Chapter 1

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It hurts——

The pain is unbearable. The course of the sword blade penetrating through the chest was being endlessly dragged on. A slow, dull pain violently shot into the nerves of his brain.

It wasn’t even this painful when Rong Tang had been poisoned by a cannon fodder villain in his previous life. It wasn’t even this painful when he’d fallen down the stairs in his life prior to that.

Knowing full well that you’ve been betrayed by the person you’ve been protecting all this while is a type of torture very similar to heartbreak.

He bewilderedly opened his eyes and caught sight of the youth in front of him, who was wearing coarse hemp clothing and hiding behind the Guanyin statue in the ruined temple, hiding from the soldiers who were out to kill him. A trace of confusion flashed across his face: “Why… why…?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” The youth’s hands were shaking, and his eyes were bloodshot. The cinnabar mole in the corner of his eyes, which were usually gentle, distinguished, and affectionate, seemed like it had been stained with blood, which added a sense of roguishness: “Rong Tang, you are too close to him… I wouldn’t dare bet on it.”

He was rapidly losing blood, and his predominantly all-year-round low-temperature body could not bear it at all. His vision gradually slackened, and a buzzing sound went off in his brain. Before collapsing completely, the last words Rong Tang heard were: “Rest assured, after I ascend the throne, I shall surely confer you a posthumous title.”

In that instance, Rong Tang wanted to laugh, but when he twitched the corners of his lips, he couldn’t even form a tiny arc.

When the world fell dark and the sounds of soldiers and war horses faded away, someone fled from the ruined temple just as someone else entered.

While Rong Tang waited for the system to help him restore his consciousness, he heard a voice that sounded regretful but also very temperamental: “Prince Ningxuan? What a pity, Xingfeng——”

“This subordinate is here.”

“Just bury him.”

After that, there were no other sounds, and rapid mechanical sounds emerged in his consciousness.

[Didi——Level 1 warning!]

[Host is dead, mission suspended——]

[To accelerate the time flow, tracking male protagonist’s ending]

[Tracking complete, male protagonist died, tracking villain’s ending——]

[Tracking complete, villain not found, Dayu immersed in warfare, plot line unchanged, mission failed!]

[Immediate launch of restoration sequence, back-tracking timeline ——]

[……]

[Timeline back-tracking complete, launching the host’s third mission]

[Attention! This is the final time for the host to time travel. If the mission continues to fail, the host dies, the minor universe shall be destroyed, and this plane will be obliterated forever! ! !]

Rong Tang took a long breath, opened his eyes in the midst of the void, and called out weakly, “System.”

[Host, I am here.] The sound of the system was low and weak. It was obviously an emotionless, mechanical sound, but Rong Tang could hear a trace of fatigue.

He smiled and asked, “Do you think I’ve made a mistake?”

The system doesn’t speak, and the core, consisting of data streams, can’t provide him with an accurate reply.

It has known its host for seven years. During these seven years, they’ve quarrelled and disagreed. When contradictions emerged, it even got angry like a human and shut down the host’s authority.

But until the two missions failed in succession, it reviewed every step that had been taken and did not discern which step the host took was wrong.

“Perhaps this world is faulty.” Rong Tang spoke softly, lowering his gaze and looking at his chest. There was no gap there.

He never thought that one day he would be killed by the male protagonist.

This was the world of a novel called “The Emperor’s Journey”. The male protagonist is a typical head-of-the-family character with extraordinary luck and countless imperial concubines. He grew up in the cold palace under pitiful circumstances and aspired for the imperial throne all the way.

Except that last point is merely the reader’s conjecture when reading the novel.

The protagonist in “The Emperor’s Journey” is indeed a main male character, and he deserves to be on the golden throne.

——If only the author hadn’t arranged an orphan of the late emperor, who was far better than him in everything, as the major villain.

Emperor Renshou ascended the throne through illegitimate means and thus plotted rebellion.

In the twenty-fifth year of the late emperor’s reign, sudden changes occurred in Dayu.

