EHW Ch1

“How could this be! Generals Sui and Chen are founding heroes of the realm! How could His Majesty order their entire households confiscated so casually?!”

“Prince Yan is of Your Majesty’s own blood. He has committed no grave offense, how can you strip him of his lands?”

“Disrespecting the spirits! Defying the ancient laws! Showing no reverence to the sages!”

“Your Majesty—!”

The clamor of voices finally pulled Gu Fangzhi out of his daze.

He blinked as though waking from a dream, and among the crowd of ministers kneeling with their foreheads pressed to the ground, he stood out all too clearly.

Immediately, someone behind him tugged at the hem of his robe in panic.

“Lord Gu, Lord Gu, lower your head! Quickly, bow your head!”

But Gu Fangzhi seemed oblivious.

He possessed an exceptionally beautiful face—skin smooth and pale like porcelain, and clear, peach-blossom eyes that naturally curved as though smiling.

His long dark hair was half-tied with a crown, a few stray locks disobediently curling against his temple.

And on his fair cheek, there was a tiny beauty mark the color of rouge, like a drop of blood on snow, making his already striking face almost breathtaking to look at.

Yet what didn’t match that beautiful face was the expression of blank confusion and faint frustration resting upon it.

Because, honestly, who wouldn’t be frustrated?

The situation was simple enough:

He had transmigrated.

From an ordinary, upstanding teacher-in-training of the People’s Republic, he’d somehow ended up inside a web game he once played called “Founding Emperor.”

That game was a small text-based strategy AVG about warring states and power struggles.
The protagonist started as a lowly soldier and had to climb his way up, through scheming and battles, to become an emperor.

Gu Fangzhi had only clicked into it by accident, planning to play for a bit and close it. But in just ten minutes, he’d died over a hundred times.

Starved to death.

Died of thirst.

Twisted his ankle and died.

Caught a fever and died.

Stabbed by stray swords, beaten to death…

The number of death endings was absurd.

But Gu Fangzhi hadn’t become the protagonist.

He’d transmigrated into a minister from the enemy kingdom the protagonist would conquer one year later, a man who, by sheer coincidence, shared his exact same name.

That minister wasn’t even high-ranking, just one of the new officials handpicked by the late emperor to serve the new ruler.

The original Gu Fangzhi took full advantage of this privilege: indulging in pleasure, amassing
wealth, and forming corrupt cliques, living the dream until—

—One year later, the protagonist rode in on a white horse.
The nation fell. The mountains and rivers turned to dust.

Sigh.

If that wasn’t a cannon fodder role, what was?

And worse, he was cannon fodder with only one year to live.

Gu Fangzhi, still dazed, looked up toward the throne.

High above the hall, atop the golden dais, sat a man draped in heavy imperial robes, reclined lazily on a solid-gold dragon throne, his chin propped on a loosely clenched fist, posture full of bored disinterest.

His sleeve slid down his arm, revealing faint blue veins beneath pale skin, elegant, slender, and cold.

The beaded curtain of his crown obscured most of his face. Gu Fangzhi couldn’t see his full expression, only the pale lower half and a pair of thin lips curved in a faintly mocking smile.

This was Pei Xin, Emperor of Great Qi, and the final boss of Founding Emperor, the tyrant the protagonist would one day overthrow.

Pei Xin, it was said, had inherited his father’s cruelty perfectly, ruthless, arbitrary, paranoid by nature.

Within just one year of ascending the throne, the number of officials—both loyal and corrupt, who died by his hand had reached the hundreds, if not a thousand.

Judging by the scene now, Pei Xin must have been emperor for less than three days.

After all, the ministers still dared to advise him openly.

Give it a bit longer, once he started killing anyone who dared to contradict him, no one would be left to speak up.

And by then, the game’s protagonist would arrive with his army.

‘No, no, anything but that. I don’t want to die.’

The chorus of ministers’ voices rose again, but the young emperor atop the golden dais merely leaned further to one side, clearly losing interest.

Before Gu Fangzhi could organize his thoughts, the little emperor suddenly straightened slightly in his seat.

Pei Xin spoke in an unhurried, glacial tone:

“Silence before me.”

His voice was low and cold, like jade steeped in melted snow—so icy it made people’s skin prickle.

