The autumn day was cold, and the north wind howled through the canyon.
Nestled in a hollow of the canyon was a mine, square and prison-like. In the southwest corner of the mine was a stone house. It was dim inside, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering through a skylight overhead.
The cold light spilled down upon more than thirty raggedly dressed miners gathered together, talking in low voices.
“I’ve scouted it out. The mine has two exits. The east one is the entrance and exit for those Yamen Runners to transport weapons. The west one leads to the mass grave on the back mountain. This batch of weapons is ready. Tonight, at the Zi hour, most of the officials in the mine will escort the weapons out from the east. That’s when we’ll escape from the west. After we get out, we’ll scatter. With any luck, a few of us will manage to get away.”
The back mountain to the west was all dense forest; it would be hard for them to be found if they hid there.
The leader, a large man with sharp eyes, held a wooden stick and quickly drew a map of the entire mine on the dirt floor, analyzing the defensive positions of each area as he drew.
His plan was meticulous, his analysis precise.
Hope ignited in the miners’ eyes. After some discussion, a small, timid voice rose from the crowd. “The small west gate is usually guarded by soldiers too. How are we going to get them to open it?”
The leader had already thought of this. His gaze fell on someone outside the crowd. He lifted his chin and lowered his voice, “Isn’t he about to breathe his last?”
Everyone’s gaze followed his, landing on a huddled form in a dark corner of the stone house.
A thin, gaunt youth was curled on his side on a messy pile of straw. His back was hunched and his face was ashen. A single glance told them he was only breathing out, not in.
He was most likely about to die.
In this Black Mine, such things happened every few days.
The crowd’s emotions had gone from anger to fear, and from fear to dread—dreading the day they would be the ones lying there.
That was why they had to escape.
Every time one of them died, the guards, finding it unlucky, would make them pick two people to carry the body to the back mountain and dump it.
The leader continued, “Once he breathes his last, right before midnight, we’ll notify the officials to come collect the body. When the soldiers come to check, we’ll subdue them, strip them of their clothes, and put them on. We’ll carry the body out through the back gate. It’ll be pitch black. As long as we have the waist token, the small gate will open. The rest of you will follow behind. The moment the gate opens, we charge out!”
The timid man who had spoken earlier asked again, meekly, “But what if he hasn’t kicked the bucket by midnight?” Besides checking the waist token, the guards at the small gate would always check if the person was actually dead before opening it.
The leader’s eyes narrowed slightly. He stared at the motionless youth on the ground and remained silent for a long time.
The cold light shone on every face. After a moment of silence, a similarly small, square-faced young man slapped the timid man on the back of the head and cursed in a low voice, “Stop making trouble! What ‘what if’?” If that ‘what if’ really happened, they would just have to make sure the person was truly dead.
The timid man didn’t dare to speak again. The footsteps of the patrolling officials approached. The leader gave a hand signal, and the thirty-some miners immediately scattered, lying down in feigned panic.
The timid man was pushed and stumbled, falling to his knees right beside the curled-up youth.
They were face to face. The sickly youth, who had his eyes closed and looked near death just a moment ago, now had his eyes wide open, his dark pupils fixed on him.
The timid man’s heart pounded in terror. He almost screamed, but the official’s voice at the door scared the sound back down his throat.
A final burst of energy before death?
His eyes weren’t moving. Was he about to die, or not?
Just as he was about to take a closer look, the other person’s eyelids drooped shut again in the next second, as if what he had just seen was a figment of his imagination.
The timid man was filled with doubt and uncertainty. Opposite him, Lu Zhao, lying on her side, also wanted to ask: was she dead or not?
She was a bounty hunter from the apocalypse.
A few days ago, she had accepted a mission to go to the City of Death and kill the Mutated Wind Wolves. She clearly remembered that in the final second before she collapsed, she had torn that pack of mutated wolves to shreds. How did she end up in this strange place upon opening her eyes again?
She couldn’t move her body or speak her mind, and there was a group of raggedly dressed—ancients, they had to be ancients, right?—discussing a grand escape plan?
Was this some kind of prank?
Where was her Optical Brain?
Lu Zhao tried hard to lift her wrist, but she couldn’t even move a fingertip.
