AEGA CH2

Wan Jia was completely dumbfounded.

In the illustration, only the Emperor’s back was visible as he held the young man in his arms, leaving his facial expression unseen. Lu Xuechao’s expression, however, was exceptionally clear. He leaned against the Emperor’s shoulder with deep attachment and closed his eyes. His long eyelashes brushed down gently, his complexion was pale, and his lips were as red as blood. Ever since Wan Jia let himself go and aggressively expanded his harem, Lu Xuechao had never smiled again. Yet at this moment, a faint, gentle smile played on the corners of his lips, looking exactly as tender as the day they first met.

—If it weren’t for the fact that his elegantly slender hand was still stained with blood, proving he had just used a sword to drive through both of their hearts, this painting could actually be considered warm and sweet, like the most intimate embrace between a pair of lovers.

But now, there was only a tragic beauty—a tragic beauty so profound it was terrifying.

Wan Jia: I don’t understand it, but I am deeply shaken.

“This game has a bug!” Wan Jia threw his mouse in frustration. “Why can a character with a Martial Arts stat of 20 successfully assassinate me when I have a Martial Arts stat of 100?! Is this even logical?!”

The live chat was completely spammed with a massive wall of hahahas.

【Totally predicted this. Another one slaughtered by Lu Xuechao. All newbies have to die by Lu Xuechao’s hand at least once; no one survives.】

【Lu Xuechao himself is the bug. The Emperor’s Martial Arts stat is 100, so when any other assassins come, they all get counter-killed. Only Lu Xuechao gets a flawless kill every single time; he never misses.】

【Lu Xuechao is the biggest antagonist in this game. Not only does he commit regicide in the Emperor Route, but when I played the Consort Route, I don’t even know how many times I died by his hand. I had to reload my saves countless times; it’s practically a psychological trauma.】

“Alright, game over. I’ve streamed long enough today, it’s time to log off.” Wan Jia glanced at the time gloomily. “Be there or be square at the same time tomorrow. Let’s do another run; I don’t believe I can’t survive until the ending.”

He shut down the stream and immediately went online to search for a guide on Xiangjianhuan.

He couldn’t afford to die so inexplicably again!

Wan Jia felt incredibly aggrieved. He hadn’t particularly neglected the Empress; he still ran over to chat with him every two or three days, and his Favor stat was maintained above 60. Why did he still get killed? The Noble Consort he had invested was incredibly sweet; with a Favor stat of 60, the consort was already profoundly grateful and kept a joyful mood every single day. The consort was nothing like the Empress, who was so impossible to handle.

He searched and found the game forum for Xiangjianhuan. It was filled with threads posted by players—chats, complaints, and guides for everything imaginable. Wan Jia clicked straight into a stickied, featured guide thread.

The guide was exceptionally comprehensive. Wan Jia took notes seriously, striving to achieve a perfect completion tomorrow in front of his stream viewers.

The Emperor had five attributes in total: Mood, Appearance, Talent, Martial Arts, and Diligence. Among them, the Mood stat was completely useless; players initially couldn’t figure out what the point of it was. When a player indulged in beauty and neglected morning court, the Emperor would become anxious and angry. When a player favored anyone other than Lu Xuechao, the Emperor would feel disgust and resistance. When a player casually punished Lu Xuechao, the Emperor would feel heartache and guilt. But that was it; it didn’t trigger any changes in the plot.

Later, some players discovered that the Emperor’s Mood would affect his Appearance stat. If the Emperor kept a joyful mood, he would remain infinitely charismatic. If he remained constantly depressed, his complexion would become awful, his appearance downcast, and his grooming sloppy. Making the Emperor happy was way too difficult; one had to simultaneously achieve the conditions of being “Most Holy and Wise” and favoring the Empress exclusively. Virtually no players would do this, as it completely ruined the gaming experience.

However, it wasn’t a big deal; having the Imperial Academy of Medicine brew a “Beauty and Soul-Clearing Pill” could solve the problem instantly.

Therefore, nobody cared about the mood of the tool-like Emperor. The one controlling the Emperor was the player, and when playing a game, the player’s own happiness was what mattered most.

