Wen Yanran saw that where the game’s name had originally been written, the large characters “Monarch System” had now appeared.
…Could it be that she had already failed this playthrough, and the system was preparing to move her into the second round?
That would explain why her surroundings had suddenly undergone such a dramatic change.
Wen Yanran carefully reflected on everything she had done since ascending the throne. Although she felt it hadn’t been perfect, she had largely followed her plan. Still, she couldn’t immediately pinpoint the fundamental cause of her failure.
“So next, should I change my approach and help the people of this world live out a beautiful dream?”
She had been muttering to herself, not expecting anyone to respond. But as soon as she finished speaking, a new prompt appeared in her field of vision.
[System:
Current playthrough ended.
Game over.
Relevant data is being generated. Player, please wait patiently.]
“…”
Wen Yanran suddenly had a very bad feeling.
She could understand “current playthrough ended,” but did “game over” mean she wouldn’t be moving on to a second playthrough?
After a moment of contemplation, Wen Yanran began searching for a suitable excuse for the situation at hand.
There was no major unrest in the realm at present, so her main quest must still be incomplete. Perhaps the World Will had obtained more reliable data from the comment section and decided to replace the player.
…If the game system were to take a screenshot of the player’s current expression along with her inner thoughts, it would make for a perfect [burying one’s head in the sand].jpg.
[System:
Settlement statement for the current playthrough is as follows:
Tyrant points: 89.]
Wen Yanran raised an eyebrow slightly.
Although it was a bit regrettable not to break 90, scoring 89 points still proved that she had actually done quite well…
[System:
Benevolent Monarch points: 830,172.]
Wen Yanran: “???”
The first thought that flashed through her mind was: So this isn’t a hundred-point scale after all?
And how did her Benevolent Monarch points get so high? Is there no upper limit on this thing? Does the system have any idea how many exorbitant taxes and levies the people under her rule have to pay each year?
[System:
The tally of Monarch Points accumulated by the player is a fair judgment based on a comprehensive analysis of all data.]
Just as Wen Yanran was filled with doubts, a new message appeared before her eyes -seamlessly responding to her inner thoughts.
Wen Yanran felt that this was, without a doubt, the most emotionally nuanced moment she had experienced since her transmigration.
[System:
Instance type: Dream Simulation (First Playthrough)
Number of participants: 1+N
Completion rate of prescribed route: -99/100 (The player completely misunderstood the main objective and, by heading in the opposite direction, achieved an ending no one had ever anticipated)
Clearance rating: E (Not the lowest-rated player, but certainly the most distinctive lowest-rated player since the game’s release)
Energy accumulation: The game panel can only maintain basic startup functions; the player provided virtually no energy throughout the entire process.]
Wen Yanran remained calm in expression. She did have some prior experience playing strategy games, but she had never achieved such a low-rated ending before.
This was rather unusual.
Wen Yanran thought back. She had essentially followed the guidance from the comment section at every step – maintaining as much control as possible in the early stages, and though she had let go of some of that control later on due to delegating power, that was a necessary measure for being a tyrant, not a tactical mistake.
[System: Due to the player’s excessive accumulation of Benevolent Monarch points, a hidden game mechanism has been triggered.]
[System:
Player has achieved True Ending: “When Dreams Illuminate Reality.”
“The clouds part, the mists clear; the dawn breaks; the land shines forth; the rivers and mountains blaze with renewed glory.”]
Wen Yanran: “…Huh?”
Her gaze suddenly wavered.
Although the game’s evaluation seemed far from favorable, the description of the achievement clearly suggested something more.
[System:
Module update complete.]
The updated game panel looked very different from before. The original functions -whether uninstalled or simply hidden – were nowhere to be seen. The only button Wen Yanran could still operate was [Data Deployment].
Her imperial caution kept her from pressing it immediately. Instead, she spoke up, “If there’s customer service, I need an explanation.”
After a brief silence, a system notification containing several forum screenshots refreshed before her eyes.
