He Played the Foolish Emperor So Well, He Became an Emperor for the Ages

[Blurb]

Chen Ci wakes up one day as a foolish emperor.

The System tells him that as long as he keeps up the foolish-emperor act and lets the various lords overthrow Great Chu, he can become the richest person in the world.

He has to seize such a wonderful opportunity that has fallen right into his lap.

But here's the problem: how does he play a foolish emperor?

Summoning the exam-taking spirit of studying so hard that a beam holds his hair up and an awl pricks his thigh, he pores over history books and carefully studies the dregs of Chinese tradition. At last, he finds a way.

As long as he takes on the personas of every foolish emperor in history, stacking buff upon buff, how could it go wrong? It definitely can't!

Skip court, add it!

Love playing Taoist, add it!

Wala exile student, add it!

Emperor of painting and calligraphy, carpenter emperor, add them, add them!

Cruel, with a mercurial temper, add it!

Favoring villains and indulging in song and dance: these are essential traits of a foolish emperor, so they absolutely have to go in!

After poring over the history books again and again and piling on countless titles, Chen Ci is satisfied and enters foolish-emperor mode.

Thanks to his tireless performance...

He becomes an emperor for the ages!

The palace gates open beneath the nine heavens, and envoys from every nation bow before the emperor's crown.

The Chu Dynasty, an era countless people yearned for.

Emperor Wen of Chu, Chen Ci, a ruler countless people dreamed about.

When people speak of him, they don't think of his transcendent bearing and immortal beauty, recorded in the history books as being like a jade grove or a jade tree. They don't think of his ever-present smile or the imperial majesty that made treacherous men bow their heads, nor of his historic achievements in bringing the barbarians to heel and uniting the world.

Instead, they think of

[How can the Chu Emperor's paintings be so beautiful that the Chancellor and the Great General would get into a brawl in court and throw shoes at each other?]

[What kind of bewitching potion did the Chu Emperor give the rulers of those eighteen small kingdoms? They put aside their dignity to dance against each other, going for more than ten rounds. Have they no shame?]

[Does the Chu Emperor really like slender waists, or are there too many fat men in court and they're such an eyesore that he's made them all transform into college hunks?]

[What exactly was the Chu Emperor implying by splitting that peach? Did he already know the top three candidates in the palace examinations were in a polyamorous relationship, cheating on one another?]

Blurb revised: 2025.9.26

Theme: Hard work always pays off