Soon, others stepped forward to voice their grievances, accusing Fang Zhiyi of forging imperial decrees and slaughtering numerous court officials and gentry who had attempted to flee. They knew that if they didn’t seize this moment to fight back, allowing Fang Zhiyi to consolidate his power would only make their lives more miserable in the future.
Emperor Shunying slightly closed his eyes. Fang Zhiyi observed him from the corner of his eye. In the original plot, this emperor had indeed trusted Fang Zhiyi implicitly. But now, after quelling the rebel army and taking control of the Xuanjing Bureau, Fang Zhiyi’s reputation was bound to spread far and wide. No emperor would tolerate a subordinate who commanded greater trust and admiration than himself.
"The pardons Fang Zhiyi issued were authorized by me," Emperor Shunying declared calmly as he reopened his eyes. "Moreover, when the rebels besieged the capital, I made it clear that from myself down to the commoners, all were to follow General Fang’s orders. Did you fail to understand?"
He suddenly stood up, grabbed several memorials from the table, and hurled them to the ground. "Look! This is the so-called Grand Secretary Chen, whom you praised for his scholarly integrity! He actually wrote to the rebel army, plotting to open the city gates under cover of darkness and surrender! And this one—your so-called loyal subject—was preparing to flee through the western gate with his concubines and servants!"
The crowd below immediately fell silent. Fang Zhiyi couldn’t even be bothered to glance at them. He had instructed the Xuanjing Bureau to send evidence to the palace for every action they took—or fabricate some if none existed. By both reason and principle, he had nothing to fear from their accusations.
"A bunch of useless fools!" Emperor Shunying panted, struggling to calm his anger before turning to Fang Zhiyi. "My dear minister, what do you have to say?"
Fang Zhiyi rose to his feet, prompting the emperor to hastily motion for him to sit back down.
"Your Majesty, as you know, I have never been fond of courtly disputes. Let them say whatever they wish. However, I do have a memorial here that requires Your Majesty’s approval." With that, Fang Zhiyi presented a document.
A eunuch took it and handed it to Emperor Shunying.
As he read, the emperor’s brows furrowed. He glanced uncertainly between Fang Zhiyi and the memorial before lowering his voice. "Fang Zhiyi, are you certain you want me to decide on this matter?"
Fang Zhiyi nodded.
Emperor Shunying shot an impatient look at the curious courtiers and ordered them to leave. Once the hall was empty, he even dismissed his personal eunuchs.
"Zhiyi, we’ve known each other since childhood. You know how much I trust you. But this…" The emperor hesitated. "There’s no precedent for this in history. I don’t seek glory, and future historians will surely brand me a tyrant. But if this goes wrong, how will I face my ancestors in the afterlife?"
Fang Zhiyi stood and clasped his fists. "Your Majesty, if that’s the case, let me take full responsibility."
Emperor Shunying was taken aback. Though he was a mediocre ruler, he was still the emperor. He understood Fang Zhiyi’s implication—the infamy would fall on him, while the glory would go to Fang Zhiyi.
The emperor gazed deeply at Fang Zhiyi. "I must admit, when you stood on the city walls fighting the rebels, I doubted you. I wondered if you would turn your spear toward the palace—if it came to that, whether you would kill me." His voice carried a hint of remorse. "But I wasn’t wrong. You are still you—my great general."
He took a deep breath. "In my ten years on the throne, Wei Wu has deteriorated to this state. Since you are resolved to act, how can I let you bear the disgrace alone? Let us share the burden, ruler and subject!"
Fang Zhiyi was genuinely moved by the emperor’s words. But before he could respond, Emperor Shunying stood and patted his belly. "Proceed as you see fit. I must return now—I promised Concubine Xiang three extra nights with her if we won the battle."
He turned to leave but suddenly paused. "Remember, Fang Zhiyi, every action you take has my approval."
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
Before dawn the next day, columns of armored soldiers marched swiftly through the streets, each led by a dozen Xuanjing Bureau agents.
Many officials were still asleep when they were dragged from their beds and thrown into the Xuanjing Bureau’s dungeons, bewildered by their sudden arrest.
This inexplicable wave of raids plunged the recently stabilized capital back into tension. Many citizens shut their doors, peering through cracks as soldiers hurried past.
Unease spread like wildfire. Ministers who caught wind of the situation rushed to the palace, only to be told the emperor would not hold court for several days. Any matters were to be reported to Chief Eunuch Gao Liang.
Someone shouted outside the palace gates, "Your Majesty! Fang Zhiyi is staging a rebellion! Half the officials from the Six Ministries have been arrested! Won’t you intervene?"
Of course, there was no response—only the silent approach of the imperial guards. Acting on orders, they neither dispersed the crowd nor retaliated, merely using their bodies to push the protesters farther away so their cries wouldn’t disturb the emperor’s leisure.
Some ministers gathered to discuss the crisis. With the emperor absent and Fang Zhiyi commanding both the Xuanjing Bureau and the imperial guards to arrest people indiscriminately, they were all doomed if this continued. How could the emperor allow such a thing?
"A tyrant! A tyrant!" The old scholar wept bitterly.
His disciple clenched his teeth. "Master, if this is how it is, we must warn our families to prepare." Behind these scholar-officials stood powerful aristocratic clans, their wealth and resources vast enough to rival the throne. It was said that of the empire’s wealth, the commoners held one part, the emperor three, and the great families the remaining six.
"If we unite, what can Fang Zhiyi do to us?" The disciple’s face twisted with determination, ready to fight to the death.
Other factions took a different approach. A group of scholars, incited by their mentors, staged a sit-in before the palace gates. Their leader held aloft a silk banner inscribed in blood-red ink, denouncing Fang Zhiyi for arbitrarily arresting and persecuting scholars in an attempt to destroy Wei Wu’s foundations.
The guards at the gate watched coldly, unmoved.
By midday, several scholars had fainted under the scorching sun. When some tried to leave for food and water, they found their path blocked by a line of imperial guards.
"By His Majesty’s decree, since you chose to sit here, you may not leave. The palace gates are not a marketplace—you cannot come and go as you please," a eunuch announced before turning away without another word.
The aristocratic clans in the capital had begun to react, but they were too slow. Before their private militias could assemble, Xuanjing Bureau agents had already broken down their doors.
"Why are you arresting people indiscriminately? My Li family was honored with an inscription by the late emperor himself!"
"The Xuanjing Bureau needs no reason to make arrests," the lead eunuch replied coldly. Recently, he had been quite satisfied. Since Cao Ji’s death, this once-shadowy institution had stepped into the light. No longer bogged down by petty political investigations, they now expanded their reach through bribery and recruitment. With orders from above, they arrested at will, and their privileges had grown—Chief Eunuch Gao Liang had even declared that the Xuanjing Bureau now held the authority to execute first and report later, personally approved by the emperor. Their backs straightened with newfound pride.
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."
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?!
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.
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.”