The barbarians from the northern territories invaded, the southwestern vassal kings assembled their own armies, the sycophants controlled the imperial court, and the eunuchs were in charge of the imperial harem. The late emperor had been wise for over twenty years, but even when he died, he could not figure out why the Dayu empire fell into devastation in just three months.

The late emperor was asked to hang himself in the Qinzheng Hall. The crown prince died in action defending the countries’ borders in northern Xinjiang. The third prince, who went south to quell the rebellion, was beheaded by his own uncle and hung on the rebel war flag. The fourth princess jumped off the city walls, giving her life for the country. For a time, in Dayu Palace, there were those who died and those who fled. Blood flowed for hundreds of miles, staining the four towering gates of the capital red.

The imperial palace caught fire, and the young seventh prince died in the flames.

Emperor Renshou succeeded in his rebellion and ascended to the golden throne in one fell swoop. As soon as he took the throne, he issued an edict listing dozens of sins of the previous emperor, labelling him as fatuous, unprincipled, and unbecoming of his status. The changeover of throne was the direction of heaven.

But in fact, not all of the former emperor’s sons had died. The one who perished in the fire was the body of a young eunuch who had yet to be castrated and had been brought in by the wet nurse to replace him. The young seventh prince had been covertly sent out of the palace to live in someone else’s house while keeping his identity hidden.

With a blood debt in his hands, he would naturally become the biggest obstacle in the way of the male protagonist’s ascension to the throne, as well as the biggest villain in the entire story.

Under normal circumstances, the villain exists to betray the protagonist and temper the protagonist’s character. However, the author probably made the villain’s character too beautiful, powerful, and tragic, and wholeheartedly bent on revenge. In the end, the power of literature could not control the character, and the one who ascended the throne had turned into the villain, Su Huaijing.

Rong Tang was only able to read until here, before the story was reported and locked. The subsequent information was supplemented by the system after he’d transmigrated.

After Su Huaijing ascended the throne, he penalised injustice and exacted revenge. He massacred the imperial court, campaigned in northern Xinjiang, and turned Emperor Renshou into a human pig. The male protagonist, who had fled, was placed on the entire country’s wanted list.

He’d become a tyrant through and through, sitting high in the imperial court and planting chess pieces behind the scenes.

But in fact, Su Huaijing didn’t want to be an emperor at all. He didn’t love his people, nor did he love this country. All he wanted was the destruction of the entire world.

He spent several years fostering a group of ministers with rebellious intentions. When they matured and the young emperor stepped down from the throne, the flames of war swept across the territory of Dayu with a wave of his hand.

The nightmare from many years ago invaded again, and desperation shrouds once more. Except that this time, multiple forces are fighting. No one can predict who will be the final winner.

The emperor eyed the rebel army heading north and finally revealed a delighted smile.

The plot line has critically collapsed. The male protagonist died at the hands of the villain, and the emperor isn’t approved by heaven. The entire world is on the verge of collapse and is urgently in need of correction.

But the consciousness of the minor universe has only formed recently, and it doesn’t have the ability to directly control or kill the villain. So it seized over a lucky person from another world and promised him benefits to complete the mission.

This lucky person is precisely Rong Tang.

He transmigrated into the sick little cannon fodder with the same name in the book, and naturally, he was unable to compete with the villain. As such, the ultimate mission assigned to him by the system was to protect the male protagonist from being killed by the villain.

Rong Tang was more fortunate than other transmigrators. He has three chances.

For the first time, Rong Tang depended on the existence of the cheat code—which is the original plot—to secretly help the male protagonist avoid several of the villain’s attacks. As a result, he became so well-known that Su Huaijing’s confidants noticed his existence and directly poisoned his tea, causing him to kick the bucket.

The second time, Rong Tang felt that the penetration point might need to be changed and ran both lines concurrently. On the one hand, he helped the male protagonist elude the villain’s attacks, and on the other hand, he tried to find a way to establish contact with Su Huaijing, attempting to dispel his idea of killing the male protagonist. But before Su Huaijing could kill him, the male protagonist lost his cool and felt that Rong Tang had betrayed him, which brought about the earlier scene.

