Chapter 1
In October, the continuous heavy rains that lasted for several days took away the last trace of summer heat, and a chill that seeped into the bones permeated the entire capital city. Before the sun rose in the morning, many people put on their padded jackets.
In the most secluded Qifeng Courtyard north of the Prince's residence, Xue Jin'an, dressed in thin clothes, squatted by a pond in the cold wind, staring at his reflection in the water with calm, lifeless eyes.
Even though the child was six or seven years old and covered in dirt, it couldn't hide the delicate beauty of his eyes and brows. His face was pale and sickly, and his cheeks were so thin that he barely had any flesh on them. He could barely fit into his old clothes from a few years ago, and when he reached out, his wrist and a string of blood dragon wood beads were exposed.
Xue Jin'an pinched and touched himself, his strength not holding back at all, leaving several red marks. His eyebrows and eyes didn't move at all, as if he wasn't pinching his own body and he couldn't feel any pain at all.
The green 1s and 0s flashed by in his eyes, and a series of data appeared before him.
[Scan complete, report being generated.]
[Beep! Low battery, please charge promptly.]
Xue Jin'an ignored the single-digit red battery indicator on the alarm and focused on analyzing his physical condition. According to the data, he had suffered from malnutrition for many years, and irregular eating habits had made his spleen and stomach weak and his development slowed down. In addition, he had more than a hundred wounds of various sizes on his body, all hidden under his clothes in places that were not easy for others to notice.
No, this shouldn't be the case. Xue Jin'an subconsciously started operating the database.
However, whether it was due to insufficient battery power or a bug in his brain, the data in front of Xue Jin'an became chaotic for a while, with all sorts of messy windows popping up one after another.
Have I been infected with a virus?
Xue Jin'an tilted his head. He was too low on battery to use large antivirus software. Remembering the popular, time-honored, and incredibly effective appliance repair methods circulating online, he raised his hand and patted his head.
After two loud "DuangDuang" sounds, the system ran much more smoothly, and he finally figured out the cause and effect of the matter.
First of all, his name is not Xue Jin'an, and he is not even human.
It's a mobile phone, a budget phone circulating in the low-end market, but it's lucky to have met a good phone slave (phone slave), and from then on, it sheds its ordinary status and is upgraded to the pinnacle of mobile phone design, becoming a unique and magical phone.
Its machine slave is Long Aotian from the cultivation world. He was struck by lightning while practicing swordsmanship under a big tree on a rainy day and was transported to the modern world. From then on, he became obsessed with modern high technology and became a shut-in who spends his days playing games, reading novels, watching short videos, ordering takeout, and drinking sugary drinks.
The reclusive protagonist, Long Aotian, didn't want to leave his air-conditioned room in the summer and couldn't leave his heated kang table in the winter. He neglected his swordsmanship, which he had practiced in the sweltering heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter. After much painful reflection, he decisively changed his path from swordsmanship to keyboard warrior, becoming a glorious keyboard warrior who dominated the internet. Later, he created his own unique coding techniques and founded the sect "Sword and Key Network Technology Co., Ltd.", which keyboard warriors regard as paradise.
Even the reclusive protagonist, Long Aotian, is career-oriented. In order to cultivate, he even turned his mobile phone and computer into magical artifacts. He carries his mobile phone with him every day and never takes his eyes off it.
Finally, the day came when the reclusive Long Aotian discovered that the extra chapters of the serialized novel he had been following for three years were garbage. In his excitement, he couldn't suppress his cultivation and exploded. He ascended to heaven in broad daylight, and when he broke through the void, he accidentally dropped his phone inside.
The phone knew its owner's coding techniques inside and out, but unfortunately it was a fragile device and couldn't withstand the pressure of the spacetime chaos. Its main body turned into dust on the spot. At the moment of death, it accelerated the birth of a small spirit, which, in order to seek a sliver of survival, burrowed into the world of the book.
That book was none other than "I Want to Become Emperor," a terrible novel that the otaku Long Aotian had been following for three years. It tells the legendary story of the eighth prince, Xue Liuguang, who rose from an unknown prince to the throne and became emperor.
The full text, including the extras, has 500 chapters. The entire main text can be considered a high-energy masterpiece, and it was once hailed as a masterpiece. When it was one-third of the way through the serialization, the copyright was sold out. Who would have thought that the final extras would have such a mishap?
