Chapter 7.5 – Intermission
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A bright and tender boy woke up particularly early that morning. His hair was a deep golden color and was cut to shoulder length. Although, most of the time it would puff up and seem shorter than it actually was - especially in the morning.

One particularly voluptuous woman on the other side of the bed sensed his movement and opened her eyes lazily.

“Hmm…?” she murmured, then sat up. “Dear, is something the matter?”

“Surprisingly, no. I haven’t felt this peaceful for a while, despite getting about three hours of sleep this morning. Plus, the cold morning air is particularly refreshing in autumn, and I’d like to see the sunrise for the first time in a couple of centuries,” the boy replied, rubbing his eyes.

The woman used the fluffy golden blanket to cover her nudity. “Maybe this is how you ought to start your birthday from now on.”

“It’s my birthday? I’ve had enough birthdays to last an eternity. What is it now? Thirty thousand and…”

“Five hundred seventy-three. Well, seventy-four now.”

The boy snapped his fingers, and a troupe of maidservants quickly trotted in the room, then dressed him in elegant golden robes that matched his hair (which was combed and fluffier than a cloud by the time the maids had left).

Another maid came hurrying in and asked, “Your Imperial Majesty. What would you like for breakfast?”

“Good question. I’ll have something light. Megalodon sushi sounds nice.”

The woman was also quickly dressed by another squad of maids, and she headed for the gold-plated door while the boy was still pondering about his plans for the day.

“Well, I’ll be off. I’m expected to be at a tea gathering by noon,” she said.

“Better yet, you could help me do my job,” the boy replied.

“You don’t seem like you need my help. I’ll bring you some snacks from the meet.”

“Are you kidding? Filling out documents is absolute torture. The least you could do is talk to me while I’m doing it.”

“Wouldn’t you just lose your focus if I talked with you while you filled out documents?”

“You underestimate my power of multitasking. It’s been honed to perfection for thirty thousand years.”

“I don’t expect you to be interested in petty bickerings and drama about other aristocrats.”

“Good point. I remember the last time I tried to listen to your stories a couple of centuries ago, and I couldn’t believe we had people that stupid in charge of our estates and cities.”

“Yes, I do seem to recall that you attempted to enact a purge before forgetting that you needed the council’s approval. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

She trotted off, and the boy groaned, then snapped his fingers again. He ordered the servants to directly deliver the sushi to his office - he had something special planned.

The office was a short walk away from his personal quarters, which was already larger than the average house. 

Gleaming marble paved the floors of the halls, and masterful paintings were hung up on the walls. He could recall a couple of them but had more or less shelved that information into the back of his mind after millennia of simply not giving a fuck about who or what the paintings were supposed to represent.

Cheeves, his personal butler, was already at the ready when he entered his office.

He pulled open his desk drawers and began to sort through ancient stacks of paper that he remembered writing a couple thousand years ago. Surprisingly, they didn’t crumble to dust the moment he touched them.

“...Cheeves,” he said.

His butler stood at the ready. “Yessir.”

“Where are my first-generation poems?”

“Please elaborate. Sir.”

“My poems. My earliest poems. Five thousand years ago. When I started getting into poetry. Where are they?”

“I was hoping you would never ask that question. Uh...Sir.”

“...Cheeves.”

“Yessir.”

“What happened to my poems?”

“I shipped them off to the Duke of Huan City. Sir.”

“How did my poems end up on the other side of the country?”

“I made a mistake three hundred years ago. Sir.”

“You do realize those poems are relics that are worth more than your life, right? What happened three hundred years ago, anyway?”

“We were at war with the Tiberaan States, sir.”

“I don’t see how you go from war to giving the duke my poems.”

“With all due respect, sir, the treaty agreement and your poem collection looked extremely similar. And the Duke was supposed to proofread and sign the treaty as well, as he used to be in your council.”

The boy buried his face in his hands. “You are not serious.”

“...”

“Hold on, so if the treaty agreement was never delivered, then are we still at war?”

“Officially, yes.”

“What, you’re telling me that they just stopped fighting and walked away?”

“With all due respect, sir…”

The boy groaned, then leaned over the desk and massaged his temples. 

“Sir, are you alright?”

“Shut up, Cheeves. I’m trying to remember how to end a war. I recall that it involved at least five signatures from my court at some point in the process. Was this war before or after the one where it became a war crime for me to enter the battlefield?”