As for Appearance, Talent, and Martial Arts, these three stats were maxed out at the start. However, Appearance would decline if unhappy, Talent would diminish if not exercised, and Martial Arts would rust if not put into real combat. One could grind these three stats by visiting the Imperial Academy of Medicine, the Library Tower, and the Martial Arts Training Ground. The higher the attributes, the easier it was to raise the favorability of the corresponding consorts. For instance, some consorts were ultimate visual-reliers, some liked poetry and songs, and some were passionate about martial arts sparring. Improving oneself helped in pursuing beauties.

—If you were utterly worthless, then only an exclusively favored Empress would love you. If you couldn’t even manage to be faithful, you could unlock the achievement: [Loathed by All].

Among these, the Martial Arts attribute was heavily emphasized in the guide; it was crucial to keep it above 90. Of course, if the Diligence stat could be kept above 60 at all times, they could pretend they hadn’t mentioned it.

The Diligence stat was divided into seven tiers: 1–19 was “Devoid of Principle and Reason”; 20–39 was “Neglecting State Affairs”; 40–59 was “Slacking off”; 60–79 was “Striving for Good Governance”; 80–99 was “Governing the Nation Wisely”; and 100 was “Most Holy and Wise.” If it dropped to 0, congratulations, your nation had fallen.

The Diligence stat needed to be ground by attending morning court. As a harem game, players didn’t actually need to govern the country or handle state affairs seriously. Aside from occasionally triggering special events like political marriages with foreign countries or recruiting ministers into the harem, the players had no room to manipulate the imperial court in this game. The so-called “attending morning court” simply meant going to the front court, hearing a shout of “Long live the Emperor,” and logging off immediately after clocking in. This would yield +1 Diligence.

However, most players immersed themselves in the gentle embrace of pleasures, completely neglecting state affairs, and were too lazy to even attend morning court. When Diligence fell below 60, the Empress would refuse bedtime intimacy. Furthermore, a bunch of debuffs like state instability, surging public resentment, social disorder, and assassin attacks would be triggered, forcing the player into life-threatening dangers from time to time. At times like this, the Martial Arts stat became very important; having a Martial Arts stat above 90 allowed the player to counter-kill all assassins—except Lu Xuechao.

The moment he saw the name Lu Xuechao, Wan Jia immediately focused and took notes.

The guide mentioned that Lu Xuechao was a bug-like existence. He was the only assassin who could kill a 100 Martial Arts Emperor despite having a trash-tier combat capacity of 20 Martial Arts. Many players had reported this to the official developers, but they never received any response.

As long as the Emperor’s harem size was greater than 1, and the Diligence stat was below 60—satisfying both conditions simultaneously—the Lu Xuechao assassination event would definitely be triggered. Moreover, the exact time of Lu Xuechao’s assassination was not fixed. It could happen in the third year of the Xi Dynasty, or it could happen in the tenth year. Players had absolutely no idea when they would be slaughtered. It felt exactly like a sword hanging over their heads that could fall at any moment. They could only anxiously save their game at every single moment to avoid being taken out by a single strike, which would force them to restart everything and waste half a day of playing for nothing.

If the harem size was greater than 1 but Diligence was kept above 60, a different special plotline would be triggered. In that storyline, Lu Xuechao would wipe his sword and mutter to himself: “I originally wished to kill the unfaithful partner, but a nation cannot go a single day without its ruler. Though he failed me, he has not failed the people of the world.” Following this, he would directly slit his own throat, and he would not come to assassinate the Emperor.

However, players were mostly both unfaithful and foolish rulers. When Diligence dropped to 0, a foreign invasion event would be triggered, unlocking the [Ruler of a Fallen Nation] ending. There were quite a few players who ended up with this conclusion. In a harem game, happiness was all that mattered; being a foolish ruler who enjoyed immediate pleasures was far more joyful than being a wise ruler who worked tirelessly.

To avoid Lu Xuechao’s dead-end while remaining happy, there was only one solution: send Lu Xuechao to his death first.

The solution was actually quite simple. There were punishment options for the consorts. Light punishments included copying books or being forced to kneel; moderate punishments involved face-slapping or demotions; and severe punishments meant banishment to the Cold Palace or being stripped of rank to a commoner.

