Your Majesty, Your Royal Aura Is Truly Impressive

Zhangtai Yu served his childhood friend, the crown prince, for five years, helping him hold onto the throne. Then rebel forces stormed the city.

An enemy general wearing an ugly Nuo mask stepped into the golden hall, carrying the new emperor's head. He laid a blade against Zhangtai Yu's throat and asked with a laugh, "I've long heard of Young Lord Ling's virtue. Would you be willing to serve me?"

Zhangtai Yu declared, "The emperor guards the nation; I will die for it." He pressed the blade hidden in his sleeve into the man's heart and died for his country.

Reborn, Zhangtai Yu returns to his youth. He has yet to enter court and is merely an overlooked adopted son in a minor official's household.

After piecing together the timeline, Zhangtai Yu realizes that his seemingly gentle childhood friend is actually betraying the country. In his previous life, he prided himself on his integrity, but in truth, he served as a corrupt official his entire life.

Zhangtai Yu: ...This is the sort of thing that makes you slap yourself awake, even in a dream.

Given another chance, Zhangtai Yu decides: For the people, and for the sake of his own principles, he'll support someone else this time.

Shuiqiu Heng, the marquis's heir from the neighboring estate, is a notorious young wastrel in the capital. His daily routine: climb onto rooftops and scatter money in the streets, turn down confessions from noblemen's daughters, then go home and get a beating.

According to an unreliable rumor, the beatings inflicted on Second Young Master Heng would stretch all the way around the capital if laid end to end.

"Tell me, how do I stop getting beaten?" Shuiqiu Heng asks, troubled.

Zhangtai Yu answers with a straight face, "Become emperor."

Shuiqiu Heng: "Huh? Me?"

"Yes, you." Zhangtai Yu says solemnly, "You have the aura of a king."

And so Shuiqiu Heng actually washes his hands and starts planning a coup.

Everyone: These two have gone mad!

The whole capital waits for the Zhangtai and Shuiqiu families to be exterminated down to the ninth degree.

Who could have guessed that the two would join forces and speedrun the emperor route in a year, repel foreign threats, pacify the realm, and usher in decades of peace and prosperity?

Everyone: ...Young Lord Zhangtai, what a discerning eye!!

Zhangtai Yu chose Shuiqiu Heng to support in this life for one reason: he was obedient.

And Shuiqiu Heng seems far from the hopeless wastrel described in the rumors. The two even work together with remarkable ease.

On the eve of the coronation, Zhangtai Yu watches the new sovereign handle everything with composure and sighs with satisfaction: So all those beatings I had ready were for nothing.

That night, the new emperor pins him against the imperial bed. Holding Zhangtai Yu by the waist, he laughs softly. "I'd gladly take a beating from you, Lord Ling. I'm just afraid you won't have the strength for it."

Zhangtai Yu gasps amid the disheveled bedding. Something familiar, a Nuo mask, digs into his waist. When he looks closer, his eyes widen in shock.

#Damn it, I put the rebel from my previous life on the throne!

On the new emperor's first day in power, the young and celebrated chancellor Zhangtai Yu calls in sick and stays away from court.

Officials inside and outside the court worry that the ruler and his minister have fallen out. After court, they go to the Zhangtai residence to visit, only to discover the new emperor himself attending to the sick man, holding Young Lord Ling's hand and never letting go.

After the emperor leaves, the ministers can no longer hold back their question: "Young Lord, how did you manage to pick such a promising talent as His Majesty from among all those mediocre men?"

"Because he has the aura of a king." Zhangtai Yu recalls the new emperor's robe, stretched nearly to bursting between his neck and waist, and says faintly, "...What a huge kingly aura."

#A thirteen-inch kingly aura really is impressive, folks.

Blurb screenshotted on March 2, 2026.

Title to be changed.

Theme: Compassion for the people, loyalty to the emperor and country