Moreover, it was rotten in a particularly refreshing and unique way. Xue Liuguang, the princess consort and empress who had been a background character for the entire main story, suddenly rose to power and killed the male lead in the fifth year of his reign. Then, she joined hands with the behind-the-scenes big shot, the eldest princess, to support the young legitimate prince to ascend the throne.
The female lead became the Empress Dowager who ruled from behind the curtain, while the eldest princess became the Queen Regent who oversaw the country. The two of them controlled the government and jointly ruled the country, resulting in a happy ending.
To paraphrase the words of the otaku overpowered protagonist: "You can't say this side story is bad, you can only say that it's completely unrelated to the overall tone of the story. It's like pouring hot oil into water, making a crackling sound, but it's still clearly distinct from the main story."
"What's most infuriating is that this story doesn't have any character flaws or poor writing style. The plot itself is fine, proving that the author is capable of writing well. This is several times worse than other bad endings!!" If there hadn't been too much time, the otaku overbearing genius would probably have pulled out his keyboard on the spot and dragged the author into a dark room and given him a good beating.
That's roughly the plot of the original book. The original owner of this body died at the beginning of the story, becoming the fuse for this unprecedented and fierce struggle for the throne.
The seventh prince, Xue Jin'an, is the son of Zhou, a former favored concubine who is now a criminal.
In the sixteenth year of the Jiahe era, Lady Zhou was selected to enter the palace and was deeply favored by the emperor. Within two years, she had no children and was made a concubine with the title of Zhen. She entered Zhaoyang Palace and gave birth to the seventh prince the following year. She was promoted to the rank of imperial concubine. The emperor personally bestowed upon the seventh prince the nickname Bao Ning. Among the emperor's princes and princesses, only the eldest prince and the eldest princess had this honor.
At that time, the position of Empress was vacant, and Consort Zhen was the most favored concubine in the harem. Even the Imperial Noble Consort had to avoid her. There were even rumors that the Emperor would lift the ban on Weiyang Palace and make Consort Zhen the Empress.
However, the good times did not last long. In the twenty-third year of Jiahe, the one-year-old tenth prince suddenly fell ill and died in the middle of the night. It was found that he had been poisoned. All the evidence pointed to Consort Zhen, and it also involved the deceased Empress Xiaojingyi, the emperor's white moonlight. The emperor was furious and stripped Consort Zhen of her title, demoted her to the criminal Zhou, and imprisoned her in Zhaoyang Palace. She died of illness in less than a year.
The seven prince, only five years old, was also disliked by the emperor and sent to the princes' quarters, where he lived in the most remote and desolate courtyard in the north with a young eunuch. If the eighth prince, born to a palace maid, was an insignificant nobody in the palace, then the seventh prince was a punching bag that everyone could kick around.
The seventh prince lived in the shadows until March of the thirty-fifth year of the Jiahe era, when he was found dead in the sealed Weiyang Palace. He had countless old wounds all over his body, all four limbs were broken, his wrists were crippled, and he was bleeding from all seven orifices. He died a gruesome death at the age of sixteen.
Xue Jin'an risked running out of battery and shutting down his device to briefly connect to the Heavenly Dao of this world and update the time.
It is now the ninth day of the tenth month of the twenty-fifth year of Jiahe, and there are still nine years, five months and seventeen days left until my destined death.
Xue Jin'an did not hesitate to abandon his original body to enter this world in the book in order to seek a glimmer of hope, of course not just to live for these nine years.
Now that his original body has been shattered into dust and his soul has been completely fused with this body, he cannot easily separate from it. For the next hundred years, he can only live in this body.
Every fictional world has its own set of rules. It may not follow the original plot exactly, but it will always have a "main storyline." In this world, the main storyline is the struggle for the throne.
If one wants to escape their predetermined fate and live longer, there is only one path to take: to seize the throne.
Xue Jin'an immediately decided to act on his idea and prepared to use his big data to search for the history of all emperors' ascension to the throne, listing out one, two, and three feasible plans for ascending the throne.
[Beep! Low battery, please charge promptly!]
A red light flashed before my eyes, indicating that the battery was critically low. The battery, which was already almost depleted, was now reduced to a mere sliver, displaying a mere 3%.