Cheeves opened his mouth to speak, then clapped it shut when the boy held up his hand.

“Nevermind, don’t answer that question. If it was before, then we would’ve won that war.”

The butler gave him a short bow. “Perceptive as ever, sir.”

“Was that sarcasm? I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Please do not execute me, sir. If heads must roll, then do it to my family instead.”

“I thought you didn’t have a family.”

“Well, now I’m depressed after hearing that, sir.”

The boy dipped one of his many brushes in ink and began to recreate the treaty through pure muscle memory. “Yeah, go cry to your nonexistent mother or something. Check if my sushi is ready. Tell them to hold off on the wasabi, but have extra pickled ginger. No sauce, either. I’m not in the mood for salty food.”

“You have no sense of appreciation for Hintar culture, sir.”

The boy sighed and tapped the desk with the end of his brush. “Go get me my sushi, Cheeves.”

 

Empress Dowager Linang flicked her forked tongue out to test the temperature of the tea, then sipped on it quietly while listening to the other empresses discussing their business.

Officially, there was no Empress Dowager position, but everyone recognized her to be so anyway due to the fact that she was the only wife who had ever slept with the emperor. Most of the time, she only put on her true form after she had gotten ready for the day, as it would cause her to bump into things when her legs turned into a snake’s tail while she was still sleepy. Sometimes, she would even unconsciously unhinge her jaw and swallow her breakfast whole.

Beautiful silver scales ran down the back of her neck to her spine, then covered her entire lower serpentine body. She wore a dress that split in half from the back and often had a set of scarlet robes on. Her eyes were a rich golden color, and her pupils were dark vertical slits.

“You know,” said one of the empresses that had fluffy wolf ears and an equally fluffy tail. “The other day - I swear, my friend can be so dumb sometimes - she asked me if the western continent was to the south or the north. Like, am I supposed to know that?”

One whose entire lower body was made up of six thick tentacles presented Linang with a hairpin made out of nightsteel, an alloy that was so dark it looked as if it were always wreathed in shadows whether it was dusk or dawn.

“I haven’t thanked you for helping me with that border dispute,” she said. “I think this hairpin would do for a great contrast on your shiny silver hair.”

“Really? I’m grateful. Most of the time I get sent earrings and necklaces with these enormous jewels that I never wear.”

Compared to the others, Linang didn’t wear as much jewelry as they did, but always put on a fancy hairpin after tying a portion of her long hair into a looping shape on the back of her head. 

“Looks like I made the right choice, then,” the one with the tentacles sighed in relief. “Do you ever feel like it’s a little too peaceful around here?”

“I consider that a positive,” Linang replied.

“No, I mean, like, as part of the imperial family in a wuxia webnovel. Normally, you’d expect some kind of fight for the throne or something about a lowly maid rising in the ranks and becoming the empress.”

“That’s...actually, you’re probably right. I mean, I’ve been waiting for a guy from another world to reincarnate into the dead body of a eunuch or something, but so far, nobody’s been muttering to themselves about a ‘scheming system’ or causing an uproar by insulting a rich second generation. I suppose the day we all suddenly become illogical and idiotic is the day that we know some twenty-first-century Chinese guy has reincarnated in our world.”

>universe_id=10298745

>planet=Earth

>leyline=false

>ERROR DETECTED

>troubleshoot

>error=fate_level 2

>killfix=enable 1

>localization_western set 0

>author_personality set 5

>power_fantasy enable

 

Dong Zhenya, for whatever reason, was a prodigal child. Ever since birth, he had displayed vast amounts of intellect. Always the top grade of his class, and always the most attractive man in the room.

He graduated at the top college in C-country when he was 16. A future brighter than the heavens was ahead of him. And yet, he was now drifting through the darkness.

The last thing he could recall was a sudden heavy impact as he was crossing the street.

And then, he opened his eyes.

“...What is this?” he muttered to himself. “How can I, Dong Zhenya, who was a top genius playboy, let myself die like this?”

At the very least, he would have liked to have left the world protecting someone he loved!

“Eh...these memories are not mine! Who is this, another Dong Zhenya? He shares my name? How strange. Could it be...I have reincarnated into another version of myself in another universe?”

Perhaps, as it turned out, the multiverse theory was true after all.

