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.
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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.
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."
