He has been reincarnated through countless worlds, adorned with billions of mythological terms!

The emperor did not respond.

He leaned against the back of the couch, tapping his fingers lightly on his knees twice, the faint sound almost inaudible.

The vacant look and intoxication in his eyes slowly faded, replaced by an indescribable expression.

He stared at Yun Yi for a long time before speaking:

How old are you this year?

"Six years old."

"Six years old." The emperor rolled the two words on his tongue, chuckled softly, "When I was six years old, I was still catching dragonflies in the Imperial Garden."

He sat up straight, revealing an old scar on his bare upper body, running diagonally from his right shoulder to his left rib, now faded to a grayish-white mark.

He picked up the outer robe draped over the couch and put it on slowly, fastening the belt before looking at Yun Yi again.

"You want to sit in my seat?"

"think."

"Do you know what it means to sit on it?"

"Know."

"Can you handle it?"

Yun Yi did not answer the question. He simply looked at the emperor, at that face etched with the wrinkles of time, and calmly said:

"If Father Emperor cannot sit in the seat he desires, then I shall sit here."

"What Father Emperor cannot bear, I, your son, will bear."

"As long as our chief minister is alive, the Yunming Empire will not fall."

The emperor looked at him.

But looking into those quiet eyes, he suddenly realized that this child was unlike any prince he had ever seen—unlike those power-hungry sons whose eyes held scheming and ambition, or those timid sons who kept their heads down and dared not meet his gaze.

He stood there calmly, genuinely thinking of the people of the empire.

The emperor remained silent for a long time.

He finally spoke: "Okay."

"If you want to sit, then sit."

"I will draft an edict tomorrow to pass the throne to you."

Several concubines paled in shock. One of them couldn't help but whisper "Your Majesty," but was silenced by a single look from the emperor and obediently shut her mouth.

Yun Yi hadn't expected things to go so smoothly—or rather, he had anticipated some of it, but he hadn't expected the emperor to agree so readily.

"Father, won't you ask me what I plan to do?" he asked.

"What's the point of asking?" The emperor stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open.

A cool breeze swept in, dispersing the sweet fragrance that filled the room. The gauze curtains billowed high, letting in a flood of morning light that illuminated every corner of the hall.

His back was to Yun Yi, and his voice was somewhat muffled by the wind:

"I'm too old to manage things anymore."

"If you can manage it, then go and manage it."

"If you mess it up, that's your fate."

"I've been managing things my whole life, I'm tired enough."

Yun Yi looked at the figure standing in the morning light—somewhat hunched over, the outline of the shoulder blades protruding from under the thin outer robe, like a stone mountain eroded by wind and sand for many years, the edges still there, but the inside empty.

"Your subject will make this country better," Yunyi said.

The emperor did not turn around, but merely raised his hand as if to bid a perfunctory farewell.

Yun Yi said nothing more, turned around and walked out of the palace gate.

The palace doors closed behind them with a dull thud.

His footsteps faded away along the palace path, eventually swallowed by the morning breeze and never to be heard again.

The emperor remained standing by the window.

Morning light streamed in through the open window, falling on his shoulders and back draped in his robe, casting a long, thin shadow on the ground.

A cold wind blew through the stray hairs at his temples, some of which were now streaked with silver and looked like they were covered in a thin layer of frost when illuminated by the light.

He didn't turn around.

On the couch behind him, several concubines had already quietly slipped away wrapped in brocade quilts, not even daring to put on their shoes.

He was the only one left in the hall, with a few incense burners still burning, their smoke curling upwards and dispersing into blurry outlines in the air.

"A thousand years," he murmured, as if talking to himself.

A thousand years ago, he was just over a hundred years old, a ninth-level martial artist, ambitious, and felt he could do anything.

and then?

He conquered the Central Plains, spending a hundred years fighting his way up to Emperor Wu, achieving legendary status.

But the result?

He encountered that person, and with one punch, his Dao heart shattered, and his Martial Emperor realm also fell.

He drifted aimlessly for hundreds of years, and finally returned to the Southern Region, back to his family.

The once weak family became the Yunming Empire because of the prestige he left behind. Although it was only a second-rate power, it was considered powerful in the Southern Region.

Especially back then, even if he had left behind great prestige, so many years had passed.

In their quest to seize an empire, the direct descendants of the family were almost wiped out, and the few remaining were even murdered and rendered infertile.

When his family learned that he, the former Martial Emperor, had returned, they were overjoyed. However, after learning that his cultivation level had plummeted and his Dao heart had shattered, they directly handed the throne to him.

Unfortunately, how could someone whose Dao heart was shattered possibly govern a country well?

He willingly fell into depravity, only to learn that his family wanted his bloodline as a Martial Emperor to continue.

He didn't hesitate. Since he couldn't do anything himself, he might as well pass on his bloodline.

"Tsk tsk tsk."

A slightly mocking female voice suddenly rang out from behind, "The legendary Emperor Yunming was actually forced to abdicate by a six-year-old child, and even had to hand over the throne—who would believe that?"

