Can a Treacherous Minister Ascend the Throne?

[Pre-Release Next Door: Everyone Loves the Senior Brother] Transmigrate-into-a-book, cheat-enabled, scheming junior brother gong x righteous-to-a-fault, single-mindedly devoted-to-the-Dao senior brother shou. Blurb below. You’re welcome to add it to your collection!

[Narcissism]

[Clear as moonlight, gentle as a breeze, and noble x A moody, unpredictable villain] [Gentle, sweet-on-the-outside, dark-on-the-inside puppy x Sickly, ghostlike kitty]

An atypical story of going from universally hated to universally adored, also known as The Possibility of a Treacherous Minister Making History After Switching Careers to Raise a Child

At a young age, Ruan Yi rose to the position of chancellor. In just a few short years, he wreaked havoc throughout the court and beyond, becoming a truly despicable, unforgivable villain hated by both officials and commoners.

Make too much evil and you’re bound to get what’s coming to you. Before the seventh winter was over, he had become a soul beneath the executioner’s blade.

Ruan Yi’s soul floated in midair, watching the smug little men before him. He touched his neck and laughed as he cursed himself:

“I should have been harsher back then.”

He had lost by a single move, letting them manipulate him for years. The slander they’d pinned on him would fill three pages and more.

If he could live again, the first thing he’d do upon seeing those people would be twist their heads off and kick them around like balls.

Ruan Yi never thought that one day his words would come true.

Everything began anew. Dragging around a sickly body, he hadn’t even started plotting his revenge when he heard a familiar voice mocking someone from inside his carriage.

He lifted the curtain and saw his younger self being beaten and berated by a crowd, not even daring to fight back.

Looking at his own eyes, red with anger, Ruan Yi felt a headache coming on. At last, he could take no more. He climbed out of the carriage and kicked the other person in the butt.

“You really are asking for it.”

In his previous life, Ruan Yi would never have imagined that this time around, he’d have to raise a kid on top of dealing with court officials.

His younger self was clearly nowhere near as shrewd and calculating as he would become. Every time Ruan Yi glanced back, he found Ruan Zhuo staring at him intently. To him, the boy looked just like a fluffy puppy who’d picked its owner.

Ruan Yi figured he must have been out of his mind to take the boy home.

He regretted acting on impulse, but what was done was done. All he could do now was hope the useless pup would get a little more capable and turn into someone worth employing.

So the slender tobacco pipe kept landing on the boy’s hands, leaving streaks of red.

But...

This little brat was growing up. Why did his face get redder the more Ruan Yi hit him?

It wasn’t until Ruan Zhuo deliberately kept his injuries and deliberately got close to Ruan Yi, baiting him into smacking his palm, that Ruan Yi finally tossed aside his pipe and gave him a weary kick.

At least his audacity was just like Ruan Yi’s. The boy even dared to rebel against him.

Raising the kid wrong was trouble enough. Who could have guessed that the court would start acting strangely, too?

The officials who had once wanted to hack Ruan Yi to pieces now prostrated themselves before him every day.

“Your Excellency deserves to be enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple!”

Ruan Yi, who had heard that several times in one day: ...Hah.

He hoped that if he ruled the realm one day, these old men would keep calling out to him like that.

Reading Notes:

1. Ruan Zhuo is the gong and Ruan Yi is the shou. They are the same person in a past and present life. Younger gong, strong couple, an atypical story of going from universally hated to universally adored. The main focus is on their careers, and romance develops along with the plot. Because of the plot’s scope and its suspenseful atmosphere, the early chapters spend more time on the gong’s and other supporting characters’ perspectives, depicting and exploring the shou from the outside. But the subject of exploration, the main character’s growth, and most of the highlights and core story belong to the shou, so the story is primarily told from the shou’s perspective.

2. The shou is volatile, vindictive, and cold-hearted, a full-blown lunatic. Early on, personal gain matters more to him than feelings. The gong isn’t a good person either, and has a pain fetish. His feelings for the shou are also rather unhealthy. They scheme against each other, but in the end they’re a perfect match. They absolutely adore each other. If this isn’t your cup of tea, please steer clear.