She tried to use her brainwaves to control it. After a few attempts, a burst of static, like a bad signal, sounded. Her head spun, and then a cold, electronic female voice echoed in her mind.
[Live Stream System binding in progress. Binding successful.]
[System initiating full scan. Verifying host identity…]
[Soul Name: Lu Zhao] [Age: 28] [Gender: Female] [Identity: From ten years into the apocalypse.] [Specialties: Combat, Hunting, Tracking, Other…] [Combat Power: 99] [Intelligence: 99] [Appearance: 99]
[Fusing soul and body data. Please wait… Fusion complete.]
[Host’s New Identity, Name: Lu Zhao] [Age: 16] [Gender: Female, currently disguised as a man] [Origin: Hunter from Xishan Village, Liangzhou, Da Yong.] [Original Specialty: Hunting. Post-fusion: To be determined.] [Original Combat Power: 3. Post-fusion: To be determined.] [Original Intelligence: 5. Post-fusion: To be determined.] [Original Appearance: 5. Post-fusion: To be determined.]
After the female voice finished its report, a long stretch of memories was forcibly stuffed into Lu Zhao’s mind. After the sharp pain subsided, she finally understood her current situation based on the new memories.
After she fainted, her soul had been abducted to another dimension and had possessed a combat weakling who couldn’t lift a thing, was also named Lu Zhao, and was a woman disguised as a man?
What did this crappy Live Stream System bring her here for?
Just as she had this thought, the cold, electronic female voice in her mind suddenly became cheerful, imbued with human emotion. [Hello, Host. The Dimensional Live Stream System will serve you wholeheartedly. The host’s current level is LV1. The live stream function can be activated. Would you like to start the live stream?]
Lu Zhao communicated with it in her mind without showing any expression. “What’s the content of the live stream?”
System: [Main quest: In the capacity of a concubine, support this world’s Child of Destiny, the Da Yong Dynasty’s seventh prince, Shen Qi, who is adrift in the world, in his ascension to the throne, and become his favored consort.]
“Concubine? Favored consort?” Did those two words have anything to do with her, a god of death from the apocalypse?
Lu Zhao let out two dry laughs. The system seemed to sense the dissatisfaction in her tone and hesitantly amended, “Empress is also fine.”
Lu Zhao’s sarcasm deepened. “So, the main point is to support the Child of Destiny’s ascension to the throne?”
The system stubbornly refused to admit it. [Aren’t supporting the Child of Destiny’s ascension and the host becoming empress the same thing? Only when he ascends the throne can you become the empress.]
Lu Zhao seized the key point. “I can’t become empress if someone else ascends the throne?”
System: [You cannot. This dimensional world is supported by the Child of Destiny. Once he deviates from his original trajectory and fails to become emperor, this dimension will collapse, and no one will survive, including the host!]
Lu Zhao didn’t take kindly to threats. “Then the system can just go bind the Child of Destiny or someone else to continue the mission.” In short, she would absolutely not accept doing the hard work for someone else’s benefit.
The system’s cheerful voice became a little irritable: [This system does not belong to this dimension, nor can it bind to other people from this dimension.]
Lu Zhao: “Then you can find another soul from another world to bind.”
Why was this host so difficult?
If the system had a physical form, it would have rolled its eyes.
Did it not want to find an obedient host?
The system hemmed and hawed. [The host’s soul is the most compatible with this system, with the highest probability of completing the live stream mission. Furthermore, the host is the only soul from another world in this world.]
Lu Zhao let out an “oh” and stated it plainly, “So, once the system is bound, it cannot be switched to another host?”
System: […]
Damn it!
The system wanted to go berserk. How did the host guess that?
When the system travels through dimensions, it automatically matches with a soul that enters a time wormhole at the same time. Once bound, it indeed cannot be unbound. In other words, it and the host were tied together, two grasshoppers on the same rope.
Unless the host died, only then could it search for the next host.
If the Child of Destiny couldn’t ascend the throne, the system would be finished too.
Lu Zhao looked at the system, which had gone as quiet as a mouse, and the corners of her lips curled up slightly. It seemed she had guessed correctly!
It looked like this crappy live stream mission wasn’t without its loopholes.
