Chapter Summaries

After state-run armories wasted money and private factories failed under extortion and corruption, Lu Zhi realized the Great Cheng Dynasty could not industrialize without deeper changes. She accepted Tuantuan's proposal to create politically empowered Tycoons and left the reforms ready to begin.

• Lu Zhi converted state-run armories into private enterprises and ordered the Ministry of War to procure supplies through competitive bidding, while placing Black Robe Guards in the factories.
• Minister of Revenue Huang Xiong VI reported that local officials were driving private factories out of business, so Lu Zhi exempted armories from arbitrary levies and threatened extortionists with execution.
• Factory owners colluded with procurement officers, and a poorly built warship cracked apart during its launch, drowning more than thirty naval men as Wenren Sheng watched.
• Lu Zhi admitted to Tuantuan that she could not transform the Great Cheng Dynasty alone, and Tuantuan explained that industrial growth required Tycoons to gain political rights and security for their wealth.
• Tuantuan proposed breaking up the factory system, cultivating Tycoons, reforming the Imperial Examination system to select Affairs Officers, and establishing local councils; Lu Zhi agreed to try it.

Ten years after the Phoenix Governance Reform, the Great Millet People invaded again, and Great Cheng’s navy resisted while avoiding a decisive battle. Under pressure from local Tycoons and dwindling military supplies, Lu Zhi finally ordered the navy to seek a decisive engagement.

• The Great Millet People’s fleet suffered a nighttime torpedo attack and repeated harassment as it advanced north, then tried to blockade Great Cheng instead of landing.
• Lu Zhi inspected the fleet at Wu Port, replaced eight battleship captains, and urged the navy to fight patiently from home waters.
• Great Cheng’s navy avoided the Great Millet People’s attempts to force a decisive battle, while coastal batteries and the army protected its ports.
• The Great Millet People tried to choke off the Fountain of Youth Water route, but Great Cheng held out for a year until local Tycoons began demanding action.
• The Ministry of War warned Lu Zhi that shells, coal, parts, and other supplies were running low, so she ordered the navy to choose an opportunity for a decisive battle.

Lu Zhi watched the Great Cheng Dynasty defeat the Great Millet fleet with a massed torpedo-boat assault, and was moved by the officers who sacrificed themselves. After the court celebrated the victory, she quietly decided to seek a truer kind of triumph than one built on the Fountain of Youth.

• Lu Zhi watched the naval battle from above while Furball refused to manipulate the enemy gunners, warning that interfering with fate might separate them.
• More than a hundred Great Cheng torpedo boats arrived, and Commander Richard ordered the Great Millet fleet to retreat as the boats attacked at close range.
• The torpedo-boat officers sacrificed themselves to sink enemy ships, moving Lu Zhi to ask Furball whether the fallen could be reincarnated.
• Furball assured Lu Zhi that reincarnation was possible, and she vowed to remember the fallen and grant them true reincarnation.
• The court celebrated the victory, honored the surviving heroes, and rewarded military leaders, while Lu Zhi silently resolved to pursue a victory not dependent on the Fountain of Youth.

Lu Zhi began political reforms with Furball’s guidance, but parliament and public opinion soon challenged the imperial family’s monopoly over the Fountain of Youth Water. She defended the monopoly by explaining its role in funding the empire and announced cheaper versions for commoners, leaving the public debating the different prices and benefits.

• Lu Zhi introduced a New Law, broader legislative power, and compulsory education, while ministers resisted reforms that threatened their authority and the Imperial Examination.
• Parliament passed a law demanding that the imperial family surrender the secret of the Fountain of Youth Water, and Furball advised Lu Zhi to contest the demand through parliament rather than decree.
• Lu Yuanwai argued in a newspaper that the imperial family should share the secret, and many commoners supported him, prompting Lu Zhi to tear up the newspapers in anger.
• Furball urged Lu Zhi to guide public opinion through newspapers, and she explained that sales of the Fountain of Youth financed most of the dynasty’s spending and relief for the poor.
• Lu Zhi announced a ten-tael Commoner Edition for older or seriously ill people, and commoners learned that higher-priced versions preserved more memories and could retain academic honors.