3. The dynasty is fictional, and there will be plenty of implausible and strange worldbuilding mixed in, so don’t take it too seriously = =

4. Extreme character loyalists, please don’t read this. Either one you’re loyal to, they’re the same person.

[Pre-Release: Everyone Loves the Senior Brother]

[Transmigrate-into-a-book, cheat-enabled, scheming junior brother gong x Righteous-to-a-fault, single-mindedly devoted-to-the-Dao senior brother shou]

Also known as My Popular, Overpowered Senior Brother

When Chen Yang came down from the mountain after shattering his thirtieth demonic crystal, he rescued a young boy. From then on, aside from sword practice, his junior brother became the person he worried about most.

For this junior brother’s sake, he halted a beast tide in the dense forest, overturned the old rules of the immortal sects, and even went through heavenly tribulations twice. He became the kind of senior brother other sects’ elders held up as an example to their own disciples.

His cultivation was outstanding, he was ruthless against demons, and he could make money for his sect while raising its youngest junior disciple all on his own.

But as he raised the boy, Chen Yang began to think his junior brother might be sick in the head.

He wanted to hold hands during meditation, insisted on hugging during sword practice, and, after they returned to their wooden cabin at night, wanted to discuss the Dao of dual cultivation with him.

Fortunately, the sect was harmonious, and Chen Yang didn’t cultivate the path of heartlessness. As long as his junior brother didn’t go astray, Chen Yang didn’t really understand it, but was willing to indulge him.

Until, three hundred years later, Chen Yang reached the Void Refinement realm and experienced his first inner demon.

In the illusion, the world split into four, and his junior brother vanished through the skies.

So he really hadn’t learned a thing.

Chen Yang pushed open the wooden door. His junior brother was outside, showing off his tea-acting skills. Chen Yang silently drew his sword.

“Want to practice swordplay with your senior brother?”

Nangong Fu read a power fantasy novel.

In the book, everyone knew its protagonist, Chen Yang. The Nightglow Sword in his hand reflected his chivalrous heart and masterful swordsmanship, and his future was boundless.

Though tossed about like duckweed, he rose to great heights, slew a flood dragon in the open sea, and struck down birds from sheer cliffs. Wherever his sword flashed, demons and monsters were all but wiped out.

The world respected and praised him, but could only gaze up at him from afar.

Nangong Fu scoffed at such a contrived persona.

There was no such thing as a true savior with no desire for fame or fortune.

So when he died, he readily agreed to the System’s offer: kill the protagonist in exchange for his own life. He became Chen Yang’s junior brother.

It wasn’t until his sect went from an obscure little school to a place everyone in the cultivation world longed to join that he finally realized:

Chen Yang was such a wonderful senior brother, and he belonged to Nangong Fu alone.

The hand that held the sword, callused and warm. The back that carried him home, straight as a pine. So he grew even greedier, wanting to coax the man into kissing him, to see if the lips his senior brother pressed together while meditating were just as soft.

Like everyone else, he had fallen in love with his senior brother. He no longer wanted to make a deal with the System.

But in the end, things didn’t go as he wished.

Reading Notes:

1. Younger gong, strong couple. The second half of the blurb is the junior brother’s memories from his previous life.

2. At its heart, this is a feel-good story about raising a disciple, falling in love, fighting monsters, and leveling up. But the senior brother is a developing, overpowered protagonist who inherits neither his previous life’s cultivation nor most of his memories. He starts over from scratch. His true strength lies in his unwavering core: no matter what people or circumstances he encounters, his goals never change.

3. The junior brother has a System. In his previous life, his feelings for his little Yang senior brother were sincere, but he also had his own motives. He’s neither wholly good nor wholly evil, and he’ll grow as a person. He just loves putting on an act and playing the tea-loving schemer; he isn’t weak.

4. Attacks of any kind against either the senior brother or junior brother won’t be accepted, so readers with extreme character loyalties may want to steer clear.

Theme: Self-redemption