I Became My Own Villainous Ancestor

I spent my whole life studying the greatest villain in my family, and when I opened my eyes, I had become him.

I’m Chen Du, a modern financial risk analyst. I’ve studied Ming history for over a decade, and the one figure I’ve always felt sorry for is Chen Youliang, the “villain of a chaotic age” whom Zhu Yuanzhang had been beating down at Lake Poyang for six hundred years.

Then I dug out the family genealogy and discovered: oh, he was my thirty-third-generation ancestor.

Then I was electrocuted. When I opened my eyes, I had transmigrated back to the seventeenth year of the Zhizheng era and become Chen Youliang himself, fresh from killing Ni Wenjun.

Other people’s ancestors are loyal ministers and great generals. Mine was a warlord who nearly brought down the Yuan dynasty.

Other people transmigrate and try to get close to the protagonist. I transmigrated as the protagonist’s greatest villain.

So what are we waiting for? Let’s change my fate!

My strategist defects in the middle of the night? No problem. I’ll slip him false intelligence in advance and make him a free spy I planted beside Zhu Yuanzhang.

A turncoat general plans to betray me? No problem. I’ll put his head in charge of the troops and turn all of Ni Wenjun’s former men into loyalists who are as good as dead to the world.

Zhu Yuanzhang is still messing around with his crude gunpowder made from one part saltpeter, two parts sulfur, and three parts charcoal? I’ll make granulated gunpowder and crush his firearms advantage three hundred years ahead of schedule.

Years later, Zhu Yuanzhang stares at my new cannons on the battlefield, eyes bloodshot as he asks, “Chen Youliang, who are you really?”

I wipe my hands and remember the look in my grandfather’s eyes as he clutched the family genealogy on his deathbed.

Grandpa, don’t regret it anymore. This time, I’ll win for your villainous ancestor.