Wen Yanran studied the content of the images carefully. Her usual composure finally cracked – just a little.
She realized, belatedly, that while the comment section did contain fairly reliable game guides, it was also filled with all kinds of irony and sarcasm.
Wen Yanran raised a hand to cover her face.
She had been spoiled, but not completely spoiled.
So she had been following wildly incorrect information all along, and yet she still managed to make it this far without failing?
Song Nanlou, gentle and easygoing, was actually a sharp-edged, decisive killer. Shi Zhu, who supposedly couldn’t lead troops, was nearly invincible in battle. Wang Youyin’s “mediocre talent” was just her being modest – in fact, she simply kept a low profile. He Tingyun, known as “Suspended He,” had only shown signs of decline after enduring countless blows from the court; under normal circumstances, he was an unyielding minister skilled at making others stop. Wen Xun, whom Wen Yanran herself had named, truly was the exceptionally capable Wen Xun mentioned in the comments. And Zhang Bingshan’s professional competence as a strategist wasn’t really any higher than Wen Yanran’s own understanding of game reviews.
…The eastern rebels, the southern gentry, the northern strongmen, the western natives, the Wuliu tribe, and Yan’s border troops all died perfectly naturally. With such a lineup, it would have been completely unreasonable for the enemy to win. As for Wen Hong – with the rare strategist Zhang Bingshan advising him, he managed to eliminate himself from the contest for the realm right at the starting line.
Besides these, there were some technical descriptions that made Wen Yanran feel a strong sense of mockery – the Great Zhou had no stirrups, no concrete, no block printing, no waterwheels, no white sugar. As for why these things were missing, the game felt the player should have a pretty good idea themselves.
Wen Yanran: “…” Although she managed to keep her facial expression relatively composed, countless bullet comments had already scrolled through her mind, all saying, “Wait, these weren’t ancient people’s inventions?”
But why hadn’t a single one of those ancient people around her reminded her?
The screenshots also showed key scenes for certain important characters. In the first image, Yuan Yanshi, who had finally succeeded in making the Emperor a mere figurehead, was in his private chamber, revealing an ambitious, arrogant laugh. In the second image, Wang Qishi stood behind his teacher, a cold, calculating hint of scheming showing on his face.
Wen Yanran thought that she might really not be cut out to be an emperor. Otherwise, how could she have gone all the way from her ascension to the throne until now without detecting even a hint of rebellious intent from Grand Tutor Yuan or Vice Minister Wang?
Of course, it was also possible that in this playthrough, that senior court minister personally appointed by the late Emperor Li to assist the new ruler, along with his student, had truly decided to play the role of loyal ministers to the very end.
Wen Yanran had reason to suspect that the system had been holding back the truth all along, just waiting for this moment to leap out and stab her in the back. Otherwise, there was no explaining why Guide to Becoming a Tyrant, far from obstructing her when she deviated from the intended route, had instead actively encouraged and pushed her all the way onto the throne of a benevolent monarch.
She really still had too little understanding of just how treacherous the world could be.
Apart from Yuan Yanshi, the endings of several other important characters were also shown through images.
Wen Yanran scanned them at a glance and noticed many familiar faces among them.
The young general in imperial guard attire was clearly Wen Xun. As a member of the imperial clan, she had enjoyed the trust of the last emperor of the Great Zhou. But after gaining military power, she became the target of the Emperor’s suspicion for the very same reason, and was eventually lured to her death within the palace.
Another image showed Zhong Zhiwei. In certain storylines, she had participated in the campaign to suppress the rebellion in the eastern lands. That battle had dragged on for too long, and the imperial court no longer had the patience or the provisions to continue. The emperor of the time sent eunuch supervisors to the front lines to enforce battle orders. Although Zhong Zhiwei had already gained the upper hand, faced with the severing of rear support and the relentless chase of the supervisors, she was forced to lead her own forces deep into enemy territory at a completely unsuitable moment. In the end, she and her entire contingent of 2,612 elite soldiers were annihilated – their deaths sounding the horn for the complete loss of the eastern lands.