Rong Tang inwardly surmised that he might have made a mistake.

He was so good to the male protagonist that even if he died for him, it was well deserved.

The soul slowly returned to the body, and the profound awareness of low temperatures was once again buried deep in the bone marrow. There was an itch in his throat, and Rong Tang stifled a cough.

“Young Master! Young Master is awake!” There was an excited voice beside him. Rong Tang slowly opened his eyes and saw a thick, antique bed with elegant, complex carvings.

Here we go again, he thought.

There was plenty of charcoal in the house. Three braziers of red charcoal worth one or two thousand gold had been lit as if they were free of charge. The level of extravagance was such that even Rong Tang was amazed every time he saw it.

But there’s nothing he can do. If the room wasn’t a little warmer, this body of his wouldn’t even be able to survive past this year’s spring.

Rong Tang called softly, “Shuang Fu…”

“Hey! This servant is here!” A young boy of about sixteen or seventeen years old kneeled beside the bed to serve him. He couldn’t help shedding two streaks of tears when he heard the voice. His dumpling-like, round face looked rather comical when he cried.

Rong Tang smiled. From one previous life to another, Shuang Fu was unable to accompany him to the end. The child died before reaching the age of twenty.

“Go fetch me a glass of water,” he said.

Shuang Fu hastily responded, got up, and staggered for a bit. His legs had lost all feeling after kneeling for too long.

The space between Rong Tang’s eyebrows twitched a little, and he quietly released a sigh.

I’ve got to teach you again…

Hopefully, I can teach you this time.

He was already tragic enough, having died twice for the male protagonist. Shuang Fu shouldn’t die for him a third time.

Was there anyone who served others to the point of not caring about their own life or death?

Warm water was quickly brought over. Shuang Fu helped Rong Tang sit up. He moistened his lips first and then let the tea flow down his throat to warm his body.

Rong Tang said, “I want to sleep for a while. If the Wang Fei* comes looking for me, inform her that I will pay my respects to her when I am well.”

(*TN: address for the wife of the prince or duke.)

Right now, he needs to pay attention to a single line of thought. There is something wrong with this transmigration. If he has to proceed the same way as the previous two times, what remains is the word “death”.

Moreover, this time it was even worse. The system had directly issued a warning. If he failed again, he wouldn’t be the only one; the entire world would be destroyed.

But……

What does this have to do with Rong Tang?

He delved deep inside himself for the first time, pondered for a long while, and called the system “System aaa.”

[Host, I am here.]

The system was rarely so gentle. Rong Tang is somewhat unused to it. He curled his lips and said, “I may not be the saviour.”

The rewards obtained for the system’s mission were too great.

For everyone else, the word ‘saviour’ is a natural temptation and responsibility.

But this responsibility has nothing to do with Rong Tang.

He was someone who died in the current era. He’s already lived two more lives and profited.

He is not an original character in this world. The lives and deaths of these people seem to have nothing to do with him.

Rong Tang attempted to convince himself. The system remained silent and watched him in the conscious space, giving himself one reason after another.

After a long time, the host finally seemed to have gotten over it. He smiled. His complexion was pale, but in fact, it was always indifferent.

“I can’t save this world.” Rong Tang said.

There was a moment of confusion in the main brain’s data flow. The system watched silently, not letting the slight confusion disturb Rong Tang.

[Alright] it said.

Rong Tang smiled again, raising the corners of his lips in a gentle curve. “But I want to save someone.”

There is a huge map in the system’s void. A white ball within it flashed. Looking into the distance, someone has entered the capital from Sichuan province and is about to disrupt the situation.

After a long time, it replied, [Okay.]

“Thank you.” Rong Tang smiled and fell into a deep sleep again.

He is so tired.

The author has something to say:

The author’s sweet story is about two little cuties falling in love and pretending to play house in a daycare.

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