Lowering his gaze, he idly toyed with the white jade ring on his finger, then swept his eyes over the assembly.

“Drag them all out,” he said lightly. “Behead them.”

The words dropped so suddenly that even those well aware of Pei Xin’s temper, his volatility even as crown prince, were stunned speechless.

No one had expected him to actually order executions during morning court.

The hall fell deathly silent.

Time itself seemed to stop; no one dared breathe.

After a long moment, the only sound was a faint click, someone’s teeth chattering uncontrollably.

The guards on both sides exchanged a glance.

Then, as though making a grim decision, they stepped forward in pairs, seizing the nearest officials and twisting their arms behind their backs to drag them out.

An elderly minister with white brows and beard was hauled out backward, shouting in desperation:

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! The age of chaos has ended, peace reigns under Heaven! Benevolence and mercy are—”

His plea was cut off when a guard clamped a hand over his mouth.

His face turned crimson, his eyes wide with despair.

Gu Fangzhi swayed slightly where he stood.

As the soldiers dragged the men past him, he could see their legs kicking helplessly.

In the game, ordering a massacre had been nothing more than a single click.
Lives were just numbers.

But now—

Something churned uneasily in his chest.

Before he could think, Gu Fangzhi had already leapt to his feet.

The man who’d tugged at his robe earlier hissed in shock.

“Lord Gu, Lord Gu—what are you doing?! You’re… you’re remonstrating?”

His voice was thick with disbelief.

Remonstrate?

With Pei Xin, the “If anyone dares displease me, all nine generations of their family will be executed; whoever dares lecture me will suffer the most extreme punishment; whoever criticizes me in the streets shall be granted death by their own hand” kind of emperor?!

How many lives did he think he had?!

…And yet—

That said…

In the game, depending on the route the player took, the original character’s fate varied.

Sometimes, he annoyed Pei Xin so much that the emperor simply had him executed on the spot.

Sometimes, he was slain by the conquering protagonist’s blade.

Most of the time, however, the game’s text never even mentioned what became of him, like a speck of dust lost at sea, forgotten and unnoticed.

Yet even those few scraps of script made one thing clear:

The original Gu Fangzhi actually had a pretty high survival rate under Pei Xin.

Probably because he’d been personally appointed by the late emperor, compared to other courtiers, those “inherited officials” tended to live a bit longer.

Gu Fangzhi thought perhaps he could use that to his advantage.

If he could really persuade Pei Xin to turn into a wise and benevolent ruler…

maybe he could also escape the death flag that awaited him a year later?

With that in mind, Gu Fangzhi clenched his fists inside his wide sleeves and raised his gaze toward the dais.

Pei Xin, of course, noticed the courtier who had suddenly stood up.

The emperor’s head tilted slightly in Gu Fangzhi’s direction, the beaded curtain of his crown swaying faintly with the motion.

Gu Fangzhi could feel the gaze land on him, cool, assessing, tracing over him inch by inch.

Like a snake.

Forcing down his nerves, Gu Fangzhi began,

“Your Ma—”

The moment he spoke, every pair of eyes in the hall turned to him.

Everyone knew who Gu Fangzhi was—

one of the ministers left behind by the late emperor, a man who usually stared at people with the calculating look of a merchant sizing up how much skin he could strip from them,
his handsome face often twisted by greed and avarice until it inspired nothing but disgust.

But now—

that pretty, fragile-looking face was stripped of its usual vulgarity.

Those peach-blossom eyes trembled faintly, the light-colored irises shaking with fear or nerves,
clear and transparent in a way that shocked anyone who looked.

Before anyone could process the change, Pei Xin’s cold voice drifted from the throne above:

“Drag him out with the rest. Behead him.”

Gu Fangzhi: “……”

So much for that “high survival rate,” huh?

As the guards with vicious expressions strode toward him, his vision went black.

But then, something felt wrong.

It wasn’t metaphorically black. It was literally pitch dark.
As though someone had thrown a heavy black cloth over his eyes.

Then, a line of glowing text slowly floated up before his vision, faint at first and then growing clear:

【Congratulations, player, you have reached a Bad Ending, The Headless Minister Incident.】

Gu Fangzhi: “……”
‘What… the hell?’