"I am indeed a corrupt official," Fang Zhiyi nodded.
"Hah, and a capitulationist too."
Fang Zhiyi shook his head. "But I am not a capitulationist."
"Oh? Wasn’t it you who ceded territory and paid reparations every time we negotiated with the Hu people? Fang Zhiyi, have you had too much to drink?" someone mocked.
Fang Zhiyi smiled faintly. "Young General Wei drove the Hu people back beyond the old capital. Today, the Hu envoys came, and I was not in court. So, gentlemen, what do you think the outcome will be?"
The crowd fell silent.
"You overestimate me too much. These secret guards watch me day and night—do you think the Emperor doesn’t know about my corruption? When I eliminate dissenters, do you think I don’t need the Emperor’s approval? When I cede land and pay reparations, do I, Fang Zhiyi, even have the authority to slam the table?"
Someone immediately stood up and pointed accusingly. "Fang Zhiyi! Stop spreading your poisonous lies here! How dare you shift the blame onto His Majesty! I—I’ll cut you down!"
He looked around for his sword but forgot he was now just an old farmer.
"You’re not fools. You just refuse to believe that your Emperor is the root of all this," Fang Zhiyi sighed.
The crowd erupted in anger.
Duke Wei suddenly coughed. "Everyone, sit down."
They all gave the old duke some face. Once the room quieted, Duke Wei spoke. "My son has been fighting the Hu people all this time, and it was Fang Zhiyi who supplied him with provisions and arms. Knowing he had no one else to rely on, my son privately asked me to disguise men as merchants to deliver the supplies."
He gave Fang Zhiyi a deep look. "But I must ask the Chancellor to choose his words carefully. My Wei family has always been loyal. We do not wish to hear anything against His Majesty."
Fang Zhiyi smiled and nodded. "I invited you all here today to ask for one thing."
He stood. "On the lands occupied by the Hu people, our citizens suffer worse than death—slaughtered at best, eaten at worst. Surely you’ve heard."
A heavy silence fell over the room.
"Do you not feel ashamed, leaving the restoration of Great Yan to a single young man from the Wei family?"
"If you hadn’t interfered back then, why would we have retired to farm?" someone snapped.
Fang Zhiyi looked at him. "And if I hadn’t, what difference would it have made?"
"I know you all despise me. Even now. But things are different today. I have money now, and money means war. You are all free men. The question is—can you old generals still wield your blades?"
His tone was laced with mockery. "Or are you all inferior to a young Wei?"
"What did you say?!"
"Fang Zhiyi, though we’ve retired, we remain subjects of Great Yan. The Hu have retreated. Raising a private army now would be no different from rebellion!"
Fang Zhiyi sat back down. "The Hu have retreated? Are you all living in a dream?"
Just then, Fang Zhiyi’s trusted aide, Abao, hurried in. Glancing at the gathered men, his heart pounded.
"Sir! The Emperor has agreed! He’s ceded the entire north to the Hu, plus three million taels in reparations. He’s ordered the Wei army punished, and—and..."
Every eye in the room widened.
"And what else?"
"He’s handing Wei Kaiyuan over to the Hu for execution!"
The hall fell deathly silent.
"How… How could the Emperor be so blind?"
"We won! Why would he do this?"
"Old Wei? Old Wei?"
Duke Wei snapped out of his daze and turned to Fang Zhiyi. "Since you foresaw this day, Chancellor, what do you propose?"
"March into Hu territory and wipe them out—every last one."
A collective gasp filled the room.
"As for the Emperor, I’ll keep him placated. You needn’t worry."
Silence again. On one side, their loyalty to the throne. On the other, Yan’s land and its suffering people.
"At the very least, I know Wei Kaiyuan does not deserve to die."
Duke Wei slammed the table. "Chancellor Fang, you said you’d provide funds and arms. Do you stand by that?"
Fang Zhiyi pointed to his head. "On my life."
"Good! It’s been too long since I last took the field. Let’s see if my blade still cuts."
One by one, they stood. Fang Zhiyi raised a cup of tea in salute. As they drank, unseen hands slit the throats of several hidden guards.
"Chancellor Fang, we’ll settle our grievances later. But this time—don’t stab us in the back!"
Someone threw down the threat before leaving.
Duke Wei stared at the dead guards, wanting to speak, but in the end, only sighed.
"Chancellor, you may have gone too far," Shen Xun said hesitantly. He was beginning to find Fang Zhiyi harder to read.
"Too far? There’s further yet to go. Abao."
Abao scurried over. Fang Zhiyi studied him—a man neither good nor bad, but fiercely loyal. In the original tale, he went unmentioned, yet he followed Fang Zhiyi into exile and died beside him on the road.
"Here’s the key to my vault. From now on, you’ll liaise with these generals. Give them whatever they ask for. If it’s not enough, I’ll find a way."
"Y-yes, sir." Abao trembled as he took the key, sensing the weight of history in his hands.
Li Li emerged slowly from behind a screen.
Looking at the two young men, Fang Zhiyi smiled. "It seems I’ll be dragging you both down with me."
Li Li clasped his hands. "At your service, Chancellor!" Like Shen Xun, he was straightforward, but these days had shown him that Fang Zhiyi wasn’t the man everyone thought.
After all, what kind of villain sends his only son to the front lines?
Of course, he didn’t know Fang Zhiyi had always taken a hands-off approach with his "cheap son."
"Rest assured, I’ll secure you both a bright future."
In the palace, the Emperor paced anxiously.
Had he conceded too much? The thought of parting with three million taels made his heart ache. If only Fang Zhiyi were here! Really, it was just a son’s death—was it such a big deal?
After much deliberation, he decided to summon Fang Zhiyi.
After all, the handover of reparations would require Fang Zhiyi’s touch. He needed to set him straight.
Perhaps due to the Hu envoys, the palace guards were more vigilant than usual. Fang Zhiyi entered calmly, surprising the Emperor. Had he come around so quickly?
No matter.
The Emperor rattled off a long list of demands, and Fang Zhiyi nodded at each. Relieved, the Emperor dismissed him with a wave.
At a corner, Fang Zhiyi spotted Li Li leading a patrol. Their eyes met, and Li Li gave a slight nod.
Fang Zhiyi smiled.
In a dungeon, several blindfolded eunuchs were dragged in.
When the cloths were torn away, they saw Fang Zhiyi before them.
"Chancellor Fang, what is the meaning of this?"
"Sir, this is no time for jokes. We must return for roll call!"
Fang Zhiyi pulled up a stool. "Do you want to die?"
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.
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!
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
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."
