【The hour of Mao has arrived. Your Majesty, please rise.】
【It is time for morning court. Your Majesty, please prepare to attend.】
【Your Majesty——】
On Bed No.1 in Dorm 391 for female students, Song Tianyang pulled her blanket over her head. “I don’t have class this morning, so I don’t need to get up.”
The voice in her mind kept urging her nonstop.
【Detected that Your Majesty’s Mom is still alive. Please pay respects to the Taishang Empress Dowager before attending court.】
After two minutes of this looping nagging, Song Tianyang gave in.
She fished her phone out from under her pillow and found Mom in her contacts.
“Song Tianyang,”
When the call connected, Mom’s voice came through the phone, gritted out word by word: “It’s five in the morning. You’d better really have something important.”
“I do—”
Song Tianyang paused, took a deep breath. “I’m calling to pay my respects.”
“……”
“Mom, am I very filial?”
Because getting the Taishang Empress Dowager’s approval would earn her extra rewards, Song Tianyang put on her most sincere filial daughter voice.
The Taishang Empress Dowager let out two cold laughs: “Scram.”
The call was hung up, leaving only the busy tone.
【Daily Task: Pay respects to the Taishang Empress Dowager (1/1) completed!】
【Paying respects to the Taishang Empress Dowager for seven consecutive days will activate the “Pure Filial Piety” status, allowing Your Majesty to automatically gain the favor of elders over thirty years old (3/7)】
【Your Majesty did not receive the Taishang Empress Dowager’s approval today.】
【Please persist in paying respects every day, and move the Taishang Empress Dowager with your filial piety!】
The system’s synthesized mechanical voice carried a hint of regret.
But Song Tianyang felt that if she kept this up, their twenty-some years of mother-daughter relationship would soon come to an end.
“Enough, I want to go back to sleep…”
【Friendly reminder: Your Majesty has not yet paid respects to the Holy Mother Empress Dowager.】
The Holy Mother Empress Dowager refers to the title given only when the emperor’s legitimate mother and birth mother are both honored as Empress Dowager.
Hearing the system’s reminder, Song Tianyang sleepily recalled the earth-shaking changes that had happened in her life over the past four days.
She had bound herself to this Emperor System just four days ago.
In her senior year of college, she was buried in her graduation thesis, so anxious she’d started mindlessly scrolling through Douyin. She happened to see a trending topic: “If you suddenly picked up the Imperial Jade Seal, what would you do?”
Some comments below said they’d turn it in to the country, others said they’d use it to start a livestream.
Song Tianyang just happened to have an Imperial Jade Seal that her Grandmother had stuffed into her luggage during New Year’s. Grandmother bought it for a “huge sum” of a hundred yuan at a flower and bird market. The stall owner claimed it was a treasure made of Lantian jade, crafted by Qin Prime Minister Li Si on the orders of the First Emperor during the Qin Dynasty.
Grandmother believed it, and told her granddaughter to take it to the big city and find a professor to appraise it.
But after examining the Jade Seal herself, Song Tianyang felt that even the pork in her university cafeteria looked more like an antique than this thing.
After seeing the topic, on a whim she uploaded a photo and added a wildly bold comment:
“Mandated by Heaven, may my reign be long and prosperous!!”
Just those eight words, and she really became a little emperor.
Wasn’t this a bit too much of a joke?
The Grand Progenitor had to kill his brothers and murder his father to claim the Dragon Couch, and now she got it with a click?
Thinking back on her past twenty-some years, aside from having a passably pretty face, Song Tianyang was as ordinary as could be. Forget fighting for the throne—she couldn’t even get into graduate school by recommendation.
Yet the afternoon she bound the Emperor System, she received a call from a senior assistant at Qidian Group.
The other party told Song Tianyang a dog-blooded truth—
The girl who’d grown up in a small southern town had actually been swapped at birth over twenty years ago. Her true identity was the granddaughter of He Mingyi, Chairman of Qidian Group. The He Family’s bloodline could not be lost, and she was asked to hurry home and acknowledge her roots.
After hanging up, Song Tianyang immediately reported it to the local police as a telecom scam.
But after a round of chaos and a blood test, she really did get a new identity:
Qidian Group’s real heiress.
Which was how she ended up with two Empress Dowagers.
One birth mother, one adoptive mother.
Song Tianyang couldn’t help but sigh—
My background is truly complicated!
After sighing, she dialed her birth mother’s number: “Mom.”
“Yuan Yuan? If you need something, just come knock on the door…”
On the other end, He Madam belatedly realized that the caller was not her adoptive daughter He Yuan, but her biological daughter Song Tianyang whom she had just found.
She felt both guilty and awkward, and after a brief silence, spoke in a slightly reproachful tone: “Why are you calling me at this hour? Have you changed your mind and want to go back to the He surname?”
——The two families’ mix-up wasn’t anyone’s fault, and the He Family wanted both to reclaim their biological child and keep the one they’d raised.