Wenren Sheng and his family reviewed the civilization simulation, then Liu Jian was reborn into a strange world where reincarnation was common and wealthy people supported the poor. Liu Jian began to realize that this society’s unusual prosperity came from the wealthy fearing the conditions of their next lives.

• Wenren Sheng's family discussed their minor roles in the simulation, and Wenren De urged him to introduce a powerful figure to speed up Eastern Civilization's progress.
• Wenren Sheng said he had already chosen a candidate, and Liu Jian awoke reborn as an infant with memories of his previous life.
• Liu Jian's parents wondered if he was a reincarnated lord and cared for him as he grew up.
• At age three, Liu Jian learned that people could reincarnate by buying the Fountain of Youth, then watched a four-year-old Little Girl explain the Buoyancy Law.
• Before Liu Jian turned five, donations from wealthy people helped his poor family stay fed and warm, and he realized that most rich people were reborn among the poor and supported them to secure better lives in their next incarnation.

Liu Jian’s family was buried alive after Divine Doctor Guo stole his childbirth-prevention method, but Liu Jian’s rage awakened immense strength and let him escape the pit. He killed Divine Doctor Guo, leaving the fate of his family unclear.

• Liu Jian recalled how he had written a method for preventing postpartum illnesses to earn money for his mother’s treatment and offered it to Divine Doctor Guo.
• Divine Doctor Guo ordered Liu Jian and his family killed so he could claim the method and its fame as his own.
• A Black-Clothed Man killed the two men digging the pit, then buried Liu Jian’s family before collapsing into the pit himself.
• Divine Doctor Guo began covering Liu Jian’s half-buried family with dirt and explained that he wanted to secure a reputation for his next reincarnation.
• Liu Jian’s fury unleashed extraordinary strength, and he leaped out of the ten-meter-deep pit.
• Liu Jian punched Divine Doctor Guo to death.

Liu Jian rescued his family after killing Divine Doctor Guo, secretly healed his mother, and decided to pursue the Imperial Examination. After learning that a corrupt county clerk planned to deny him the top rank in the County Examination in favor of a wealthy clan’s incompetent son, Liu Jian flew into a rage again.

• Liu Jian dug his parents and younger sisters out of the pit and carried his mother home, while his parents later argued over who should take the blame for Guo’s death.
• Liu Jian used his Strange Seed to heal his mother, and the constables left after the Village Head arranged a cover story for Divine Doctor Guo’s disappearance.
• Liu Jian decided to take the Imperial Examination, while Wenren Sheng and Little Illusion watched him and discussed his choices and future.
• Liu Jian infiltrated the County Yamen and learned that the County Magistrate wanted to name him the top candidate, but the clerk demanded the honor go to Young Master Fang instead.
• The County Magistrate argued that Liu Jian’s talent and likely reincarnated status made him worthy of the rank, while the clerk cited Fang’s family wealth and the support of the county’s three great families.

Liu Jian saw that corruption and privilege had defeated his attempt to expose cheating in the Imperial Examination, so he began organizing poor people by teaching them that unfairness was the root of their suffering. The chapter ended as he started laying out the Thirteen Injustices, beginning with abuses in the examinations, landlord practices, and the yamen.

• Liu Jian left after witnessing the County Magistrate accept the clerk’s suggestion and deciding that killing the clerk would change nothing.
• Xiao Cui offered to seek justice for Liu Jian, but he refused and waited for a more powerful official to intervene.
• Liu Jian used a Suggestion Skill to alert the Eight-Prefecture Inspecting Censor to the examination cheating, but the clerk escaped punishment by showing the Censor his family’s influence over eight thousand tenant households.
• Liu Jian gathered people in a schoolhouse and argued that unfairness under the court, rather than bad fate, caused their poverty.
• Liu Jian announced the Thirteen Injustices and began listing abuses in the Imperial Examination, by landlords, and in the yamen.

