Is It Wrong to Conquer the Ghost Realm by Spitting Blood?

Wan Jiu died, but not completely.

When he opened his eyes again, he had become an unlucky guy wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

In his previous life, he was a “defective product” who suffered constant bullying. In this life, he's a sickly weakling who coughs three times for every two steps he takes.

Life as a person is hard. Life as a ghost is even harder.

Wan Jiu's face is pale, and he looks half-dead and listless. Yet he turns around and claims the Nine Rivers of the Ghost Domain, then starts building infrastructure in the wasteland. He doesn't have any special skills. For some unfathomable reason, though, all the ghosts bow before him and call him “King.”

It's just that being the Ghost King doesn't quite fit the image.

In the eyes of his subordinates, the King is inscrutable and always three steps ahead.

In the eyes of his enemies, the King is frail and would topple if you so much as pushed him.

The Ghost King in reality coughs up blood as he beats people up, then gets carried back and force-fed medicine. The whole routine goes as smoothly as water flowing through a channel.

And so word spreads through the three realms: The ruler of the netherworld is breathtakingly beautiful, but unbelievably frail. Even a strong breeze might blow him away.

Until the sky of the netherworld begins to leak.

The heavens split open, and countless flames rain down.

That sickly weakling, who is always curled up and coughing blood, flies up against the rain of fire. Drawing on the power of the three realms, he burns his broken body like a torch and forcibly welds the shattered sky back together.

Later, the Ghost Domain gains a moon, fireworks, and its first festival.

Wan Jiu stands by the railing with a cloak around his shoulders, watching the lights of countless homes fall like a river of stars. The corners of his eyes curve into a smile.

From “defective product” to “someone others need,” the road has been a hard one, but somehow he's made it to a place filled with light.

Coming soon: Please Draw Your LR-Rank Sickly War God. Blurb below.

Other people draw cards. An Xian draws his fate.

Draw a card, enter a world, and risk your life all over again.

Debt weighing him down, a body ravaged by a serious gastrointestinal illness, and a past of abandonment and betrayal... An Xian's life is a never-ending nightmare full of twists and turns.

When he first started streaming “Phantom Card,” his equipment was terrible. The first time he drew a rare story card, the chat was full of people mocking him.

He silently climbed into the device and, with his body wracked by spasms of pain, pulled off a comeback against all odds.

Overnight, he gained more than ten thousand followers.

The night his followers passed a hundred thousand, his stomach hurt so badly his vision blurred, yet he drew an infernal-level dungeon. In front of the camera, he delivered a winning blow with lips gone purple. Behind it, he curled up beside the device, unable to speak from the pain.

[His lips look so pale today, QAQ]

[Help, his hands are shaking! End the stream!]

[Waaah, please go to the hospital!]

His fans adore the effortless finishing blows he lands in the worlds inside his cards, and worry even more over his fragile appearance outside the cards, pale as paper and drained of all color.

Later, the industry is shaken to its core, and a conspiracy comes to light.

The lone wolf who was once beaten until his stomach caved in and buried under debt gathers companions who offer him their true hearts in return for his own.

His fans discover that the top-tier star they made through their own spending is using his utterly ruined fate to rewrite the rules of the industry for them.

Welcome to the Phantom World, ruled by streamer An Xian. Draw a card and witness a legend.

[Reading Guide]

1. The protagonist's daily routine: coughing up blood, stirring up trouble, being pampered, then coughing up blood again.

2. The protagonist has a captivating, everyone-loves-him quality, and becomes more doted on by the whole cast as the story goes on.

3. The relationships are like family, the bond between a ruler and his loyal subjects who spend every day together, and the mutual respect between allies and comrades-in-arms.

4. No romance. Everyone has a one-sided crush on the protagonist. He fiercely protects his precious kids, but never reciprocates their feelings.

5. My take on the netherworld and its monsters, with extensive original worldbuilding. No need to research or fact-check it.

Regarding the cover character design: The design is an authorized, commercially usable online asset purchased by the artist. It is not exclusive, but the cover is fully licensed and the design is unique.

The initial blurb was written on August 30, 2024.

All subsequent revisions have been archived.

Premise: Living together in peace.