"Mission complete. The promised reward has been delivered."
「In the age of technology. A hospital in Jing City.」
The system was true to its word.
The moment Cui Lingyao regained consciousness, the electronic voice chimed in her mind.
She looked at the small medicine bottle that had materialized in her hand. She opened it and peered inside.
A plump, brown pill rested quietly within.
System: 'This is the latest-generation Hundred Diseases Pill from the Medicine World. For a life-form with your world's physiology, a single pill can eliminate all illnesses.'
A rich medicinal fragrance wafted from the bottle's opening. Just a light sniff was enough to clear Cui Lingyao's groggy, newly awakened mind.
'It really is a Divine Elixir.'
'This will definitely save my brother.'
A delighted expression bloomed on Cui Lingyao's face. After working so hard for so many years, she was finally reaping the rewards. "Thank you," she said.
"Don't mention it," the system said.
"Emperor Qianyuan was no easy target. You completed the mission and earned this elixir through your own efforts. There's no need for thanks."
'Not an easy target...'
Cui Lingyao recalled what the system had said the day it found her.
It claimed to have been born from boundless chaos, a being of destiny. It had no physical form, nor any of the seven emotions and six desires. Its only interests were the mortal world's fortune and the willpower of its living beings. It loved to traverse countless worlds, seeking out the ones with the greatest fortune and the most potent willpower.
It had sought her out and sent her to the Da Yue Dynasty to win over Xie Jinbai for a specific reason. According to that world's historical trajectory, not long after Xie Jinbai's death, the people of that land were destined to face an unprecedented dark age.
Warlords carved up the land, each vying for supremacy.
One rose as another fell in an endless cycle. The recorded regimes alone numbered more than a dozen.
Emperors became a dime a dozen—you had one, and I had one, too.
Their wars plunged the world into darkness.
Foreign tribes seized the opportunity to invade, brutally ravaging the Yue Land. They preyed upon the Yue People, burning, killing, and pillaging for nearly a century.
In the end, the land was left barren for a thousand miles, and bleached bones littered the ground. Nine out of every ten homes stood empty, with less than a tenth of the population surviving.
Later generations in that era would come to call this period of history an inhuman purgatory.
A humiliation too painful to speak of.
Furthermore, the frequent wars led to the destruction of countless books. This created a cultural chasm, making it difficult to research historical sites from before the Yue Dynasty.
Anyone from a later age who read about this period of history couldn't help but condense a wisp of pure willpower.
A wish: 'If only the course of that era's history could be changed.'
These small wishes accumulated into a great power, and thus, the system came into being.
If it wanted to consume this willpower, it had to accept the corresponding mission.
After much calculation, it discovered that the key to changing the course of history lay with Xie Jinbai, the last man in the history of Great Yue who could be called a Great Emperor.
According to verifiable historical records, this Great Emperor was made Grand General at eighteen and ennobled as Prince Yu at twenty. Five years later, he became the Crown Prince, and just one year after that, he ascended the throne. The exact year of his death is unknown, but he is estimated to have been between thirty-five and forty years old.
In a reign of just over a decade, his civil and military accomplishments were exemplary, his achievements recorded brilliantly in the annals of history.
There were only two things for which later generations criticized him.
First, he had no heirs.
Not only did he have no heirs, but a thorough search of the historical records reveals no trace of any concubine in his harem.
Even unofficial histories contain no romantic scandals involving him.
No sons or daughters, no wife or concubines.
From this, later historians deduced one of two things: either his ability to father children was damaged from years of warfare, or he was a homosexual—the kind with absolutely no interest in women.
Otherwise, for the sake of securing a successor, he would have taken a few concubines to continue the imperial line, holding his nose and bearing it, no matter how much he disliked the idea.
But he did not.
Furthermore, before his death, he never adopted a successor from the Imperial Family.
This meant that after his death, there was no Crown Prince to take the throne and manage the state, leaving the court leaderless.
A nation cannot be without a sovereign for a single day.
The court ministers hastily pushed a Prince from the Imperial Family onto the throne. But this new Emperor's claim was illegitimate—he was neither the rightful heir, the eldest, nor the most virtuous, merely a puppet propped up by the ministers. How could the other Princes of the Imperial Family possibly submit to him?
He was forced to abdicate within three years.
The one who forced the abdication then took the dragon throne for himself.
But he still failed to win the people's support and was soon forced to abdicate as well.
In the mere decade following Xie Jinbai's death, the throne of Great Yue changed hands an unknown number of times. Eventually, the powerful regional governors, who held significant military power, had had enough.
The imperial throne had become a joke, changing hands at will. Clearly, the Da Yue Dynasty's mandate had been exhausted. So, why shouldn't they fight for it themselves?
And so, that dark age of history began.
This was the second matter for which later generations criticized Xie Jinbai.
It was one thing to be heirless, but to fail to arrange for a proper successor was another matter entirely. It led to widespread dissent and brought about a disaster that nearly annihilated his people.
The system had detected no physical problems with Xie Jinbai, so it considered the mission to be quite simple.
As for his sexual orientation, that wasn't difficult either. All it required was for someone to show up early in his life, make him fall for a woman, and guide him onto the 'proper' path.
The goal was simply to have him produce a legitimate heir, one who would be recognized by the Imperial Family and revered by the court officials.
After all, under Xie Jinbai's rule, Great Yue was still in its golden age.
Even if he had fathered a mediocre son, it wouldn't have led to such widespread devastation in a mere decade.
So, why did the system choose Cui Lingyao, of all people?
It was because her soul was not rejected by the fate of the Da Yue Dynasty.
It was as if she had been born into that world.
This single fact was why the system had chosen her out of billions of living beings.
Coincidentally, at that very time, Cui Lingyao's adoptive brother, Lu Chen, had been in an accident. He was left paralyzed from the waist down, and doctors had determined his chances of walking again were less than one in ten thousand.
Lu Chen was the heir to the Lu Group. Ever since he was a child, he had been the model kid that parents compare their own children to. He had a calm and steady temperament, noble yet reserved. He had taken over the family business at a young age and managed it with impeccable order.
From the moment he was born, Lu Chen had stood at the top of the pyramid. Barring any accidents, he was destined to remain there, admired by all.
But an accident did happen.
A car accident left this favored son of heaven unable to ever stand again.
Disabled.
The blow was devastating enough to shatter his world.
Cui Lingyao was indebted to the Lu Family for raising her. She had grown up with her adoptive brother, Lu Chen, and they were very close. How could she bear to see him utterly broken by this setback?
If there had been no other way, she would have had to accept it. But since the system had appeared, she immediately asked if the mission reward included a medicine that could save Lu Chen. Once it was confirmed, she agreed without hesitation.
She had stayed in the Da Yue Dynasty from the age of ten to twenty—a full decade.
Now, recalling her life there, everything felt hazy and indistinct, like a flower's reflection in water or the moon's in a mirror. It was as if she had just woken from a very long dream.
Ten years of kinship, love, and friendship.
All those countless memories were gradually fading, blurring as she woke from the dream.
Looking at the modern furnishings in the room, Cui Lingyao felt a solid sense of reality, as if her feet were firmly on the ground.
She was finally back.
She had longed for this for ten years.
She had succeeded.
Just then, the system bid its farewell.
'Your mission is complete and your reward has been delivered. This system must now return to consume the willpower.'
To avoid causing Cui Lingyao any trouble, it had slowed the flow of time in this world countlessfold.
Ten years had passed in the Da Yue Dynasty, but only a single night had gone by here.
The energy this consumed had far exceeded its own expectations.
It was starving.