Fang Zhiyi's intention was crystal clear.
If this war could not be won, then the entire Great Yong royal family would die together!
In the face of his madness, no one dared to object. Especially when Fuhai once again took control of the Eastern Depot, the situation in the capital once more fell under Fang Zhiyi's grip. No one knew how many people had died that day, but the court officials all knew that the late emperor was a madman.
In the military, rumors first spread that the late emperor had returned from the dead, and then came the battle orders to fight to the death!
The court dug deep into nearly half of its treasury to support this campaign!
In particular, every member of the royal family was placed into the army. Fang Zhiyi's requirement was simple—aside from himself, treat the rest as mascots. There was no need for special protection; just let the soldiers know that the royal bloodline would live and die with them!
The army, which had been reluctant to follow Qian Zhong, was instantly ignited with morale.
Especially after hearing about the atrocities committed by the barbarians, the 200,000-strong army was bristling with killing intent.
"This is sheer recklessness! This late emperor is going to doom our Great Yong..." the Vice Minister of Revenue said to his colleague while drinking at home, finally able to breathe a sigh of relief now that the mad late emperor had taken the troops out on campaign.
"Exactly. Though he did do one good thing—he had Qian Zhong killed."
"Qian Zhong is dead, and that old eunuch Fuhai took over. But Fuhai is old; he won't be kicking for long. If the late emperor..." He made a throat-slashing gesture with his hand.
"Who's to say? The barbarians have been raiding our borders for years, and when have we ever won? I think the late emperor is overconfident this time."
"We should still make contact. If the news turns bad, we head south."
"That surnamed Huang was a fool, saying those things in front of the late emperor. Tsk tsk."
As the men were drinking merrily, the door suddenly burst open.
Fuhai stood in the doorway with his hands behind his back, flanked by several Eastern Depot agents.
"Vice Minister Li, what fine spirits you're in—still drinking, are we?"
Vice Minister Li froze completely, then forced a smile after a long moment: "That... that... Eunuch Fu, would you care to..."
"Hmph." Fuhai sneered. "I may be old, but I'm not senile! Men, take them all away!"
"Fuhai! We are high-ranking court officials! If you move against us while the emperor is away, are you not..."
Fuhai snorted again: "So what if I move against you? The court is fully committed to resisting the enemy, yet you stand by with your hands folded and hide here to spout cynical nonsense. I'd say you've had it too good for too long!"
"Fuhai! Do you want to follow in Qian Zhong's footsteps?! You eunuchs will be remembered with infamy for ten thousand years!"
Fuhai laughed at this: "Let me tell you the truth—arresting you was my doing, and confiscating your estates will also be my doing! Infamy for ten thousand years? I'm not afraid."
As the men were dragged away and waves of depot agents began seizing their households, Fuhai muttered to himself: "I can't let the emperor bear all the bad reputation alone. I'm just a eunuch, with no kin or ties—let them curse me if they will."
The Eastern Depot once again ran rampant. Many ministers were implicated, more than twenty were thrown into prison, and even more had their homes confiscated. For a time, the capital was shrouded in panic and fear, yet the talk of fleeing had ceased.
Under Fuhai, the Eastern Depot returned to its former function.
All for the imperial power.
Wei Wenzhong, who had followed Fang Zhiyi to the battlefield, scratched his head in bewilderment, unable to understand how this late emperor could be so ferocious. His father had only said the late emperor was a wise ruler—never that he was also this savage in war!
Every time he saw Fang Zhiyi leading the cavalry at the very front, Wei Wenzhong's heart nearly leaped out of his chest.
If the late emperor died, aside from everything else, Wei Wenzhong would be beaten to death by his own father when he returned home!
But Fang Zhiyi was unbelievably fierce. Upon entering the northern border, he immediately went hunting for the barbarian main force, and once he sank his teeth into them, he would not let go.
Although Wei Wenzhong had never been on a real battlefield, as the commander of the imperial guard, he thought that pitting fifty thousand against a hundred thousand barbarians—especially given their excellence in mounted warfare—was unwise in a head-on clash. But Fang Zhiyi simply charged in anyway.
Wei Wenzhong watched as the barbarian army, twice their size, was chased and beaten by Fang Zhiyi's forces. Fang Zhiyi's method was brutally simple: he led a crack cavalry unit on raids—if they could win, they fought; if they couldn't, they turned and fled, only to circle back a short while later to strike again.
And he could always pinpoint the barbarian general's position. After several rounds, that barbarian main force began to rout in disarray!