The emperor did not turn around.

The morning breeze still blew in through the window, ruffling the hem of his robe draped over his shoulders, revealing the old scar that ran diagonally across his chest—a grayish-white mark across his skin, like a ravine whose edges had been smoothed by time.

"You didn't come here just to make fun of me, did you?"

The woman in black emerged from the shadows deep within the hall, her steps unhurried, and stopped three steps away from him.

She wore a close-fitting black outfit, with a slender curved knife hanging at her waist. The scabbard was engraved with intricate patterns, like some kind of ancient seal.

Her face was partially covered by a black veil, revealing only a pair of narrow eyes with slightly upturned corners, exuding an innate shrewdness and sharpness.

"No, that's not it." She crossed her arms and tilted her head. "You did a good job protecting the world, so those old men from Zhongzhou specifically asked me to come and give you some prizes."

The emperor finally turned around.

A very subtle ripple flickered in those eyes, which had been steeped in wine and women for many years, like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, the ripples vanishing in an instant.

"What did I protect?" He laughed briefly, his laughter devoid of emotion. "I'm just a loser."

"A loser who thought himself invincible, but was knocked down from his pedestal with a single punch."

The woman in black looked at him for a moment, then shook her head.

"Everyone who can reach the level of Martial Emperor is a legend."

"The reason you lost is not because you were weak, but because you encountered a myth among myths—a figure who, throughout the entire history of the Tianwu Continent, has only appeared once."

"You just lost because of bad luck."

The emperor did not respond.

He turned his head, his gaze falling on the gray-white horizon outside the window, where the morning light was seeping through the edges of the clouds, dyeing the sky a blurry, bright color.

"A defeat is a defeat," he said. "I never make excuses for my failures."

The woman in black frowned as she looked at him, as if she wanted to say something but then swallowed it back.

In the end, she just sighed and reached into her bosom to take out a palm-sized jade box.

The jade box was pure white, with a faint shimmering light on its surface, as if something alive was moving inside.

She placed the jade box on the windowsill and pushed it towards him.

"No matter how depraved you become, you've secured the credit for protecting the world."

"Those old bastards have paid a heavy price this time—one drop of Heavenly Martial Origin."

The emperor's gaze fell on the jade box, and his pupils contracted slightly.

The origin of Tianwu.

The most fundamental power in this world is a realm that only beings above the Martial Emperor level can access.

When he conquered Zhongzhou back then, he asked those old guys for it, but they flatly refused, without even room for negotiation.

Now they've actually brought it over on their own initiative.

"Protect the world?" He raised his eyes to look at the woman in black. "When did I protect the world?"

The woman in black was even more confused than he was.

She widened her narrow eyes, her tone carrying a sense of bewilderment, as if asking, "Are you kidding me?" "In these past three years, your Cloud Nether Empire has been plagued by frequent upheavals at the level of world laws. Aren't there super-powerful beings engaged in battle?"

"That level of commotion silenced all the old men in Zhongzhou."

"After the turmoil ended, they did some calculations and found that the source was you—so naturally, it was you who protected this world."

"After all, the existence that can cause that level of turmoil must be quite powerful."

The emperor was stunned.

He certainly knew about the turmoil.

Three years ago, a chilling sense of oppression began to emanate from the skies above the Yunming Empire. Ordinary people might not be able to feel it clearly, but for someone like him who had once stood at the peak of the Martial Emperor realm, even with his Dao heart shattered, his perception of the laws of the world was still far more acute than that of ordinary people.

He knew the source of the unrest was above the imperial city.

But he ignored it.

Because he knew that the intensity of the turmoil exceeded his current ability to cope—a Martial Emperor with a shattered Dao Heart could not even exert one-tenth of his original strength, and rashly intervening would only lead to a faster death.

In addition, he had completely given up cultivation by then, returned to the palace to take over the throne, and fulfilled the duty of the only heir of the family: to frantically create people to continue the bloodline.

I'm even less inclined to care.

As long as the turmoil doesn't directly affect him, he'll pretend he didn't see it.

But to his utter surprise, those old guys in Zhongzhou attributed the credit for quelling the turmoil to him.

The emperor remained silent for a long time.

He looked at the white jade box on the windowsill, which contained the Heavenly Martial Origin that he had longed for but could not obtain back then.

Why not take advantage of something that's free?

Although in his current state of shattered Dao heart, the Heavenly Martial Origin is of little meaning to him—a person who has lost the will to fight, even if he stuffs the entire origin of heaven and earth into his body, will only be a stagnant pool.

But he had just seen the child.

That six-year-old child, who had reached the Qi Refining Realm, had single-handedly won over ninety percent of the powerful officials in the imperial court.

His... his... uh, what was his name again?

Never mind, his 101st son.

Both their talent and skill are top-notch.

If that child can truly ascend the throne and become emperor, and truly shoulder the responsibility of this country that has begun to decay—then leaving this Heavenly Martial Origin to him will not be a waste.