"Don't be greedy for glory. Hit and run..."
"Then why did you turn back and keep chasing? That's because you ran into a suspicious man. If the other side hadn't thought it through and had just wanted revenge at all costs, do you really think you could have escaped with just this handful of men?"
Fatty Liu's excitement was completely deflated.
"Take him away! Thirty strokes of the rod!"
Fatty Liu said nothing in protest. He had just seen the sorry state of the other two raiding parties, and a chill of lingering fear ran through him.
Once the beating was done, Fatty Liu propped himself up with the help of his men.
"Boss Liu, the general is going too far. We won a clear victory..." one of the soldiers helping him up muttered.
But Fatty Liu whipped his head around and snapped: "What the hell do you know? All those years in the army—did you learn nothing? Don't you know what military orders are? Whatever the Grand General says is an order!" Still not satisfied, he tried to kick the soldier, but the motion pulled at the wounds on his backside, and his face twisted in pain.
The young soldier looked a little resentful, but just then a messenger arrived.
"Order from the general: Liu Xi performed exceptionally well this time. He is hereby promoted to Deputy Commander of the Vanguard Battalion!"
Liu Xi's face lit up: "Thank you, General! Ouch... my backside..."
The same disgruntled soldier helped him up again, and Liu Xi said: "See, that's what you don't get. When you follow a man into battle, you want one like the Grand General—clear rewards, clear punishments. That's how men of our background get a chance to climb. You think war is some street brawl between thugs?"
The young soldier lowered his head.
"Your sister has a thing for the Marquis of Ding'an, doesn't she?" Fang Yunlan asked with a smile from her seat in the cosmetics shop.
He Yinqing's ears turned red. "Sister, don't tease me. I'm just an ordinary commoner—how could I ever measure up to the Marquis of Ding'an?"
"Oh? Wasn't it you who said love should be free?" Fang Yunlan teased.
"This... well..." He Yinqing didn't know how to answer. Did she like Wei An? Of course she liked him. Wei An's looks were exactly her type.
But...
"Ah, let me tell you, sister: when it's time to make a move, you make a move." Fang Yunlan's eyes darted to the side, and she caught sight of a sleeve edge at the doorway—the owner of that sleeve seemed to be eavesdropping.
"Anyway, don't worry about status. If it comes to it, I'll throw caution to the wind and propose on your behalf to the Marquis of Ding'an!"
"Oh my! You're embarrassing me to death!" He Yinqing ran off to the backyard.
Fang Yunlan glanced at the doorway, but the sleeve was already gone.
She smiled faintly and raised her voice: "Well, then I'll be off. Think it over properly!"
That night, Fang Yunlan was surprised to see the Emperor in her chambers. She felt a wave of nausea, but remembering her position, she smiled and greeted him.
But the Emperor was in a foul mood, and it seemed he had come to confront her.
"An imperial consort, constantly leaving the palace—what is the meaning of this?"
Fang Yunlan lowered her eyes demurely: "Your Majesty, I... I merely enjoy He Yinqing's company and find myself drawn to her. Besides, I did report my outings to the Empress, and I also brought her some skincare treasures..."
"Nonsense! I ask you—what did you say to Qingqing!"
Fang Yunlan put on a look of utter innocence: "I didn't say anything."
"Didn't say anything?! After you left today, Princess Yuwei had a huge fight with Qingqing. You... you—" The Emperor was clearly livid.
Fang Yunlan felt a surge of inner satisfaction. So this trick had worked after all. Best friends, best friends—they're always the easiest to split from within.
But she didn't let it show: "Your Majesty, I only said... I only said..."
"Out with it!" The Emperor smashed a teacup.
"That He Yinqing has feelings for the Marquis of Ding'an, so I... I wanted to play matchmaker for them..."
The Emperor's eyes went wide. Clearly, neither the Princess nor He Yinqing had told him any of this.
"You... you poisonous woman!" The Emperor erupted in fury. "From this day on, you are forbidden to leave the palace. No—you will stay here, and go nowhere at all!"
With that, he stormed out. Just wait, Fang Yunlan, your good days are numbered.
Fang Yunlan let out a breath of relief, but worry soon crept back in.
This was supposed to be a romance plot, with lax palace rules—even a consort could slip out occasionally. But now she was under house arrest...
The system beside her finally couldn't hold back: "The servants."
Fang Yunlan's eyes lit up. Of course! The leader had told her from the start to win over the servants as much as possible, and she'd done exactly that... Her eyes gleamed.
The leader really thought of everything! Even this step had been anticipated!
Fang Zhiyi and his Vanguard Battalion had vanished for nearly three months.
The army had assumed he was dead.
Letters had piled up like snow flying toward the capital, all of them denouncing Fang Zhiyi for reckless ambition.
But just then—
"You're saying the scouts report that Fang Zhiyi has returned to camp with his makeshift troops?" The Emperor looked at Prince Min, who nodded: "According to the report, that so-called Vanguard Battalion lost nearly half its men, but they made plenty of kills."
"Hmph. A blind chicken finding a worm by luck," Wei An sneered.
The Emperor glanced at him without expression. Even though He Yinqing had said it was a fair competition, the Emperor had no goodwill for Wei An. If it weren't for the fact that Wei An was his man, he'd have sent him to guard the city gates long ago.
Prince Min noticed the tension and quickly spoke up: "That being said, it's now difficult to move against him, since he's accomplished something this time..."
Wei An interrupted: "Riding out to raid a few barbarian tribes counts as an accomplishment? I could do that too!"
Even Prince Min almost couldn't hold back a laugh at that.
"The Marquis of Ding'an needs help getting onto a horse... are you sure?"
"What do you mean by that?" Wei An immediately took offense.
"I meant nothing by it. Let's get back to business. Your Majesty, regarding Fang Zhiyi—"
"Hmph, look at this." The Emperor tossed out a letter, one delivered from the border. "This arrived almost at the same time as the scouts' report."
The letter was nothing more than Fang Zhiyi's report on the operation, generously crediting the Emperor's brilliant leadership for the victory, with a long string of flattery that gave Prince Min goosebumps.
"What do you two make of it?"
Prince Min bowed: "We follow the same plan as before. Victory or defeat, we use this as the excuse to recall him to the capital, then gradually strip away his power, and when the time comes..." He drew a hand across his throat.
With the discussion concluded, the Emperor was eager to slip out of the palace to see He Yinqing. And seeing the white powder smeared on Wei An's face, he felt a flicker of curiosity. Surely he'd look more handsome than Wei An if he wore some too?
Wang Hui looked at the silent Vanguard Battalion and felt a bit lost.
Though it had only been a short while, this ragtag battalion of misfits now carried a faint aura of killing intent. Even the cook from before had a fierce look in his eyes.
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
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."
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.