Having been exposed, the system began to offer inducements. [After completing the live stream mission, the host can leave this world and return to your original world. The point in time can be chosen by the host. Furthermore, the popularity points accumulated during the live stream can be exchanged for RMB to be brought back to the real world. One hundred million popularity points can be exchanged for one hundred million RMB.]
Lu Zhao’s eyes instantly lit up. “After completing the mission, I can go back to before the apocalypse?”
If she went back to before the apocalypse, she could use the exchanged money to hoard a large amount of supplies in advance, and she could also save her parents…
The system gave an affirmative answer. [Yes.]
This time, Lu Zhao didn’t hesitate at all. “Start the live stream!”
The system let out a long sigh of relief. As if afraid she would go back on her word, it immediately popped up a prompt. [Does the host wish to start the live stream? 1 for Yes, 2 for No.]
Lu Zhao used her consciousness to select “Yes.” Her stiff body was like a switch had been flipped; she could suddenly move. She rolled her eyes and finally lifted her heavy eyelids again. At the same time, a live stream interface popped up in her mind. The camera angle of the live stream was based on her point of view, surveying the stone house.
At the very top of the live stream interface, a bolded title was displayed: [Enlightened Monarch Support Plan. Main Quest—Become the Empress. Side Quest: Help the Child of Destiny escape the Black Mine. Mission completion will result in a reward. Mission failure will result in an electric shock punishment.]
[Viewers Online: 0]
The corner of Lu Zhao’s mouth twitched. She asked, “Who are the people watching this live stream?”
System: [Viewers from random dimensions are watching. The system isn’t very clear on that either.]
Lu Zhao tried to bargain for her own benefit. “Isn’t there some kind of newbie gift package?”
The system stuttered for a second. This host was such a pain!
[No. Everything depends on the host’s own efforts to accumulate popularity points. Besides being exchangeable for the corresponding currency in your original world, popularity points can also be exchanged in the system store for needed attribute points and special skills, such as strength, wisdom, charm…]
Popularity points equaled RMB. What was the difference between this and making her pay to win?
Lu Zhao changed the topic she disliked and continued to ask, “Which one is this world’s Child of Destiny?”
Since the system had her possess this body, the Child of Destiny must be near her, perhaps even within this stone house.
“Is it the man who was leading the escape plan just now?” Although her eyelids hadn’t been open, her senses were extremely sharp. She had heard the low-voiced conversation of these people clearly.
She herself was supposed to be the most important prop in this group of miners’ plan—a corpse on the verge of death, to be carried out.
Before the system had a chance to give her a hint, her eyes suddenly met a pair of eyes in the darkness.
The owner of those eyes was next to the leader, leaning against the cold stone wall, staring at her motionlessly. His eyes were long and narrow, downturned, and filled with a particularly sinister coldness under the moonlight, as if to say, why aren’t you dead…
The system said excitedly, [See? He’s staring right at you.]
Lu Zhao: I see him, alright, but this Child of Destiny doesn’t seem like a kind soul.
Author’s Note:
Begging for collections for my next book, “The Early-Deceased Brother of the Son of the Planes.”
On the third day after Liu Dazhu transmigrated, his father died.
All that was left at home was a sickly mother and a small, skinny younger brother, plus a pile of uncles and aunts waiting to carve up their family’s land.
He shouldered the family’s heavy burden alone, fighting relatives, supporting his old mother, and sending his younger brother to school.
He thought he had gotten a farming, business, and rising-to-power script. But after his brother entered the Imperial Academy, he declared with lofty ambition: “An official should be a Commander of the Capital Guard; a wife should be Yin Lihua.”
Liu Dazhu asked, trembling, “Liu Tieniu, what nonsense are you spouting?”
His young brother was displeased, patting the straight-robe on his body and emphasizing, “Big Brother, I told you I changed my name. I’m called Liu Xiu now!”
Who?
Liu Xiu?
That Liu Xiu, known in history as the ‘Son of the Planes’?
Then who was he? Liu Xiu’s legitimate older brother who died early?
So, the Son of the Planes was destined to have his father, brother, and entire family die, is that it?
Liu Dazhu flipped the table: I quit! Let someone else do it.
PS: In the end, the protagonist becomes the emperor, and his younger brother becomes the military advisor and mascot.