"Have you heard? They say the Emperor is here."
"The Emperor? Is that true?"
"Word is he's raising an army to crush the rebels."
"Come on, we can't even get enough to eat. Why worry about all that?"
"Then what are you doing here?"
"Just here for the spectacle. I've never seen an Emperor before."
"Exactly, that's the Son of Heaven."
"Stop arguing, the Emperor is coming."
Someone pointed upward, where a man stood with his hands behind his back.
"Grand Tutor Fang, you are blocking the Emperor!" the old Commandery Governor fumed, smoke practically coming out of his ears.
"Alright, alright, I'll step aside." Fang Zhiyi moved out of the way. The young Emperor looked down at the surging crowd. It was his first time seeing so many people, and the nervousness in his heart was beyond words.
It was unclear who shouted it first: "Long live the Emperor!"
The other commoners and soldiers joined in, shouting "Long live!" and dropping to their knees in unison.
In this era, in the eyes of the common people, even a fallen Emperor was still the Emperor, the true Son of Heaven.
The young Emperor turned his head and exchanged a glance with his Grand Tutor. Seeing Fang Zhiyi's encouraging gaze, the hesitation in his eyes gradually faded. Then, he yelled at the top of his lungs, uttering a sentence that shocked the entire crowd.
"Long live the commoners! Long live the people!"
His youthful voice echoed through the air. Tens of thousands of people looked up at the young Son of Heaven, absolutely dumbfounded.
"Lao Wang, what did I just hear?" a heavily bearded man asked, picking his ear in disbelief.
"He, he, the Emperor, the Emperor, he said..."
The crowd below fell into a bit of chaos. The old Commandery Governor stared wide-eyed at the young Emperor, then realized what had happened. With a trembling hand, he pointed at Fang Zhiyi. "You, you, you insolent fool! Insolent fool!"
Fang Zhiyi ignored him, looking instead at the young Emperor once more.
The young Emperor took a deep breath.
"Long live the commoners! Long live the people of the world!"
This time, his voice carried out steadily. After a brief silence, the crowd below raised their heads one after another: "Long live the Emperor!!!"
If their previous cheers were merely following the crowd, now they were cheering willingly from the bottom of their hearts.
In the operas, it was always the commoners kneeling to the monarch and shouting "Long live." When had an Emperor ever shouted "Long live" to the commoners? They were just people who dug their food from the dirt; how could the Emperor wish them ten thousand years of life?
"A wise ruler! A wise ruler!" someone cried out, tears of excitement welling in their eyes.
"So this is the Emperor? That opera singer lied to me!"
"Your Majesty! Tell us who to fight! I, Erniu, will follow you!"
Several Black Armor Guards and two scholars who had escaped with them looked at the scene below, then at each other. They had never expected the Emperor to shout such a thing either.
Unlike the commoners, their hearts were surging with emotion, unable to calm down for a long time.
But hearing the cheers of the commoners below, they knew that the Emperor now had his own army.
The name of this army was the common people.
In short, aside from the old Commandery Governor who had fainted from anger, everyone else felt a complex mix of emotions.
Only the young Emperor stared blankly at the people cheering for him, an indescribable feeling in his heart threatening to overflow. The Grand Tutor had said that he who wins the hearts of the people wins the world. So these were the hearts of the people...
"Remember, you are the Emperor, but you are only the Emperor because the commoners acknowledge you as such." Fang Zhiyi patted him on the shoulder. This time, the young Emperor felt his shoulder grow a bit heavier. "This is a great start."
The news of the Emperor appearing in Zhangye Commandery reached the ears of the local noble families. They were naturally aware of the chaos outside. In such times, whoever held the Emperor held legitimacy, and might just become the next Guo or Huang family.
Just as the local noble families were getting restless, their gates were smashed open. Leading the charge were several Black Armor Guards, followed by a large number of soldiers wielding a wide variety of weapons. Before the noble families could react, their homes were looted clean, and their private armed forces were caught completely off guard. Immediately following this, they were put on trial directly in front of the commoners. Judging them were two unfamiliar young men. After their crimes were read out, the heads of the families were beheaded on the spot, and the younger family members were locked up, supposedly for labor reform.
"Look, the funding has arrived. These noble families are truly impressive; they can generate wealth even in the poorest of places." Fang Zhiyi grinned from ear to ear as he looked at the gold, silver, and valuables scraped from the noble families. His expression made it hard for the others not to doubt his motives.
"Remember, your Grand Tutor will teach you one more thing: be generous to your subordinates. Only when everyone shares the same interests will their efforts be directed toward the same goal. Do you understand?"
The young Emperor nodded, then turned and ordered, "Following the Grand Tutor's arrangements, carry this gold and silver out and distribute it."
"Your Majesty, these are..." A Black Armor Guard hesitated. They had finally acquired some assets, and now they were just going to give it all away to the commoners?
"Distribute it." For the first time, the young Emperor spoke with absolute resolution.
"Yes, sir!"
Fang Zhiyi gave him a gratified look. He was finally starting to look like a proper Emperor.
"Grand Tutor Fang, relying on these commoners, can we win?" Zhao Wu finally couldn't hold back and secretly asked Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi didn't even bat an eyelid. "Remove the word 'can'. Why, weren't your ancestors commoners too, Zhao Wu?"
Zhao Wu blushed slightly. "No, that's not what this subordinate meant..."
"Are there more nobles, or more commoners? Do you not know the answer in your heart? Gathering an army to suppress the rebels seems feasible, but how much wealth would it consume, and how many people would die? If an Emperor doesn't even consider his own people, who would risk their lives for him? For money? Do we have the kind of wealth the noble families do? For fame? What kind of fame can an Emperor who can barely protect himself offer?"
"Therefore, doing everything for the commoners is our only way out."
Although Zhao Wu didn't fully understand, he vaguely felt that there was nothing wrong with what Fang Zhiyi said.
Previously, when he wanted to assassinate the traitor Guo, he had also planned to kill Fang Zhiyi in passing. Fortunately, Fang Zhiyi had found him first, otherwise...
The commoners who received some silver spread the news far and wide. While they found the recent events utterly unbelievable, the Emperor in Zhangye Commandery issued new decrees. He directly abolished the various exorbitant taxes and levies that the Guo family had previously imposed through him, and he opened the granaries to distribute food. In no time, commoners from the surrounding areas rushed over upon hearing the news. When they heard that the reigning Son of Heaven was actually standing guard at the granaries and personally distributing grain to the people, almost everyone's face was filled with immense excitement.
The title of wise ruler was passed from mouth to mouth. In just ten short days, the population of Zhangye Commandery had actually doubled, and many more commoners who had received the news were on their way.
"Your Majesty." Seeing the exhausted young Emperor, the former city gate officer Lin Shucheng felt a bit sympathetic, but the current situation made him uneasy. "Grand Tutor Fang, many commoners are coming here after hearing the rumors. With such a massive movement, the news of the Emperor being here will surely spread very soon..."
Zhao Wu also looked at Fang Zhiyi at the same time. If the Emperor's whereabouts became known to those people, he feared that everything would be over.
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."
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
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?!
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.
