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!"
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!
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?"
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?!
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
