The Emperor’s Inner Thoughts Are Truly Unpleasant

Kuang Ye discovers he's the opening cannon fodder in an ancient novel. Day after day, he wanders around the city pretending to be blind and swindling people, not to earn money for his sister's medical treatment, but because it's part of the novel's "setting."

He dies when rebel troops breach the city, marking the beginning of the entire story.

After his death, the novel's protagonist, a tyrant, makes his official debut. The tyrant uses ruthless methods to bring the various factions to heel by himself, then personally plunges the realm into chaos.

Kuang Ye learns all this because he suddenly starts hearing other people's thoughts.

These people don't belong to this world. They're powerful veterans who retired from an infinite-flow game and were sent here to farm.

Oh, even his sister is fake.

The veterans have incredible skills, and they know the plot.

By listening to their thoughts and relying on his knack for cheating and swindling, Kuang Ye survives the plot point where he's supposed to die. Faced with a blank "fate" from now on, he decides to take a chance.

He has no family or ties in any real sense. The only person he can trust, the only one he cares about, is himself.

He'll climb as high as he can and make something of himself in this chaotic world.

On the eve of the city's fall, Kuang Ye meets a pitiful refugee. The refugee's hands are frozen stiff, and Kuang Ye can't hear a single thought from him.

Guessing that the refugee is an "NPC" like himself, Kuang Ye coaxes him into bed and takes good care of him. While the other man is asleep, he steals his family heirloom jade pendant, sneaks out of the city in the middle of the night, and leaves him behind without a second thought.

After escaping with his life, he heads for the imperial capital, using his God-given ability to make his way toward the center of power.

Until he stands in the palace hall and looks up at the emperor, the biggest villain in the whole book, then suddenly stumbles.

Isn't this the little beggar he tricked out of his jade pendant and abandoned in a ruined temple when he was down on his luck back then?!

What? How could the pitiful boy who'd carefully wrapped his cold body around him in the freezing wind, burning with fever and babbling as he begged him not to leave, be the protagonist described in the book as "nine feet tall, violent-tempered, and a ruthless killer"?!

What? The jade pendant he stole was the young emperor's token for commanding the army, and it nearly got him killed along the way?

As Kuang Ye thinks this over, the sinister tyrant fixes him with a cold smile.

"I hear you can read someone's mind just by touching hands and looking into their eyes. So, do you know what I'm thinking?"

Kuang Ye remembers the emperor was delirious with fever at the time and probably doesn't remember what he looks like. This is probably just a test of his ability, so the emperor can use him later.

So he steps forward and takes the emperor by the wrist.

"..."

H-How come I can't hear anything at all?!

"Well, my dear subject?"

Kuang Ye looks up and sees the bastard emperor staring at him as if he wants to eat him alive.

Much later, Kuang Ye finally starts hearing the emperor's thoughts now and then.

The first thing he hears is: "Tsk, his waist sure is slender."

Kuang Ye: ?

Theme: Change your fate through hard work