After Breaking Free From The System's Control - Chapter 16

His consciousness rose and sank as though he had fallen into a strange and dazzling deep sea.

When the scene around him gradually became clear, Jin Tang discovered that he was seated upright upon the dragon throne in Zichen Hall.

The perspective was peculiar.

He was both an observer and the person experiencing it all.

He could feel the young heart beating inside “his” chest, the weight of the slightly oversized dragon robes pressing upon his shoulders, and every thought flowing through “his” mind with perfect clarity.

This was the original young emperor—Jin Tang.

He was only seventeen years old.

A trace of youthful innocence still lingered between his brows, but he held his back perfectly straight, doing his utmost to maintain the dignity of an emperor.

He listened to the officials below debate the advantages and disadvantages of the grain transport system, his gaze calm and steady.

From time to time, he asked questions.

His words might not have possessed the seasoned sharpness of an experienced ruler, but they always struck directly at the heart of the matter.

A flame burned within him.

He wanted to accomplish something worthy of his father’s legacy.

Jin Tang’s gaze swept across the space beneath the imperial steps and settled upon the tall figure in purple—

Prince Xuan, Xiao Li.

His royal uncle.

A man of illustrious military achievements and tremendous power.

The young emperor possessed a natural wariness toward Prince Xuan.

It was the instinct of an emperor, a vigilance carved into his bones.

Yet after the Late Emperor’s death, he had not listened to the close attendants who urged him to weaken and suppress Xiao Li.

Xiao Li, in turn, had shown great awareness of his position. He voluntarily requested permission to leave the capital and return to the northern frontier to guard it.

For three years, apart from necessary official reports, the two had barely communicated in private.

The young emperor admired Xiao Li’s ability.

He was a pillar capable of holding the frontier steady.

But he also feared Xiao Li’s power.

It was a sharp blade suspended above his head.

These complex and contradictory emotions moved like an undercurrent within his heart.

Putting Jin Tang’s ambitions into practice proved extraordinarily difficult.

It was as though an invisible net covered the entire imperial court.

Whenever he attempted to act boldly, all manner of “accidents” would occur.

Either something went wrong here, or resistance arose there.

What chilled him even more was that, at times, he discovered he would suddenly “lose control.”

The scene in the dream changed abruptly.

The young emperor had clearly intended to promote a young administrative official who had rendered distinguished service in controlling the floods of Jiangnan.

The man was capable and ambitious.

Jin Tang had observed him secretly for a long time and intended to place him in an important position.

Yet when he opened his mouth during morning court, the words that emerged were cold and cutting.

“We have observed that this man’s reputation exceeds his actual ability. His achievements in governing his jurisdiction were nothing more than good fortune. He is unfit for important office. Strip him of his position immediately, and never employ him again!”

He watched helplessly as his own hand wrote the imperial decree.

Every character marked in vermilion stabbed into his eyes and cut into his heart.

The young emperor wanted to shout that this was not what he meant.

He wanted to rush forward and seize back the silk decree about to be sent out.

But his body seemed controlled by invisible threads.

He remained rigid upon the dragon throne, unable to move even a single finger.

On another occasion, the son of a powerful noble family killed someone in a brothel during a struggle over the most sought-after courtesan.

The evidence was conclusive, and public anger surged.

Jin Tang intended to punish him severely, uphold the law, and calm the people.

Yet when the matter was brought before the court, he heard his own voice speaking with careless laziness.

“It was merely a quarrel between impulsive young men and an accidental death. Fine him one thousand taels of silver and confine him to his residence for three months as a warning to others.”

He watched the victim’s family turn ashen in an instant.

He saw the disbelief in the eyes of several upright censors.

He saw the smug curve of the culprit’s lips.

The young emperor screamed and struggled desperately within his own mind.

Yet his face remained completely calm, even faintly impatient.

With a casual wave of his hand, he dismissed a murder case as though it were nothing.

More and more incidents like these followed.

The worthy officials he wished to draw closer were always inexplicably driven away by his own harsh rebukes.

The petty men he wanted to distance himself from always received rewards and promotions he had never intended to grant.

Wasteful construction projects that exhausted the people and drained the treasury were carried out because of his supposed “obstinate insistence.”

He listened to grievances rising throughout the realm and watched the state coffers grow emptier by the day.

Yet he was like a prisoner trapped inside his own body, able only to watch everything happen without the power to stop it.