Over a dozen arrows pierced the general’s body. Even as she fell, she remained in a charging posture.
Below Zhong Zhiwei’s image was one featuring Song Nanlou. The young general’s silver armor was stained with blood. Behind him flew the banners of the Great Zhou atop the city walls; before him were countless rebel soldiers.
On the battlefield where the two armies clashed, corpses piled up like mountains. Song Nanlou’s soldiers were utterly exhausted, and many in the enemy camp had hollow cheeks from hunger. Though this scion of a noble family still stood straight and tall, his shoulders seemed to bear something so heavy it was nearly unbearable.
The Sovereign had lost the Way, and the seas ran wild. Shi Zhu’s face bore an expression of grief and indignation completely unlike his usual demeanor. He chose to resign from office and ultimately joined the ranks of one of the rebel armies.
The old path had come to an end. But no matter how much he racked his brains and exhausted his efforts, he could not find a new way forward for this world. In the end, he too was swept away by the invisible torrent, reduced to a speck of ash in the currents of the era.
In such chaotic times, no one could remain untouched. After Xiao Xichi returned to Qingyi, caught in a pincer attack between the Luonan forces and the southern rebels, by the time she finally succeeded in establishing her own separatist regime, fewer than one in ten of her original followers remained.
When great chaos erupted in the south, Wu Geqi, the prince of the Wuliu tribe, successfully seized control of the tribal leadership. Taking advantage of the Yan clan’s campaigns on all fronts, he led his people to break through the border defenses and migrate south in full force.
As Wen Yanran gazed at these images, her expression gradually grew heavy.
At the same time, the system displayed a block of explanatory text, clarifying the current situation.
Every world has a different core, and the Great Zhou was the pillar of civilization upholding this world. With the fall of the dynasty, the world’s civilizational development was snapped in two. Society began to regress drastically. The blood and tears of the children of destiny were the death cries of civilization’s ruins – and those cries triggered abnormal ripples in time and space. For this reason, what should have been a normal cycle of dynastic rise and fall escalated into a serious problem requiring the intervention of the World Will itself.
Wen Yanran thought that if the World Will had a physical form, she would definitely slap a [When in doubt, blame quantum mechanics].jpg right on its face.
The general approach to solving this problem was something Wen Yanran had already understood shortly after she transmigrated. Whether it was a happy ending or a bad ending, the World Will would accept either, as long as it could stop the timeline from rolling back over and over again. However, Wen Yanran had achieved a special ending that the game system had never anticipated, so the World Will had temporarily changed its plan and decided to try merging the game data with reality.
This was the so-called [Data Deployment].
Guide to Becoming a Tyrant could deliberately introduce various natural and man-made disasters into specific points in a playthrough; naturally, Monarch System could release game data into the real world.
Wen Yanran was somewhat astonished that the World Will could even do something like this, but she quickly understood the reason – normally, game data has a limited impact on reality, but the sheer amount of Benevolent Monarch points she had accumulated was simply too massive.
Even more favorable to the successful execution of [Data Deployment] was the fact that throughout her entire reign, she had never used a single ounce of energy converted from her Benevolent Monarch points.
Wen Yanran: “…”
Did she not want to use them?!
White mist still drifted through the air, and the images around her gradually faded and lost color. In this entire space, the only thing that still retained its original form was the daybed on which the monarch of the Great Zhou sat.
Wen Yanran carefully read through all the information from beginning to end once more. She wore no crown at this moment, and her outer robe had been casually draped over her, yet she exuded a solemn dignity that was difficult to put into words.
Her gaze finally settled on the [Data Deployment] function.
This dream had already lasted far, far too long. Once [Data Deployment] was pressed, the false timeline that had been summoned back again and again before her eyes would finally merge back together with reality.
