What absurdity was this?
The Great Wa Empire?
Emperor Xuanwu nearly laughed from sheer fury upon seeing those words.
Why had Tian Sheng deployed its armies to Wa in the first place?
It was because the Wa people had long dispatched men masquerading as pirates to raid and plunder along Tian Sheng's coastlines.
Now that Tian Sheng's soldiers had braved the seas, endured countless hardships, and finally brought the Wa to their knees, was it all just so they could occupy a tiny scrap of land and let the Wa escape elsewhere, beyond Tian Sheng's reach, to continue their tyranny?
What a fine dream they dared to spin.
Emperor Xuanwu's face darkened, storm clouds gathering in his eyes. After a long pause, he finally clicked the last option before him.
[You have selected Option C: The Wa people, along with their entire nation, vanish completely into the tides of history.
Because of your thunderous might, the neighboring petty states now find justification to wage war together, cloaking their ambitions beneath the righteous banner of "punishing a tyrant and upholding Heaven's mandate."
Perhaps in this era, your decision seems excessively brutal, And even future generations may never fully grasp the clarity behind your choice.
But from the perspective of another timeline's future, You are condemned in this era, yet your merit will echo through the ages.]
Condemned in this era, merit through the ages.
Emperor Xuanwu stared at those words, and the phrase that preceded them: "another timeline."He remained motionless, the button to close the window forgotten beneath his fingertips.
Eventually, perhaps because the timer had reached its limit, the light-screen shimmered and shifted into the next phase.
[Please select one related future vision you wish to witness:
A. Image of Wa people causing unrest after being absorbed as Tian Sheng citizens
B. Image of Wa people seizing the New World and swaggering in their dominance
C. Image of online commentary in an alternate timeline—where you never received the Simulation Life Selection System and Yun Shu's fate remained unchanged—condemning Wa's atrocities.]
Online users. Again with the online users.
Under any other circumstance, Emperor Xuanwu would never have chosen the third option.
To him, the phrase "online users" had so far only meant unreliable nonsense.
But now, he desperately wished to know—
If he had never received the Simulation Life Selection System,
If Xiao Wu's fate had remained as it once was, never rising to become Crown Princess, let alone the future Empress of Tian Sheng—
What then would become of Tian Sheng's future?
What unspeakable crimes would the Wa people commit in that version of the world,
That the Simulation Life Selection System would determine that his massacre of millions
Was not merely justified, but a great deed worthy of the phrase: condemned in this era, merit through the ages?
Emperor Xuanwu drew a deep breath and slowly selected the third option.
The next instant, a ridiculously long screenshot of a comment section began scrolling from top to bottom.
[I'm ready to blow up Wa]:I visited the old ruins where Wa conducted those experiments in our country. I swear, I still can't shake the heaviness in my chest. Is there a legal way to get a psychiatric certificate for trauma?
If I take that certificate and blow up their national toilet, think I'd make it out alive?
[Sakura is so pretty]: Why bring up the past again and again? What's the point?
[Wa's Toilet Is Gone]: Excuse me? Where did this 500,000 yen defender crawl out from?
The past? Easy for you to say.
They dried living people into sheets of skin,
Lowered air pressure to make organs explode,
Exposed humans to extreme temperature shifts until skin tore from bone,
Performed live dissections,
Conducted poison and germ warfare experiments...
Each of these crimes is a blood debt the Wa people owe.
The past? Fine. How about you relive all of it with the Wa people,And then maybe—just maybe—it counts as forgiven.
[The Diversity of Online Fauna]: I always say, the internet shows you just how bizarre humanity can get.
How many years has it been?
And some people are already brushing aside this history, written in blood and tears?
[Beautiful, My Ass]: One day, these fools will eat some super-mutated seafood from polluted waters and maybe their brains will mutate into something that finally learns shame.
The image kept going. Between the furious comments, there were also detailed accounts of Wa's wartime atrocities.
But in just a few breaths, Emperor Xuanwu's eyes had turned blood-red.
These were his future descendants. His people.
If not for the miracle of obtaining the Simulation Life Selection System,
If not for Yun Shu's fate being rewritten…
How dare the Wa—merely a fringe nation—how dare they commit such horrors?
A bitter heat surged within his chest, fury mingled with a deep, suffocating grief.
Emperor Xuanwu clenched the report in his right hand, his fingers tightening again and again until—
Bang!
All the rage that had nowhere to go exploded in a single punch against the nearby tree.
The sharp crack startled Minister Yan, who had still been locked in a dispute over the seventy million silver with General Wei Yuan and Ye Qing'an. He looked over in alarm.
What had happened?
Could someone please explain what just occurred?
All he had done was be a little tightfisted. But it was seventy million taels!
He had been managing the treasury like this for years—so why, of all days, did His Majesty erupt with such fury?
Was it still too late to change his mind and offer the funds?
Seventy million? The treasury could afford that!
"Father Emperor."
Yun Shu, who had until moments ago been focused on the court debate, now turned around and noticed blood dripping from Emperor Xuanwu's right sleeve.
Her expression shifted, and she stepped forward, her voice soft with concern.
"Shall I summon the imperial physician?"
The imperial physician?
Others in the court finally noticed it as well. At once, their expressions changed.
They quickly bowed.
"May Your Majesty safeguard your sacred health!"
"It is but a minor wound. Not worth fretting over."
A bit of scraped skin—what of it?
What truly mattered was the blood debt owed by the future people of Tian Sheng in another timeline.
The Simulation Life Selection System had spoken true. Mercy to the Wa was cruelty to one's own. Erasing them entirely from the annals of history was not merely justice. It was necessity.
Let no one speak of whether some among the Wa were innocent.
He would rather err on the side of severity than let one snake slip through. Who could say what monstrous fruit would grow from the seeds of those so-called good men?
Perhaps, before, he had hesitated—afraid his actions might be lost to history, remembered only as the cruelty of a tyrant.
But now, after seeing that image, Emperor Xuanwu's resolve was carved in stone.
Not a single one would be spared.
Yet he would not speak of it openly. To declare it outright would invite resistance from every quarter.
So he said nothing.
With eyes still rimmed in red, he cast a final, indifferent glance at the gathered officials.
"That will be all. Court is dismissed."
Then, without another word, he turned and strode toward the imperial study, not once looking back.