Zhiyi raised an eyebrow. “Fine.”
Even the eunuch hadn’t expected him to agree so readily.
Little Hei watched the eunuch leave and mocked him again. “Well, well, you slaved away to put him on the throne, and now he’s turning on you.”
“That was only a matter of time,” Fang Zhiyi said without much surprise. Given everything he had revealed, any emperor would be wary of him.
But the next day, Fang Zhiyi’s mood soured.
Zhu Hong, the director of the Surveillance Bureau, had died of lung disease. His funeral arrangements were already handled before anyone even informed Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi tapped the chessboard in front of him, sighed after a long silence, and said, “Little Hei, learning to be good is hard, but learning to be bad is easy. He’s so impatient that he’s already purging his rivals.”
Seeing his dejection, Little Hei grinned. “Isn’t this something you’re used to?”
“True. Once you recover a bit, we’ll leave.”
But over the following six months, piece after piece of news frustrated him.
Li Wenlong was recalled to the capital for an official post—a promotion in name, but actually a stripping of his military power. Li Zizai was directly demoted to a company commander for violating military regulations. Fang Zhiyi’s gray-market enterprises were cracked down on by the court; his money houses were forced to close, and Old Dog vanished without a trace. Leng Shaobai was dismissed from his post for offending the emperor’s majesty, though he didn’t mind much. He simply packed up and returned to the prince’s residence, declaring he’d be happy to sweep floors if Fang Zhiyi fed him.
Fang Zhiyi could already feel it—this was the repayment from the emperor he had helped to the throne.
As a gesture, the emperor also showed him favor: first sending him a retinue of guards, then bestowing on him the title of Prince Anle, along with a thousand acres of fertile farmland.
The message was unmistakable—stay quiet and stay put.
Fang Zhiyi didn’t respond to any of it. He had never wanted the throne in the first place.
But human nature can be laughable sometimes.
Fang Zhiyi thought he could wait in peace until he left. Then a message landed on his desk.
Recognizing the familiar handwriting, he chuckled. “That Zhu Hong is pretty clever—he already learned how to fake his death.”
Leng Shaobai grumbled, “I should have listened to them from the start and just put you on the throne. None of this would have happened…” His eyes were suddenly drawn to the note.
“Your Highness, get out of here now! I’ll protect you!”
Fang Zhiyi smiled. “What’s the point?”
“Isn’t this madness? You stay inside your gates all day, and they’re impeaching you for oppressing the people, monopolizing power, and forming cliques! This is pure slander! I see now—this emperor has lost his mind!”
Just then, a squad of armored soldiers entered the prince’s residence.
“Your Highness, please come with us.”
Leng Shaobai’s face turned cold. He immediately grabbed a blade and stood in front of Fang Zhiyi. “Are you all out of your minds? Without Prince Qi, where would the Great Zhou be today?”
The leading commander didn’t reply directly. “I am merely following orders. Please don’t make this difficult, Your Highness.”
Fang Zhiyi frowned. “Back to the imperial prison? I’ve already been there once…Really…”
Despite his words, he cooperated and walked forward. He planned to leave anyway, so he didn’t care. He knew the emperor would at most imprison him—out of face, he wouldn’t dare kill him.
Leng Shaobai immediately followed, steadfast in declaring he would go wherever the prince went. The soldiers didn’t stop him.
As they exited the residence, Fang Zhiyi looked up at the sky. The weather was fine, so bright the sunlight stung his eyes.
A carriage not far away caught his attention. The curtain was lifted just a crack, revealing a pair of phoenix eyes fixed on him.
Fang Zhiyi paused, then burst into laughter. “So that’s how it is! Now it all makes sense! Ha!”
The leading commander turned around, confused. Could the prince have lost his mind?
Seeing him laugh, the woman in the carriage stopped hiding. She lifted the curtain fully and, helped by her maid, stepped down.
As she approached, the commander first looked puzzled, then dropped to one knee. “Greetings, Empress!”
The other soldiers followed suit.
But the empress ignored them. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at Fang Zhiyi. “You seem to know who I am.”
Fang Zhiyi grinned. “One look and I could tell. That hairstyle isn’t from around here.” He pointed to her hair and her exaggerated eye makeup.
“Heh. Then let me send you off with clarity.” The empress smiled back. “Remember those people you interviewed? I was there too.”
It dawned on Fang Zhiyi. He looked closer and finally recognized her.
“The one who couldn’t even pull off playing innocent?”
At that remark, her face darkened. She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “So what? Back then, I thought you would seize the throne. Who knew you had such small ambitions? But it doesn’t matter—I only wanted to marry the Son of Heaven, no matter who that was.”
She leaned in and whispered the last part. “If you weren’t a time traveler, I might have spared you.”
The next moment, she cried out and stumbled back, blood suddenly seeping from her forearm.
“You hid a weapon and tried to assassinate me!” she exclaimed dramatically, pointing at Fang Zhiyi. “Kill him!”
Fang Zhiyi found it absurd that she had wounded herself.
The soldiers hesitated for a beat, then moved to obey. They all knew the emperor doted on his empress. If she was hurt, who knew how furious he would be?
“Your Highness, I’m sorry—let me land a few blows, at least to show His Majesty when I report,” the commander said, still mindful of Fang Zhiyi’s status.
Leng Shaobai immediately touched his blade.
But Fang Zhiyi ignored him and just watched the transmigrator empress with amusement. “Did your husband ever tell you that this prince is pretty good at fighting?”
The empress shot him a puzzled look.
Fang Zhiyi raised a hand, made a gun shape with his fingers, and aimed at the commander with a “bang” gesture.
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.
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
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."