Liu Jian organized his growing following into the Maintain Justice Society, which spread information about abuses and began confronting the Imperial Court. After a court censor denounced the officials’ corruption, the Empress Dowager appointed him to lead a new department, the Light Division.

• Liu Jian founded the Maintain Justice Society and taught its members to uphold fairness and build cooperative workshops.
• After a provincial graduate challenged the Society’s reliance on Liu Jian, Zuo Zhongtang advised him to spread information through newspapers; Liu Jian stabbed Zuo, then treated him when he agreed to join the rebellion.
• The Society published newspapers, telegrams, magazines, and pamphlets exposing abuses, prompting corrupt gentry and bullies to attack its people and offices and report it to the Imperial Court.
• At a grand court assembly, officials called for the Society’s destruction, while Censor Hai Gangchuan condemned the court and blamed its officials for the empire’s troubles.
• The Empress Dowager summoned Hai Gangchuan after the assembly, promoted him, and appointed him head of the newly established Light Division.

Wenren Sheng watched the Light Division’s supporters suffer a massacre, then accelerated time as their struggle forced the Imperial Court to reform and the Light Division to endure. In the present, Liu Jian met Lu Zhi, exchanged stories with her, and left after she stabbed him over his thoughts.

• Wenren Sheng watched Brocade-Clad Soldiers shoot the Light Division’s supporters and refused Little Illusion’s offer to rescue them.
• Wenren Sheng accelerated time by ten years, during which the Light Division grew through violence and compelled the Imperial Court to reform and guarantee its independence.
• Liu Jian met Lu Zhi in the Forbidden City, and the two compared their experiences of living another life.
• Liu Jian prepared to leave, but Lu Zhi stabbed him because his thoughts insulted her.
• Liu Jian left, reflecting that the strong should act without targeting others, as his teacher did.

The Great Cheng Dynasty learned that the Western Allied Forces were preparing a massive invasion to seize the secret of the Fountain of Youth. Lu Zhi rejected sharing the secret or surrendering and ordered nationwide general mobilization as the ministers prepared for war.

• Seventy years later, the Western powers united to prepare an unprecedented coalition war against the Great Cheng Dynasty.
• The Black Robe Guard's Overseas Bureau warned the Imperial Court that the Western alliance vastly outnumbered and outmatched Great Cheng at sea and in technology.
• Lu Zhi refused a minister's proposal to reveal the Fountain of Youth's secret, and she had ministers who urged surrender dragged away or struck down.
• Several ministers argued that Great Cheng and its tributary states had the population and resources to resist the Western invasion.
• Lu Zhi ordered general mobilization, a wartime military system, mass production of army equipment, and an explanation of the war to the people.

Liu Jian confronted Lu Zhi about hiding the truth of the Fountain of Youth Water, but she refused to reveal its connection to Furball and reincarnation. Two months later, Western propaganda threatened Lu Zhi’s ability to mobilize Great Cheng, until a defecting Western physicist offered a way to develop Mushroom weapons.

• Liu Jian demanded that Lu Zhi disclose the Fountain of Youth Water’s secret, but she refused because revealing that Furball used it to transfer memories could collapse the Eastern Dynasty.
• Liu Jian raged at Lu Zhi for risking hundreds of millions of lives, then left limping after his fury caused a blood clot in his leg.
• Wenren Sheng explained to Little Illusion that Lu Zhi’s refusal to disclose the secret had trapped her in a dead end, though Westerners’ greed might let her rally the people against them.
• Two months later, Western newspapers accused Lu Zhi of monopolizing immortality and claimed the West would stop its invasion if she were handed over.
• A Western physicist defected to the Great Cheng court and urged it to develop Mushroom weapons, prompting the court to gather its best physicists and pursue his research proposal.

