However, the scene of the two parting affectionately was caught in full view by Princess Xiao Xiao, who happened to arrive at the shop.
From the moment she stepped through the door, she had been in a foul mood.
“What’s wrong? Why the long face? Who upset you?” He Yinqing asked while busy counting money.
“Hmph, I see you’re getting along quite well with that Fang the Bitch? Forgotten how she treated you before?”
“No, not at all. That’s just for appearances— she’s a pretty big client after all! Oh, are you jealous? Come, come, try my new product.” He Yinqing grabbed Xiao Xiao’s hand.
“Hmph, I don’t like her either way!”
“I know, I know. I don’t like her either.”
In the imperial study, the emperor stared at the letter in his hand, nearly scratching his head raw: “This Fang Zhiyi… has he finally come to his senses?”
Several ministers watched him pace back and forth, curious about the letter in his hand.
Fang Zhiyi taking the initiative to write to the emperor was strange enough— everyone knew that brute had never willingly spoken to the throne before, and had even secretly complained about the court from time to time.
The letter was filled almost entirely with flattery— first saying the border was peaceful all because of His Majesty’s benevolence, then saying he too wished to kneel in gratitude for imperial grace. The more the emperor read, the more goosebumps he got.
Something was off.
Yet the secret reports from military informants said everything was normal— Fang Zhiyi was still the same Fang Zhiyi.
What was he really up to?
Prince Min, standing nearby, spoke up: “Perhaps he knows his reputation at court is poor, so he’s lowering his posture to show weakness to Your Majesty. Your Majesty, in my opinion, when it comes to guarding the border, it’s safer to use our own people.”
“I see. Let me think about it. You may all withdraw for now.”
The emperor knew very well that Fang Zhiyi was not his man, but removing the border-general his father had personally appointed right after taking the throne would announce to the world that he had no tolerance for others— and slap his own father’s face in the process.
Given that brute’s temperament, he’d likely slip up on his own before long. Even if he held back, his sister was no pushover either. Just wait.
Seeing the others leave, a eunuch stepped forward.
“Your Majesty, Consort Fang visited the beauty shop this morning.”
“Oh? Did she go to cause trouble?”
“No, she went to buy a few more things. From a distance, this servant saw that Lady He was quite affectionate with her.”
“Mm… mm?” The emperor’s furrowed brow relaxed. “That makes sense— since Fang Zhiyi wrote that in his family letter, this woman ought to be sensible too. This Fang Zhiyi, why didn’t I ever notice how shameless he could be? I thought he wasn’t afraid of anything. Let’s go! We’re leaving the palace with me to see Lady He!”
“But Your Majesty, ministers are scheduled to meet this afternoon…”
“Can’t they hold their meeting without me? Whoever comes, let them wait!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
At the border, Fang Zhiyi walked through the camp with his hands behind his back, Little Hei following behind him: “Tell me, does sucking up actually work?”
Fang Zhiyi didn’t turn around: “For an emperor whose head is full of posturing and chasing women, flattery and playing weak are the most effective tactics.” He stopped and sighed, “This original host really had it rough— a giant border army full of holes. I bet if he gave an order, no one would even bother listening.”
“Then what? We can’t just lie low forever.” Little Hei shuddered at the thought of Yue Anyao’s expression.
“I’m working on it.” Fang Zhiyi took a few more steps. “I’m willing to bet that if those folks in the capital wanted to, they’d know how many bowls of rice I eat a day and how many times I go to the latrine.”
“So?”
“So for now, the only option is to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Fang Zhiyi suddenly smiled: “Whatever they’re waiting for, I’m waiting for that too.”
Little Hei was confused: “Talking with you is exhausting sometimes.”
Fang Zhiyi looked at him: “Whether it’s the court or the border, there are people waiting for me to slip up, to have an excuse to come after me. But what if I never slip up— and that other transmigrator doesn’t either?”
Little Hei began to understand.
“They’ll get anxious. When they get anxious, my chance will come. Remember: when the time isn’t right, you play the coward. You take the abuse. You swallow your pride.” His gaze shifted, turning sharp and ruthless. “And when the time is right… heh heh heh…”
“You’re still terrifying.” Little Hei sighed.
No other transmigrator at the Quick-Transit Bureau could do what Fang Zhiyi did— endure humiliation from the natives without complaint.
Deputy General Wang Hui noticed that the general had changed recently. He seemed far more amiable— spending his days inspecting the camps and looking after the troops’ daily needs, and his speech was no longer as harsh as before.
Thinking of certain rumors he’d heard, Wang Hui was baffled. Fang Zhiyi was not the type to clean up his act just to keep his position as grand general.
Even when Yilibu, the Commander of Yongning’s defense, came as rude as ever, Fang Zhiyi didn’t flare up like before. Instead, he listened to the man’s complaints and snide remarks with a smile.
It was too abnormal.
This abnormality showed in his letters to Fang Yunlan as well— he would constantly say things like “His Majesty has been good to our family, don’t cause trouble for His Majesty,” and “we need to raise our political awareness.”
This made the spies who intercepted Fang Zhiyi’s family letters suspicious, but the informants inside the camp could find nothing wrong— they only said Fang Zhiyi seemed about the same, except that his conflicts with other officers had greatly decreased.
Only Fang Yunlan knew that her master must have his reasons. She also managed to find other messages hidden in the letters.
He told her to interact more with the palace servants and to do them favors.
Fang Yunlan couldn’t understand why, but she obeyed anyway.
This month, the emperor had already received Fang Zhiyi’s fifth letter.
The contents remained the same— singing praises and celebrating virtue, saying the border was at peace and His Majesty’s grace was boundless. The emperor frowned harder with each read.
Could Fang Zhiyi be trying to show his loyalty?
It wouldn’t matter anyway. No matter how loyal, he was still a Han civilian. That grand general seat was doomed to be taken away eventually.
In the past, all the emperor had to do was wait for Fang Zhiyi to slip up. But now, not only did the man make no mistakes, he was also being kind to everyone— even the border folk were singing his praises for being fair and friendly. And whenever they did, Fang Zhiyi would immediately correct them.
“That’s all thanks to His Majesty’s benevolence. You should all be grateful to the emperor.”
This left the emperor stuck. If he moved against Fang Zhiyi now, he could imagine with his toes how his reputation would suffer.
Wei An was equally anxious. He had heard from his beloved that the man of her dreams was a great hero— a knight in shining armor. He probably couldn’t pull off becoming a prince, and he wasn’t about to call the emperor “daddy” just for that, but a hero…
After much thought, only the title of Grand General could match the word “hero.”
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!
【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.)
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.”
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?!