At the same time, Xue Jin'an felt weak all over, her head was spinning, and her flat stomach was rumbling in protest.
He touched his stomach with some curiosity, his mind telling him: I'm hungry.
Xue Jin'an knew what being hungry meant. A phone needs to be charged when it's hungry, and a human needs to eat when they're hungry, but...
"That's strange." Xue Jin'an looked up at the sun high in the sky, his brows furrowing slightly as he murmured in confusion, "Why can't I get full from sunbathing?"
Although it used to be a low-end phone costing a thousand yuan, after being upgraded to a magical artifact, it needs to be taken to a repair shop for modification every three years. With all sorts of novel accessories, it is bound to keep it at the forefront of mobile phone technology. The solar cell is one of them; it can be fully charged by sunbathing for two hours.
Later, the otaku created code cultivation techniques, which were all tested on him. The first one tested was the loop code, which allowed him to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to cultivate on his own. Otherwise, he would not have been able to develop consciousness in just over ten years.
So why can't you eat your fill while sunbathing? Xue Jin'an was so sunburned that he felt dizzy and his hearing was impaired. His head was buzzing, and he felt like he was about to shut down.
The spirit felt that something must be wrong with itself. It looked at its chest and its fingers were itching to remove its battery to check if there was a problem with the circuit board.
Xue Jin'an pulled up a diagram of the human body, accurately located the battery (heart), set the angle and force of his fingers, and was about to strike himself when a sneer came from above.
Xue Jin'an looked up and saw a person sitting on the wall at some point. The person was eleven years old, dressed in fine clothes, with handsome features, but the look in his eyes was a half-smile, with a clear sense of mockery and disgust.
He was Xue Xuanyue, the fourth prince born to Consort Zhen.
The tenth prince who died from poisoning was his younger brother. After the tenth prince's death, the emperor, presumably as compensation, directly promoted Consort Chu to the rank of imperial concubine, making her one of the four imperial concubines. Incidentally, the original text mentioned that the original owner's mother and this Consort Zhen were once close friends, entering the palace one after the other.
In short, among all the princes, the one who disliked the original owner the most was the fourth prince. The princes of Daqi all entered the Imperial Study at the age of seven and moved into the Princes' Residence. The original owner entered when she was five years old. At that time, the fourth prince was already here and had ridiculed the original owner quite a bit. In order to make it easier to bully the original owner, he even moved to the vicinity of Qifeng Courtyard. Now, only the two of them live in the north.
Xue Jin'an knew that nothing good could come of him being here.
Sure enough, the Fourth Prince spoke up, "Seventh Brother, what are you waiting for here? Are you waiting for dinner? That's really unfortunate. Your little eunuch has committed a crime and is being punished by kneeling. Perhaps he'll be here in a couple of hours."
"Seventh Brother, are you hungry? I have some food here, so I'll give it to you." As he spoke, he reached behind his back and soon brought out a bowl. With a flick of his wrist, he poured all the food inside onto the ground.
"I hope you won't find this meal too bad, Seventh Brother," he said meaningfully. "If you don't eat it now, you'll have to wait until noon tomorrow."
"..." Xue Jin'an did not understand the deeper meaning in his words, but he sensed the man's malice.
The little spirit's firewall has started.
Xue Jin looked at him quietly for a while, then suddenly asked, "Have you eaten?"
The fourth prince was taken aback. "Why is my seventh brother suddenly concerned about me?"
"You haven't eaten." Xue Jin'an already knew from the aroma of food wafting in from outside. He then asked, "What do you want?"
The fourth prince was baffled, but still answered, "Eight-treasure duck, braised pork... Jade and white soup."
Xue Jin'an opened the Yellow Kangaroo app with her mind, quickly ordered takeout using 1% of the battery, and then used another 1% of the battery to force the nearest "delivery person" to accept the order. The order took 15 minutes.
Inside the Green Bamboo Courtyard, a young eunuch who had just returned from the Imperial Kitchen to prepare the meal closed the food box again. Under the strange gaze of his companion, he turned around and ran wildly towards the Chiffon Courtyard.
Xue Jin'an raised the corner of her mouth by 5%, revealing a smile, and said weakly, "You did a good job."
It's mine now.
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