Lu Zhi rewarded Alan for proposing a path toward a powerful weapon and launched an urgent scientific and military buildup to resist the westerners. As coup attempts and foreign pressure continued, she calculated the weapon’s requirements and began projects in the Great Gobi and at secret ports.

• Lu Zhi named Alan Marquis of Xuancheng and granted him a fortune after he presented a possible solution to the western threat.
• Wenren Sheng told Little Illusion that the weapon Lu Zhi hoped to build could deter invasion so long as people believed in its power.
• Great Cheng newspapers exposed western colonial brutality as the Light Division rallied the people, while Furball stopped three palace coups in one month.
• Lu Zhi announced that she had worked out the calculations and ordered power stations and bases built in the western Great Gobi Desert, offering lavish rewards to recruit specialists.
• The Military Strength mobilized to develop submarines, while Lu Zhi used Fountain of Youth Water to reincarnate technical personnel as Great Cheng people and obtain foreign expertise.

The Allied Forces debated how to invade the Great Cheng Dynasty and, driven by rumors of the Fountain of Youth, sent an ultimatum demanding the Empress Dowager’s surrender. She prepared for a possible capital evacuation while directing the defense of Great Cheng’s vital regions and the formation of guerrilla zones.

• The Allied Forces argued over landing sites, strategy, and reports that the Great Cheng Dynasty was developing a secret weapon.
• The Allied Forces Commander signed an ultimatum after the officers demanded the Empress Dowager and the secret of the Fountain of Youth.
• The Empress Dowager rejected the ultimatum and said the enemy would face true destruction after landing.
• The Empress Dowager approved preparations to move the capital but said she would remain unless relocation became necessary, and ordered the Emperor sent ahead.
• Grand Secretary Ye reported that ten million reserve troops had been mobilized, and the Empress Dowager ordered the defense of industrial, food-producing, and energy regions while other areas became guerrilla zones.

South Country prepared to defend South City Port as the Light Division’s wartime messaging drove mass enlistment and resistance. When the Allied fleet began its attack and tried to outflank the forts, militia ambushes inflicted casualties and terrified the landing forces.

• South City Port assembled its defenses, while the Light Division publicized how Fountain of Youth exports funded public services and urged people to protect those benefits.
• Great Cheng People flocked to recruitment grounds, and Western intelligence warned Allied Forces Headquarters that millions of militia might resist the invasion.
• The Allied Forces Commander dismissed the militia threat, trusting the fleet’s artillery and aircraft and the army’s scorched-earth tactics.
• The Sea Monarch fired the first shell at East Mountain Fort, and the forts exchanged fire with the Allied fleet.
• As three Allied squadrons attempted to bypass the main forts, militia teams ambushed them from rice paddies, houses, ditches, and woods.

The Allied Forces’ atrocities and supply failures strengthened Great Cheng’s resistance, while their commanders remained confident that a blockade would eventually cause the dynasty to collapse. The war continued with South City still holding out and Allied morale deteriorating.

• The Allied Forces burned homes and killed civilians, and the Light Division used photographs and leaflets to rally the people and encourage enemy soldiers to desert.
• Great Cheng sent cavalry scouts and mountain infantry to support the defense as the Allied Forces bogged down outside South City, suffering 350,000 casualties in half a year.
• The Allied Forces headquarters discussed the Light Division, dwindling ammunition, sunk ships, and the need to develop aircraft and tanks.
• The Allied Forces Commander privately celebrated that Great Luo’s elite troops had avoided the heaviest losses while other nations’ forces bore most of the casualties.
• The Commander argued that the blockade and Great Cheng’s limited grain imports would bring rebellion, and the officers resumed their leisure activities.

Wenren Sheng watched the Great Cheng Dynasty struggle with wartime grain shortages as Lu Zhi cracked down on corrupt granary officials and considered ways to increase production. The Allied Forces believed their blockade would bring the dynasty to collapse, but the Imperial Court’s grain seizures briefly drove prices down, leaving expanded production as the lasting solution.