And after being banished to the Cold Palace, there were two further options: Restore Rank or Sentence to Death. Generally, once a consort entered the Cold Palace, they could never leave it for eternity unless the Emperor restored their rank. But Lu Xuechao was different. Even after entering the Cold Palace, he could still escape to assassinate the Emperor. No one knew how his 20 Martial Arts stat allowed him to bypass the heavy guard of the imperial soldiers; it was practically impossible to guard against.

Players who had suffered at the hands of Lu Xuechao would open a new run and, without any hesitation, banish Lu Xuechao to the Cold Palace right at the start and sentence him to death immediately, eliminating the future threat forever.

Though it was a pity—after all, it was hard to find a beauty more stunning than Lu Xuechao in the harem—who could help the fact that he was a beautiful femme fatale with thorns?

After Wan Jia finished reading the guide, he exited the thread and spotted another highly eye-catching title on the front page—[Save the Consort Route Players! Control Lu Xuechao!]

Wan Jia immediately sympathized. Lu Xuechao’s possessiveness was so powerful that he could commit regicide in the Emperor Route. Wouldn’t he go completely on a killing spree in the Consort Route?

Driven by curiosity, he clicked into it.

This was a complaint thread about Lu Xuechao. A massive number of Consort Route players gathered in the thread, all of them victims of Lu Xuechao.

【I beg the developers to change the probability of the main character’s name tag being flipped! I’m not asking for the dog emperor to favor me exclusively, but a fair distribution of favors is necessary! What’s up with the dog emperor choosing Lu Xuechao six out of ten times? And the remaining four times, the rest of us have to split it evenly. The developers must know that players will frantically reload their saves using the save-load method every single time until the dog emperor finally flips their own tag, right? This favor probability is too low and wastes way too much time.】

【The others are easy enough to handle. I killed off all those consorts, leaving only me and Lu Xuechao in the entire harem. You’d think my probability of getting my tag flipped would become fifty-fifty, right? Haha, nope. Now the dog emperor picks Lu Xuechao nine out of ten times. And what about the remaining one time? Does he sleep with me? No, he stays alone in his study reviewing state documents!】

Wan Jia raised a question: 【Then why not just kill off Lu Xuechao?】

He quickly received a wave of replies.

【You look like an Emperor Route player. In the Emperor Route, you are the Emperor with high status and power, so of course you can easily sentence him to death. But in the Consort Route, we start off as just a lowly male favorite while he is the Empress. What can we possibly do to him?】

【The Consort Route has an inner palace conflict system. High-ranking consorts can torment low-ranking consorts to death, and low-ranking consorts can also drag high-ranking consorts down through framing and false accusations. I thought I could stand at the top of the food chain and eliminate my rivals one by one, but Lu Xuechao completely transcends the food chain. His Scheming stat is ridiculously high; normal setups can’t frame him at all. The moment I try to start something, he will find out and punish me. He can also detect all kinds of poisoning and assassination attempts, and even turn them around to send me packing instead. I’ve already lost count of how many times I died by Lu Xuechao’s hand. This is the hardest palace intrigue game I’ve ever played.】

【As someone who has been through it, let me tell you: even if you successfully frame him, the Emperor won’t punish him severely at all. After trying every possible way to frame Lu Xuechao to no avail, I finally used a paywalled item, the Voodoo Doll. The system settings guarantee a one hundred percent success rate for framing. Sorcery is an absolute capital offense in the nation of Changli, but the dog emperor at most placed him under house arrest, and then moved into Chongxue Palace to accompany him during the house arrest. What kind of house arrest is this? Isn’t this just moving in together? Meanwhile, for the exact same offense, the dog emperor sentenced me to death directly.】

【The person above me, you didn’t get the correct usage of the Voodoo Doll. It’s useless if you frame Lu Xuechao for using sorcery on others; the Emperor will only place him under house arrest at most. You should directly use the voodoo magic on Lu Xuechao himself, cursing him to drop dead on the spot, and then he’ll be gone. No matter how smart an NPC is, they can’t resist the game settings. That’s exactly how I cursed Lu Xuechao to death. Afterward, the Emperor directly fell into deep depression and didn’t step into the harem for an entire year.】