It was a world much unlike his own. Immortals who cultivated to become stronger ruled over humans, and engaged in vicious wars over territory. Demonic beasts roamed the forests and mountains, preying on unsuspecting men.

Before his death on Earth, Dong Zhenya had lived a very comfortable life thanks to his own capabilities. However, in this world, it seemed that Dong Zhenya was a man to be pitied. Such a sad state, how could any version of himself turn into such a disgrace, ah!

A green tea bitch by the name of Yin Rong seemed to have been the cause of his pain. She held onto his golden thigh, using his position as a young immortal to push herself up in society. Pretending to be virtuous, she sucked the money out of his pockets and promptly left him to marry another immortal of higher standing!

“Impossible! How could I, in this world, fall for such easy tricks!” Dong Zhenya exclaimed angrily, admonishing himself. 

He looked around and immediately came to notice that a sword had been plunged through his heart. His blood had seeped into his clothes already, making it soaking wet.

Shouldn’t I be dead? This is...scary, to say the least.

There was no way he was going to walk around while being impaled, so he gripped onto the handle of the sword tightly and yanked it out as if he were quickly tearing off a bandage. Miraculously, the hole in his chest began to mend itself at an incredible rate. He felt his heart begin to beat as if it had never been stabbed in the first place.

He picked himself up and began to search his room. A suicide note was placed on the floor. Dong Zhenya didn’t need to guess twice to tell why there was a sword through his heart.

Crushing the note in his hand, he declared, “Yin Rong! I will have my revenge!”

He was going to make a name out of himself in this world. But a world where one had no power was a cruel world. Cultivation was mandatory. If he wanted his vengeance to go anywhere, then he would need to obtain strength. After all, a strong man could beat ten martial artists. 

Still, he needed to establish a foundation for his life in this new world. The transferral of bodies was not flawless. Bits and pieces of his memories were blank as if fragments of his mind had been removed.

Looking down at his bloodstained body, he realized that he was going to have to change his clothes before doing anything.

As of right now, it seemed as if he were in his bedroom. Sliding the bloodied sword and clothes underneath his bed, he threw on the most comfortable-looking robes in his wardrobe and prepared to head out.

No, wait. Hold on.

He threw open the curtains, and bright sunlight filled the room. Presumably, it was noon. Had he been dead ever since midnight and nobody checked on him until now, or had he died earlier?

His stomach growled.

“Alright, I guess I should get something to eat, then. Who knows, maybe I’ll like the cuisine of this world?”

The servants of the house whispered rumors to one another as Dong Zhenya strolled through, admiring the impressive architecture of the manor. From what he could tell, they held no malice or goodwill. All they seemed to have was pity for him.

Rather than pity, hatred or love was a preferable alternative for him. Although, it wasn't as if he was incapable of changing his reputation.

The most handsome man he had ever seen in his life was sitting at the dining table when he arrived for lunch. For a moment, he was stunned before reminding himself to get used to immortals being inhumanly attractive.

His father, Dong Tao, looked like a model teenager (despite being well over three centuries old) and had an energetic look about him that one simply couldn’t expect from an elderly man. Jet black hair, a smooth face, and a well-muscled body made him give off an incredibly cool impression.

Although, his father was not his biological parent, as immortals were incapable of reproducing, and seemed to pop up around the world out of nowhere.

“You look much better,” Dong Tao exclaimed, raising his eyebrows. “After locking yourself up for a week, I was getting worried.”

“...Where is my mother?” Dong Zhenya asked.

“She should be having tea with some of her friends right now. Sit down, have something to eat before starting your day.”

“Mm. You’re right.”

Dong Zhenya was paranoid about not acting like how he should but felt comforted after his father didn’t ask about anything that changed in his personality.

A steaming hot platter of what appeared to be filleted fish was placed in front of him.

He wasn’t exactly confident in the taste of meat that could have very well come from an enormous sea monster, but picked up his silver chopsticks and went in for a taste.

However, just as he looked at his food a bit closer, something popped up in his vision.

Text in a strange font had, for some reason, appeared above the food.

Strike Tuna Meat, it read. Status: Edible.

Was this normal? Dong Zhenya looked up at his father, who seemed to have not noticed it. 

He stared at the text a bit more, expecting a type of description to show up. But nothing more happened. Although, he was quite glad that the text didn’t disappear after a couple of seconds. Or end abruptly and unexpe-

 

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