He Yuan refused to accept reality and wouldn’t even see her birth mother.
As for Song Tianyang, raised by her mother and Grandmother, she refused to change her surname back to He.
Although her mom, after learning how wealthy the He Family was, had gently suggested that she and Grandmother could also change their surnames to He and become unofficial members of the He Family together.
But, after one trip to the He Family, Song Tianyang keenly sensed that she wasn’t all that welcome there.
He Mister was domineering and arrogant, He Madam was conflicted and uptight, her older brother He Jianshen was openly hostile and disliked her, and only Chairman He Mingyi, the family head, cared about bloodline and insisted she acknowledge her ancestry.
Song Tianyang’s stubborn streak was instantly triggered.
“No,”
Song Tianyang glanced at the task to greet the Holy Mother Empress Dowager. “Are you asleep?”
He Madam was annoyed: “At this hour? Of course I’m asleep!”
Song Tianyang: “Good, I called to remind you to wake up and go back to sleep.”
He Madam: “……”
Before He Madam could come up with a dignified enough scolding, Song Tianyang hung up.
Though her territory for now was only the size of a bed, she was already starting to taste the bitterness of being an emperor, forced to perform filial piety with a pinched nose.
After all this fuss, Song Tianyang was now completely awake.
She checked her attribute panel.
Nation: Song (about to be forcibly renamed He)
Era: Tianyang Era Year One (fourth day since binding the system)
Territory: 1.5m × 2m Dragon Couch (which was just a dorm bed)
Subjects: 0 (a solitary emperor)
If her stats were despairingly low, her civil and martial accomplishments were equally pathetic.
Because “civil merit” was her thesis, and “martial prowess” was her 800-meter run score.
She’d only come up with a thesis title, and had someone else run the physical test for her.
Song Tianyang quickly skimmed past the stats and looked at today’s refreshed tasks.
On the second day after binding the system, she’d already given up on expanding her territory or state-building.
First, because Xinhua Country didn’t have an emperor.
Second, because she was just not capable.
Luckily, the system wasn’t totally useless. Who said a muddle-headed ruler wasn’t still a ruler? As long as she completed the daily refresh tasks, even the simplest ones, she could get plenty of rewards—enough to improve her life and get some basic income.
【Today’s Task: Review Civil Service Memorials (0/99)】
Song Tianyang sat up in bed, opened up Little Red Book, Douyin, and Weibo, and began flipping through every piece of content her friends had sent her, replying to each one quickly.
That’s right—this was her strategy for dealing with the Emperor System.
The videos her friends sent her really were low quality.
But, over the five thousand years of Chinese history, weren’t there plenty of useless memorials submitted to the throne?
A low-quality emperor reviewing low-quality memorials—truly a mutual descent into depravity.
The system was convinced by Song Tianyang.
For hoof-trimming videos of horses, cows, and donkeys, she approved: Very stress-relieving. I, the Emperor, am greatly pleased.
For dog-blood web novel readings, she approved: The writing is crude, the logic is a mess, but send the next chapters to the palace posthaste.
For borderline videos, she liked and followed, then approved: Rites and music are in ruin. Send more. I, the Emperor, love to watch.
After diligently handling state affairs for four days,
her friends unanimously concluded that she’d been driven mad by her thesis, and pitied her greatly.
【Your Majesty has completed today’s diligent governance task. Reward: Imperial Treasury +1000 White Silver!】
With a crisp, pleasant sound effect, Song Tianyang’s balance increased by one thousand.
That was also why she’d never thought about unbinding the system.
She needed money.
Being a little emperor for a day helped lighten the burden at home.
Why not?
Sensing Song Tianyang’s growing sense of comfort, the system earnestly advised: 【Expanding territory and increasing the number of subjects will both increase Your Majesty’s White Silver rewards for tasks.】
Hearing this, Song Tianyang was speechless.
Her territory was so small—did the system think she didn’t want to expand?
She didn’t attend Qinghua University or Beijing University—did the system think it was because she didn’t want to?
“But you’re right, system. I should use my initiative and make some money.”
Since she had no class today, Song Tianyang got on the first bus and headed straight for the He Family estate.
——According to her experience, interacting with “imperial relatives” in the Emperor System could trigger lots of achievements and new tasks, letting her earn real White Silver rewards. But she couldn’t bear to trouble Mom and Grandmother, and the He Family had practically delivered themselves for her, the muddle-headed ruler, to torment.
If the He Family respected and welcomed her, things would actually be more difficult.
After all, family shouldn’t be so inconvenient!
In high spirits, Song Tianyang stepped off the bus and had just entered the vicinity of the He Family manor when she ran into her biological brother, He Jianshen.
From a distance, the moment he saw her, dressed in sportswear, his face turned cold.
At the same time, the Emperor System refreshed with a new trigger task—
【Xuanwu Gate Incident (0/1)】
Song Tianyang: …Huh?
Nahhh this is funny lmaoooo