The Emperor rarely held a palace banquet, but this time he did so to celebrate the Crown Prince's steady governance of the court affairs. He also intended to announce Shangguan Lin as the new Empress.
At the banquet, Fang Zhiyi locked eyes with Lin Chengze, whose gaze was shadowed with malice.
Little Hei glanced at Fang Zhiyi, then bared his teeth in imitation of Fang Zhiyi's smirk before charging toward Lin Chengze. Lin Chengze's expression shifted from resentment to shock, then disbelief. He first looked down at himself, then back up at Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi remained composed, merely smiling at him.
Lin Chengze deliberately moved toward Fang Zhiyi, who also stepped forward slowly. Fortunately, no one noticed them.
"What's wrong? Why aren’t you smiling? Isn’t the world beautiful?" Fang Zhiyi asked.
"You—you knew all along, didn’t you?" Lin Chengze's shrill voice trembled.
"Mhm." Fang Zhiyi shrugged. "Didn’t you say I didn’t understand the beauty of the world? Well, now you’ve experienced it. So, is it beautiful?"
"You—" Lin Chengze's face twisted. "Fang Zhiyi, just you wait!"
He was confident that even if he and Fang Zhiyi had switched places, he could still destroy him. Today, his master would become Empress, and he himself would rise as a powerful eunuch. Unlike Fang Zhiyi in his past life, he wouldn’t show mercy—he would spare none of them.
"Fang Zhiyi, do you really think the Emperor doesn’t know about your Crown Prince faction? Hmph."
The two parted ways—one smiling broadly, the other dark-faced.
After three rounds of drinks, the Emperor stood. "Today, I am pleased to announce something important. I have decided—"
The courtiers fell silent.
"—to appoint Shangguan Lin as my Empress!"
Only a few officials voiced their approval, while the rest remained silent.
The Emperor frowned. "Why such expressions? Are you dissatisfied with my decision?" His gaze flickered toward the Crown Prince, seated nearby, a trace of wariness in his eyes. "I know the Crown Prince has governed well recently, but he has also formed factions for personal gain. I hereby strip him of his regent duties pending further review!"
After all, he was the Emperor—he couldn’t possibly be ignorant of the Crown Prince’s actions.
Aside from Prince Rui, who looked pleased, most ministers remained silent. Behind Shangguan Lin, Lin Chengze smirked inwardly—with the Crown Prince’s faction fallen, Fang Zhiyi was finished.
The Emperor grew furious. "Have you all gone deaf?"
The Crown Prince hastily rose. "Imperial Father... this son obeys—" Before he could finish, Fang Zhiyi stood.
"Your Majesty, I, Fang Zhiyi, respectfully request your abdication."
The words struck like thunder. The Emperor glared. "Do you know what you’re saying? Guards!"
Two imperial bodyguards stepped forward, but before they could take two steps, two other guards pressed blades to their necks.
"You—you dare rebel?" The Emperor panicked.
"I respectfully request Your Majesty’s abdication," Fang Zhiyi repeated calmly. "The people suffer under your rule. As the Son of Heaven, you neglect governance, impose harsh taxes, and stir unrest. Revolts have erupted across the land. Only the Crown Prince has stabilized the situation. Your Majesty, step down for the worthy."
His words were firm. Then, a second person stood—Vice Minister Liu. A third—General Zhenyuan. A fourth, a fifth... nearly every minister present rose.
"We respectfully request Your Majesty’s abdication!"
"You—you traitors! Guards! Guards!" the Emperor shouted. Beside him, Shangguan Lin gaped in shock. Lin Chengze was stunned—how had Fang Zhiyi swayed so many? His own spies had reported only minor, insignificant alliances.
Fang Zhiyi glanced at him and smiled. Playing the spy game? I’m your ancestor.
"Your Majesty, save your breath." Fang Zhiyi stepped forward, patting the Crown Prince’s shoulder to signal him to sit calmly.
"The entire capital no longer stands with you."
The Emperor collapsed onto the throne, drained of vitality. Fang Zhiyi looked at him, Shangguan Lin, and the others. "Since Your Majesty enjoys presiding over harem disputes, you’ll have plenty of time for that now."
Harem schemes? Take your time. By the time you’re done, the throne will have changed hands.
The Crown Prince ascended swiftly. Upon his coronation, he enacted Fang Zhiyi’s proposed tax reductions and launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign.
It was the usual purge—investigating corrupt officials, confiscating assets—but Fang Zhiyi also ensured Prince Rui couldn’t flee. The influential Xu family, dominant in the tea-horse trade, was another target. To ordinary folk, they were untouchable. To Fang Zhiyi now, crushing them was effortless—no elaborate charges needed.
Prince Rui’s crimes were exposed, including the tragic Xinghua Village massacre. His entire household, save servants, was executed.
The harem became the Retired Emperor’s prison. At Fang Zhiyi’s urging, the new Emperor married Vice Minister Liu’s daughter, Liu Ning, devoting himself to governance. Under his teacher’s guidance, the faltering nation stabilized and flourished anew.
New faces entered the harem—Xu Yan'er, seized from the condemned Xu family, was sent as a maid to the Retired Emperor.
Shangguan Lin stared blankly, dazed by her abrupt retirement alongside the Emperor.
Lin Chengze was shattered. He realized most of his intelligence network had been double agents loyal to Fang Zhiyi. Now blind to the outside world, his status crumbled with the Emperor’s fall.
When he spotted the hollow-eyed Xu Yan'er, hatred flared. He lunged at her, but both, broken, fought to a stalemate.
Eunuchs and maids watched, occasionally commenting.
"Little Hei, do you eat systems?" Fang Zhiyi asked curiously.
Little Hei bared his teeth and shook his head. "No, no."
"Then leave it be?"
"Only option. It’s harmless now." As a harem system, it was indeed useless.
Lin Chengze begged to see Fang Zhiyi, desperate to plead for mercy.
"Fang Zhiyi! I was wrong!" he cried, but no one listened. The harem was lifeless, many servants transferred to new palaces.
When relayed this, Fang Zhiyi laughed.
"He’s not sorry—he just lost the high ground." Tossing a silver ingot to the messenger, he dismissed him with thanks.
A decade later, Fang Zhiyi resigned and left, unsettling the new Emperor and court. Only a deranged old eunuch in the desolate harem muttered, "He’s gone back... he must have gone back..." Gazing toward the distant Xinghua Village, he strained to see the past.
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
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.”
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!
