I’m Li Huan, a hardcore player of Huaxia Civilization 666. When I woke up one morning, I had become the most pitifully doomed NPC in the game: Li Zhu, the Tang Dynasty’s Emperor Ai.
A real poisoned cup from the start, and nothing else to my name.
My only perk was the flashy-sounding Eternal Emperor Foolish Ruler System, but its quests were all bizarre tasks like “use a chicken to divine the weather in public” and “escape with chili peppers.”
To stay alive, I packed some chili peppers and a deafeningly loud chicken, fled Luoyang in the middle of the night, and headed straight for Wuyue to seek refuge with Qian Liu, the Wuyue king and grandfather of Qian Hongchu.
And so began my “diligent” life as a foolish ruler:
While others fought for supremacy, I farmed.
While others schemed in the palace, I devoted myself to one woman, my beloved commandery princess, and signed a prenuptial agreement promising to be together for life.
While others recruited famous generals, I became obsessed with collecting cards, determined to assemble a “New Twenty-Four Meritorious Officials of Lingyan Pavilion” with pure bloodlines and an all-SSR roster.
My motto was simple:
Farm steadily and grow in secret. Keep your head down, and you win!
Infighting? What a waste.
Our goal is the stars and the sea!
To rule the oceans and expand our territory!
Why did all the clamor of unifying the realm, and the splendor of all nations paying tribute, feel so familiar?
This life really did turn out exactly as I wished!!!
Was it all just an empty dream, gone in a flash?
Until, a thousand years later, I saw a portrait of “Emperor Taizu Li Huan” in a museum, and in a glass case, the rust-covered… screaming chicken, displayed as a “national treasure.”