【Only paywalled items can eliminate Lu Xuechao… isn’t that just forcing a microtransaction? Lu Xuechao is practically the natural enemy of Consort Route players. While other NPC consorts will indiscriminately kill each other, Lu Xuechao doesn’t care about those NPCs at all; he targets the player-controlled main character with precision every single time. I hadn’t even started offending him yet, and I had already been orchestrated out of the palace multiple times by him.】

【My heart is exhausted. I hope this game doesn’t release any more version updates; the more it updates, the more bugs it gets. I know a palace intrigue game needs a heavily favored antagonist boss in the early stage, but this boss Lu Xuechao is way too hard to fight. In the end, am I the protagonist or is Lu Xuechao the protagonist? I came here to fall in love with the Emperor, not to watch the Emperor fall in love with Lu Xuechao. If it weren’t for the art style hitting my preferences perfectly, I would have abandoned this game long ago.】

The Consort Route players were filled with grievances, acting as though Lu Xuechao was their personal hell.

Wan Jia: “…”

The Consort Route players were truly terrifying. Going as far as to execute a bloodbath in the harem just to make the Emperor favor them exclusively… sounded remarkably yandere. Lu Xuechao wanted to kill the Emperor to possess him exclusively, while the players wanted to kill the entire harem to possess the Emperor exclusively. For a moment, it was hard to tell who was more insane.

However, games were meant for fun, and nobody was going to act as a moral role model inside a video game. Dominating the field in the Consort Route was just like opening a massive harem in the Emperor Route; it was truly wicked, but it was also truly satisfying.

The next day, Wan Jia started his stream right on time. His previous save had already met a bad ending, so he opened a new one and started playing from the beginning. Armed with the lessons from his past failure, he was completely confident about this run.

On the first day of his reign, Wan Jia banished Lu Xuechao to the Cold Palace without any hesitation.

Comments flashed across the live chat.

【Did the streamer secretly look up a guide after logging off last night?】

【Yesterday, someone claimed that the unknown is what keeps things exciting, only to end up with an assassination by the Empress. Was it a pleasant surprise? Was it unexpected?】

【Sigh, even though I’ve banished Lu Xuechao to the Cold Palace countless times, it still breaks my heart every time I see his hurt expression. He really is incredibly beautiful…】

On the screen, Lu Xuechao was slightly taken aback. He slowly lowered his head, his eyes rimmed with a faint red: “What crime has this servant committed?”

The way the beauty questioned him while holding back tears was very pitiable. Unfortunately, Wan Jia was no longer moved—Man, your mistake lies in the fact that you killed me in the previous run.

Inside the Cold Palace, there were death sentence options: poisoned wine, a dagger, or three feet of white silk. Gazing at that celestial-like face, Wan Jia hesitated for a brief moment, finding himself a bit reluctant to strike.

After all, this was a 2D character he had exclusively favored for an entire year in his previous run.

How about sparing him for now? Leaving him in the Cold Palace as eye candy was also pleasing to the mind. This time, he would remember to save his game at any moment. In the event that Lu Xuechao still managed to escape the Cold Palace to assassinate him, it wouldn’t be too late to reload his save and kill him then.

Thinking this way, Wan Jia abandoned the thought of sentencing Lu Xuechao to death. He turned around to leave the Cold Palace, lamenting as he walked that he truly was soft-hearted.

Thereafter, Wan Jia completely cast the Empress in the Cold Palace to the back of his mind. He began to happily accept beauties and expand his harem once more, cautiously saving his game every few minutes. He played diligently until the third year of the Xi Dynasty. The second wave of selected male favorites had just entered the palace, and he was blissfully flipping name tags when—

A sudden data glitch flashed across the computer screen, and in the next fraction of a second, it went completely black.

Wan Jia froze, unable to hold back a curse: “Holy crap! My save!”

This aging computer had finally succumbed to its heavy burden, completely breaking down.

The chaotic data tangled into a turbulent vortex, sweeping toward a certain space-time that had lost all human intervention…