Reborn as a regent who holds the entire court in his sway, I barely had time to settle into my seat before the young emperor on the throne and the empress dowager behind the curtain smiled and offered me a cup of poisoned wine.
Outside the hall, soldiers lay in ambush. Poison-coated crossbow bolts waited in the rafters, and behind me stood an old eunuch grandmaster with silver needles.
It was a perfect death trap.
But I seemed to have found a bug.
I died from the poison. Everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was kneeling at the very moment they offered me the wine.
The first time, the poison ate through my organs.
The second time, I was riddled with crossbow bolts.
The third time, the old eunuch killed me with a single silver needle.
The tenth time, I overturned the table and set everything ablaze, hoping to take them all down with me.
Death was my only way to beat the game.
I began using every death to reset the game.
At first, all I wanted was to survive the night and bring down the minister who framed me. Then I set my sights on exposing the mysterious organization called the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, secretly manipulating the fate of the dynasty.
They thought killing me once would be enough.
They had no idea that after dying hundreds, even thousands of times, I had seen through everyone's hand, memorized every hidden passage, and anticipated every betrayal.
The empress dowager thought she was the one moving the pieces? The emperor thought he ruled the realm?
No.
In this game built on death, I alone make the rules.
"It's my turn to run the game."