Fear wound itself around the young emperor day and night like creeping vines.

He did not know what was happening to him.

Had he been possessed by something evil?

Or had he contracted some strange illness that separated the soul from the body?

The young emperor attempted to resist.

During those brief intervals when his mind became clear, he desperately tried to reverse the damage.

But the invisible force grew stronger each time, and the periods during which it controlled him became longer and longer.

He felt himself sinking little by little into a swamp, drifting farther and farther from the person he had wanted to become.

Until one day, while in a muddled and half-conscious state, he inexplicably entered the forbidden chamber in the deepest part of the Imperial Library.

Many miscellaneous records, rare surviving manuscripts, and unofficial histories from previous dynasties were stored there.

He casually pulled out an old storybook covered in dust.

When he brushed away the dust, the words inside struck him like lightning.

The book described a dynasty called “Great Zhao.”

It had an emperor with exactly the same name as him—

“Jin Tang.”

And that “Jin Tang” was an absolute tyrant.

He favored treacherous men and distanced himself from the worthy.

He launched massive construction projects, persecuted loyal officials, reduced the people to misery, and plunged the realm into chaos.

In the end, he drove the vast dynasty toward destruction and met a fate in which everyone abandoned him, his life ended, and his nation fell.

Every description within the book corresponded exactly with the absurd things Jin Tang had recently done against his own will.

A bone-chilling cold surged from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

He was not a tyrant!

He had never wanted to become a tyrant!

Yet the young emperor’s actions were following the path written in that storybook step by step, without the slightest deviation.

“No!”

The young emperor released a silent scream inside the empty forbidden chamber, his very soul trembling.

So he was not ill.

He had become the character in this storybook destined to be cursed throughout history.

An invisible and terrifying force was controlling him, determined to turn him into the ruler who destroyed his own country.

After despair came desperate resistance.

Jin Tang tried to starve himself.

The force made him ravenously hungry and compelled him to gorge himself.

He tried to injure himself so that pain would keep his mind clear.

The force drained all strength from his body until he could not even hold a needle steady.

He tried to tell a trusted minister the truth.

But when the words reached his lips, they transformed into unreasonable accusations and suspicion.

He was like a moth caught in a spiderweb.

Every struggle only hastened his destruction.

After one fierce act of resistance that exhausted every fragment of his mind, a cold and emotionless voice sounded directly in the depths of his consciousness.

It carried the indifferent mockery of something looking down upon an insect.

【Give up, Jin Tang. You cannot change anything. You are destined to become the ruler who destroys Great Zhao. This is the fate that has already been written. Watching the mountains and rivers break apart and the people lose their homes—that is your sole purpose and your ending.】

The voice was like a final judgment.

It shattered the young emperor’s last trace of hope.

He collapsed onto the cold floor, tears flowing silently down his face.

As a descendant of the Jin imperial family, as the heir upon whom his father had placed such great expectations, and as the emperor of Great Zhao, he possessed his own pride and dignity.

If he could not escape this predetermined “fate,” and if he could not control himself enough to avoid becoming a tyrant who brought disaster upon the nation and its people, then he could at least choose…

Death.

He could not choose how he lived.

But he could choose how he died.

At least at the final moment of his life, he would be conscious.

He would still be Jin Tang—the man who refused to betray the realm and its people or bring shame upon his ancestors.

Better to be shattered jade than an intact roof tile.

And so, on a silent night beneath a pale and desolate moon, the young emperor dismissed every attendant.

He changed into his most solemn and immaculate ochre-yellow dragon robes.

Then he walked toward one of the palace pillars and threw a length of clean white silk over the high roof beam.

Standing upon a stool, he looked around one last time at the bedchamber that had contained his brief reign.

His gaze passed over every familiar furnishing.

There was no fear of death in his eyes.

There was only a resolve washed clean by tears—filled with unbearable pain, yet also with absolute calm.

The young emperor spoke into the empty air, and also to his father somewhere beyond the mortal world.

Using the last of his strength, he said hoarsely,

“Father Emperor, this son was incompetent. I failed to protect the realm.”

“But I would rather die than become the ruler who destroys his own country.”

As the final word fell, he resolutely kicked away the stool beneath his feet.

The last things his consciousness registered were the terrible pain around his neck—

And the darkness that swiftly swallowed everything.