From the Start, I Had Five Out of Nine to Choose From, Yet I Only Pick Fakes to Be Foolish Emperors

[Alternate History] [System] [Choose Five of Nine] [Impostors] [Ensemble Cast] [Transmigration] [Absurd Comedy] [Unconventional Emperor] [Fresh Premise, Adaptations Welcome] [Written the Old-Fashioned Way, 100% Handcrafted]

Li Jianguo dies suddenly and transmigrates into the body of an emperor.

The Great Yin is a dynasty in its final days, rotten to the core.

The court is riddled with longstanding corruption, barbarians threaten from the north, and pestilence festers in the south.

The Yellow River floods every year, and the imperial treasury is running empty.

With disaster looming from the start, he activates the Choose Five of Nine Foolish Emperor System.

In other words, whenever something important happens, it gives him nine options, and he has to pick five on the spot!

Choose five of nine? Be a foolish emperor?

Easy!

He picks the most outrageous options and becomes a happy-go-lucky foolish emperor.

Zhao Gao? Beady-eyed and shifty-looking, clearly a treacherous minister. Pick!

Li Guang? His name sounds unlucky. He'll definitely ruin me. Pick!

Su Daji? A fox spirit and a future temptress. Pick!

Chen Ergou? With a name like that, he'd better be greedy. Pick!

Zhang Xuanzhen? A Taoist who blows up latrines. Pick!

And the results?

Zhao Gao creates government bond futures, doubling the treasury in three months.

Li Guang uses magnetic cannons to drive back a hundred thousand barbarian cavalry.

Su Daji opens a hot pot restaurant chain, creating forty thousand jobs.

Chen Ergou grows hybrid rice that yields eight hundred jin per mu.

Zhang Xuanzhen blows up a cross-border irrigation canal with a thunderbolt.

Li Jianguo reads the reports of a peaceful, prosperous age, clutches a dragon pillar, and wails: "I want to be a foolish emperor!"

System: [Sage Emperor of the Ages Progress: 25%]

One late night, Zhao Gao knocks and enters with a cup of milk tea, his expression complicated.

"Your Majesty, may I boldly ask: If the first line is 'Odd changes, even stays the same,' what comes next?"

Li Jianguo: "...The sign determines the quadrant."

Zhao Gao drops to his knees. "I'm a 985 graduate! Your Majesty, which university did you attend?"

Li Jianguo: "...I went to Lanxiang."

"I keep picking treacherous ministers, so how did I end up choosing an alliance of impostors?"