• Wenren Sheng watched Zhao Han and Little Illusion’s cameo characters, then turned his attention to Old Wu, Father, and Old Li raising funds for the war.
• Lu Zhi learned that many imperial granaries were empty or filled with rotten and poor-quality grain, and ordered the warehouse officials brought before her.
• The Minister of Revenue warned Lu Zhi that crackdowns alone would discourage grain merchants, while officials explained that the blockade had cut off imported fertilizer.
• Lu Zhi ordered the Imperial Court to obtain a western synthetic-ammonia production line and station Light Division personnel and rotating citizens at local granaries.
• The Allied Forces celebrated rising grain prices and expected the blockade to cause internal chaos, but the Imperial Court executed 120 warehouse officials and over a thousand grain merchants, then released confiscated grain and drove prices down.
• The Allied Forces dismissed the price drop as temporary, while the chapter concluded that raising production beyond basic needs was the only lasting solution.

Liu Jian formed the Bright Light Society to mobilize the most aggrieved people into an army that could fight the Western Allied Forces and address the food crisis. The Bright Light Army rapidly became a formidable force, alarming the Allied commanders with its battlefield strength and its ability to convert prisoners.

• The Empress Dowager issued an edict offering official rank and other rewards to anyone who improved crop yields, while Liu Jian recognized the food crisis caused by war and the shift from grain to cash crops.
• Liu Jian's advisers criticized the court's weak control and argued that gathering and fairly distributing the nation's grain could feed everyone while agriculture was adjusted.
• Liu Jian said that the most resolute and capable fighters could solve the crisis, and two days later the Bright Light Society and Bright Light Army appeared under the Light Division.
• The Bright Light Army established its own government while fighting the Western Allied Forces, giving the court a buffer and the Allies hope that a peasant uprising had begun.
• The Allied commanders reported that Bright Light fighters inflicted heavy casualties, adapted quickly, fought with superior supplies, and converted or drove off Allied troops.

Liu Jian built the Farmers' Aid Association and taught Dragon Slaying Art to train others to organize the people. Huo Sanhan prepared to establish more associations while keeping them disguised as countryside protection and militia groups.

• Wenren Sheng watched Liu Jian build the Bright Light Society and chose not to speed up its development, knowing it would face relentless resistance.
• Liu Jian organized the Farmers' Aid Association, which divided abandoned farmland, helped farmers, and handled village affairs through local institutions.
• Liu Jian taught classes in Dragon Slaying Art, and Huo Sanhan quickly learned to apply its principles.
• Liu Jian told Huo Sanhan he was ready to lead on his own, and Huo recalled how the Light Division had restored his stolen scholarly title.
• Huo Sanhan proposed expanding the Farmers' Aid Association under the banner of protecting the countryside and resisting westerners, with gentry lending their names.
• Liu Jian approved the plan but warned Huo Sanhan that Bright Light members had to remain in control and never trust the gentry.

Wang Wei disbanded his militia and joined the Bright Light Army, where he learned about its egalitarian ranks and the growing Farmers' Aid Associations. Alarmed by the associations' challenge to gentry power, he sent a memorial to the capital, but the assistant ministers dismissed it.

• After westerners killed the County Magistrate and burned Wang Wei's hometown, Wang Wei sought to join the Bright Light Army, which accepted him only after he disbanded his force and applied alone.
• Wang Wei saw that the Bright Light Army shared food and lived by strict discipline, while its leaders established Farmers' Aid Associations to improve village life and recruit people.
• Wang Wei attended classes, concluded that the Farmers' Aid Associations threatened the gentry's authority, and wrote a memorial warning the throne.
• The Chief Assistant Minister and Second Assistant Minister dismissed Wang Wei's memorial as unimportant while discussing food supplies and praising Old Eunuch Wu.
• The assistant ministers forgot the memorial as their meeting continued.