By convention, this would be the time to halt and wait for other troops to converge. But Fang Zhiyi was even madder—he assembled a few thousand cavalry and gave chase directly.
No one objected. If the late emperor was leading from the front, who would dare have any other thought?
Fang Qian tumbled off his horse, gasping for breath. He had gone to war prepared to die, but luck was on his side—so far, he was still alive.
He wondered how his other sons were doing, and how the late emperor was faring.
Then a messenger came running up in a hurry.
"What? You're saying the late emperor... he destroyed the barbarian main force?" Fang Qian was stunned. Was his father that formidable?
"Reporting to Your Majesty! The late emperor routed their 100,000-strong main force with 50,000 troops, then personally led several thousand elite cavalry in pursuit, scoring victory after victory!"
A general nearby cupped his ear: "Did I hear that right? The late emperor is chasing tens of thousands of barbarians with just a few thousand cavalry?"
"Yes... According to word from Wei Wenzhong's forces, the late emperor has already pursued them into the Western Regions..."
A chorus of sharp intakes of breath rippled through the scene.
After a moment, Fang Qian rose to his feet: "No rest! We march through the night!"
This counteroffensive lasted a full year. After the barbarian main force was shattered, the remaining barbarian troops fell into panic. But when they tried to retreat, they discovered that the entrance to the Western Regions had been sealed off by Wei Wenzhong's army—they had become trapped prey with no way out.
By the time reinforcements from the south of Great Yong arrived in the northern border, it was already in the mop-up phase.
The late emperor's orders were simple: take no prisoners.
In March of the following year, a long-missing Fang Zhiyi finally appeared with his cavalry at the Great Yong frontier.
Dangling from his saddle was the severed head of the barbarian chieftain.
For a time, all kinds of stories ran wild. Some said the resurrected late emperor had become an immortal, descending from the sky at midnight to take the enemy's head. Others said the late emperor had lured the chieftain into a series of traps and killed him. Someone even composed a ballad and spread it far and wide.
But soon, another piece of news stunned all of Great Yong—the Grand Emperor Fang Qian issued an edict of self-reproach and once again took monastic vows.
This time, however, he concealed his identity and became a wandering ascetic monk.
The successor emperor was chosen by Fang Zhiyi himself—a prince who could carry a blade longer than his own body on the battlefield without flinching.
"My lord, some cult is claiming your resurrection was the work of their Holy Mother... I've already sent people to handle it." Fuhai said respectfully.
Fang Zhiyi nodded with his back to him.
"My lord, I..." Fuhai hesitated. "I may not be able to serve you much longer..."
"Fuhai, stop calling me 'my lord' from now on."
"Ah? My lord, what do you..."
"Just call me Fang Zhiyi." Fang Zhiyi turned to look at him. "I originally took a wrong turn and came to see things out of curiosity, but I figured it wouldn't be right to return empty-handed."
Fuhai stood there, bewildered.
"Fuhai, there's a task I need to entrust to you."
"Mas..." Seeing the look in Fang Zhiyi's eyes, Fuhai quickly corrected himself, "Fang... Zhiyi, just give the order."
"Think it over carefully. Once you accept, there's no turning back."
"Fuhai is ready to serve at your command at any time!"
Fang Zhiyi shook his head with a smile. "It's time to go... I've taught that boy everything he needs to know. Leave the Eastern Depot's affairs to him. These matters need to be handled slowly and carefully."
Fuhai looked at Fang Zhiyi before him, his eyes filled with emotion.
He knew better than anyone that the first late emperor and the second late emperor were definitely not the same man.
According to the unofficial records of Dayong, a common farmer once posed as the late emperor, yet by sheer chance managed to extend Dayong's reign for three hundred years. He was later honored by the new emperor and became the only common-born marquis in the entire Dayong dynasty.
and couldn't return to the real world. Finally, I gave up and decided to go with the flow, only to discover that writing a diary could make me stronger. Since no one could read it, Su Luo wrote freely, daring to pen anything and everything. Female Lead #1: "Not bad. This diary helped me steal all the protagonist's opportunities. I just want to get stronger." Female Lead #2: "I don’t care about reaching the peak of the cultivation world. Right now, I just want to enjoy the chaos." Female Lead #3: "What? Everyone around me is a spy? I’m the Joker Demon Lord?" ... It’s so strange. Why is the plot completely off track, yet the ending remains the same? Are you all just messing with me?!
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?!
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 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.
