Fang Zhiyi's gaze finally settled on Qian Zhong, making him feel uneasy down to his bones.
"Fuhai."
"Here!"
"I'm giving you half a day to retake control of the Eastern Depot."
"Yes!" Fuhai didn't hesitate for a moment.
Fang Zhiyi's eyes shifted to an old man with graying hair—one of the Grand Secretaries he himself had appointed back in the day, and one of the few old officials still holding their post to this very moment.
"Li Zile, you old dog, you've aged."
Li Zile's eyes brimmed with tears: "Your Majesty! Your servant... your servant has failed you!"
Fang Zhiyi simply looked at him. This man had been personally promoted by him back then—honest and incorruptible, just a bit stubborn. In the plotline he had seen, when Fang Tianyun was defeated and captured, Li Zile insisted on holding the capital and rescuing the emperor. Faced with the hundred officials' reluctance to fight, he got hot-headed and smashed his own head against a pillar in the great hall.
"Issue the edict." Fang Zhiyi spoke with utter naturalness. "The Capital Garrison, the Western Hills Camp, and the Imperial Guard are to cooperate with Fuhai. Anyone who disobeys, execute on the spot."
Li Zile froze for a moment, about to reflexively say something, but when his eyes met Fang Zhiyi's, he trembled: "Yes! Your servant will see to it at once!"
Fang Zhiyi's gaze swept over the assembled officials once more, eventually stopping on a man who was sticking his rear end out awkwardly.
"Wang Huai!"
Wang Huai flinched, slowly raising his head: "Y-Your Majesty..."
"Twenty-first year of the old reign, you passed the imperial examination. I remember cursing at you back then, saying the junk you wrote was complete nonsense. Am I right?"
Wang Huai shrunk his neck: "Y-Your Majesty cursed rightly! Back then, your servant dreamed of a world united in peace, hoping to use gentle persuasion to win over the barbarians..."
"Cut the chatter. Go compile a complete roster of current officials for me, immediately."
"Yes!"
As Fang Zhiyi called out names one by one, several more old ministers took their leave to carry out orders.
By this point, Fang Zhiyi's identity had been all but confirmed.
One person misidentifying him might have an explanation—but could so many people all be wrong?
Qian Zhong had been trembling the whole time. He didn't want to believe it, but he couldn't bring himself to deny it either. His eyes kept darting back and forth between the portrait and Fang Zhiyi, and the more he looked, the more they matched. No—it wasn't just a match. That was the man himself! The portrait lacked a certain presence—a bearing that this man before him absolutely possessed!
Finally, Fang Zhiyi's gaze settled on Fang Tianyun.
Fang Tianyun, wearing the dragon robe, stood there dumbfounded. Could this man actually be the late emperor? That was absurd!
But...
"As the Son of Heaven, you let a eunuch—a castrato—lead you around by the nose. You let the Eastern Depot crush your ministers and run rampant. And now you want to personally lead a campaign and throw away the foundations of Great Yong. You are a true bastard."
The bald Fang Qian opened his mouth, but didn't dare say a word.
Father, that one sentence of yours just cursed all of us.
"An emperor who rules the way you do might as well be dead. At least dying would make you somewhat worthy in the eyes of the people."
Fang Zhiyi's words were spoken lightly, but they struck Fang Tianyun's ears like thunder.
"You... you're telling me to die? Who do you think you are?" Fang Tianyun jumped to his feet. "Everyone, get up! What are you kneeling for? I am the emperor! He—he's just a fraud!"
"That's right, a fraud! Imperial Guards, what are you standing around for!" Qian Zhong also started shouting.
But no one responded.
"And him! He's a fake too!" Fang Tianyun grew frantic, even turning his accusations toward Fang Qian.
Fang Qian blinked, pointing at himself with his index finger. I'm a fake too?
"Qian Zhong, immediately summon the Eastern Depot agents and seize them!"
"Yes!" Qian Zhong moved to leave at once. Seeing Fuhai stride away with orders earlier had already sent his mind into chaos.
But before he could even step down from the dais, the side door was blocked. Wei Wenzhong gripped the hilt of his blade, glaring at him with deadly intent: "You damned eunuch. Did the Emperor say you could leave?"
"Wei Wenzhong! I, the Emperor, said he could go! Blocking his way is treason!" Fang Tianyun screamed, looking utterly pathetic in that moment, with not a shred of imperial dignity.
Wei Wenzhong glanced up at Fang Tianyun. As the commander of the Imperial Guard, he was naturally loyal to the emperor. But now there were three emperors in the court. Whose orders did he follow? In Wei Wenzhong's simple way of thinking, the answer was easy: he obeyed whoever was oldest.
And since the late emperor Fang Zhiyi was present, he would follow Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi glanced at Wei Wenzhong, almost amused. This lad had inherited none of Wei Xun's cunning—he was nothing but a blunt soldier.
"Since he wants to leave, let him. See him off on his way."
Qian Zhong turned around in shock.
"Who dares!" He threw all decorum to the wind at this point. "My Eastern Depot agents are scattered across the realm. I control all fifteen provinces of Great Yong! You wouldn't dare kill me!"
Fang Zhiyi looked at him with amusement: "So what? Next time you make threats, say something meaningful. Your people aren't here."
"You—"
Before Qian Zhong could finish, he felt a chill at his throat. Instinctively, he reached up to grab his neck, but blood sprayed out violently.
Even Fang Zhiyi was somewhat taken aback by the strike.
Wei Wenzhong seemed to realize he might have overstepped, hastily sheathing his blade: "Your Majesty, forgive me. Your servant is a military man, not good with words..."
Seeing a death occur, and right in the great hall no less, all the ministers drew in sharp breaths.
But most of them felt a profound sense of relief. That bastard Qian Zhong was finally dead!
Fang Tianyun was now truly frantic: "You—you all want to rebel, don't you? Don't you?! Even if you are the late emperor, so what? You're dead! Why did you have to come back? WHY?!"
He was nearly deranged. Everything happening today was far beyond anything he could process.
"An incompetent emperor merely causes instability in the court—factions squabbling for power and glory." Fang Zhiyi looked at Fang Qian, then back at Fang Tianyun. "But one who is both incompetent and deluded? He ruins the entire realm. Compared to me, you are the one who deserves to die."
"One of you shaved his head and turned his back on the world, pretending not to see the border folk slaughtered and abused by the barbarians. The other, at the critical moment, still treats the fight against foreign invaders as a game for children. Someone who knows the military situation—tell them. Tell them what the barbarians are doing right now."
The hundred officials exchanged glances. Finally, a young seventh-rank official stepped forward, trembling.
"Y-Your Majesty, the urgent report from the border arrived two days ago, but... but Qian Zhong suppressed it and refused to present it, saying it would spoil His Majesty's appetite." He stammered, then began to recite the contents of the memorial.
"The barbarians breached the city. Half the men were killed; the rest were taken as slaves, worked and starved to death in countless numbers..."
"Women and children have become playthings for the barbarians—and are also referred to as rations..."
As his voice trailed off, the great hall fell into absolute silence.
Fang Zhiyi's gaze was fixed firmly on Fang Tianyun.
Suddenly, Fang Qian grabbed hold of his son, a fierce determination in his eyes. He dragged him to the doorway, then yanked a saber from one of the Imperial Guards.
"Father! What are you doing, Father?!" Fang Tianyun cried out in terror.
He had spent his days in pleasure and was no match for Fang Qian in strength. Fang Qian, eyes bloodshot, snarled: "By the late emperor's order, I send you on your way!"
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.”
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."
【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.)
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.
