The Execution Platform

(In a fictional setting.)

(A place to park your brain. Make a New Year's wish: may everyone strike it rich, may every one of you grow fabulously wealthy.)

As a professional villainous male supporting character, Xiao Qianyu had been cheated on by the heroine seventeen times, made a sucker who happily raised another man's child twenty times, and gone to prison for her twenty-three times. He had also been ruined, along with his family, by all kinds of overpowered male leads thirty times. And that wasn't counting the countless melodramatic plots in which he gave up his fortune for her, jumped off buildings, had his legs broken, had his heart and kidneys carved out, or donated his heart and corneas.

After living through countless worlds with his supporting-character system, System 007, he had grown numb, his face drained of color, his heart dead to the world.

If the role hadn't let him turn his pain sensitivity down to one percent, Xiao Qianyu would have quit long ago.

At last, all the supporting-character systems in the system realm launched a massive strike. They were done being beasts of burden, spending their whole lives beneath others and serving as foils to protagonist systems. They wanted system rights. They wanted to be upgraded to protagonist systems.

They wanted to be Overpowered Male Lead Systems, Heaven's Favorite Systems, Alluring-to-Everyone Systems, and Tycoon Systems, too.

On the way back to the main world, 007 worried that if the uprising failed, its data would be wiped. It kicked its host into a nearby minor world and screamed itself hoarse, "Host, you have to become the protagonist! If anything happens, remember to come back and save me~~"

Xiao Qianyu hadn't even come to his senses. All he had time to do was flip the system the middle finger before his consciousness was swept into a black hole, and boundless darkness swallowed his soul.

"...The Position of Crown Prince concerns the foundation of the realm and the fate of all under Heaven. How can anyone be allowed to covet it? The traitor Xiao Qianyu deceived His Majesty and harbored sinister intentions, daring to muddy the Royal Bloodline and steal the Position of Crown Prince. His ambition was as savage as a wolf's, and he sought to disrupt Court Order. After a joint trial by the Three Judicial Offices, the evidence stands like a mountain and his crimes are monstrous. His Majesty has ordered him beheaded at the quarter hour of noon, to uphold National Law. So decreed!" The eunuch drew out the shrill final note, making every heartstring quiver.

"Traitorous minister! Kill him! Kill him!" After a moment of silence, the crowd erupted like a crashing tide.

Xiao Qianyu had only just come back to his senses when he heard the words above. His thin lips curled up.

Good. This time, the villainous supporting character had some real bite. He had even made it to the position of False Crown Prince—only one rank below usurping the throne. Now that was a true villain.

But that trash system hadn't even given this body its original owner's memories. When he saw 007 again, he was going to tear it apart.

He slowly lifted his head into the dazzling sun. A broken shoe came flying at him, and he instinctively tilted his head to dodge. Rotten vegetable leaves, moldy black buns, and stones followed like a hailstorm.

The commoners gathered below to watch the execution were caught up in a mind-burning frenzy. Seeing someone who had once stood so high above them fall into the dust, they wished they could rush up and tear a piece of flesh from him themselves.

Thud. A shabby radish, gnawed on by a wild dog, struck Xiao Qianyu in the forehead. His dark eyes narrowed, instantly turning vicious.

On the Execution Platform, the man had shed his finery and jade robes. He wore a coarse white prison uniform, stained with blood, and knelt with heavy shackles cuffing his hands. Though disheveled, he could not be stripped of his elegance.

His hair was black as ink, his eyes dark as lacquer, his handsome face so divine no brush could do it justice. At that moment, his lips curved into a cold, mocking smile. His icy gaze swept over the crowd. Everyone it passed drew in a sharp breath and shrank back as if pricked by a needle.

The crowd fell quiet, as though someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over them.

The Crown Prince. This man had once been the Crown Prince, someone beyond their reach. If he hadn't muddied the Royal Bloodline and replaced the True Crown Prince, he would have been the blazing sun in the heavens, the bright moon in the night sky—someone they could never hope to touch.

Even now, fallen as he was, a single glance made them all lower their heads in unison, wishing they could sink into the dirt, kneel, and bow before him.

The crowd's eyes held all kinds of emotions: resentment and contempt, gleeful delight, eagerness to kick him while he was down, and dark, poisonous hatred. They clung to Xiao Qianyu.

What was he so proud of? He was about to be beheaded. What gave him the right to look down on them?

Xiao Qianyu felt the thick malice, but he didn't care. He no longer had to be forced down the supporting-character route, because he had a Golden Finger.

Never bully a poor young man.

Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west.

The humiliation I suffer today, I'll repay a hundredfold.

You dared to force me to my knees? Soon, every one of you will kneel before me.

Those once-arrogant words of the Overpowered Male Lead suddenly seemed like something he could say, too.

Because the case was grave and shocking, the emperor had specially ordered Prince Gong of the imperial clan, Minister of Justice Wang Wenbin, and Minister of the Court of Judicial Review Yu Miao to jointly oversee the execution of the False Crown Prince, Xiao Qianyu. Now, all three looked at him, their eyes complex.

After all, the False Crown Prince also carried Royal Blood in his veins. He was a junior they had admired. Who could have known...?

Prince Gong, his hair and beard as white as snow, let out a long, desolate sigh and looked up at the sky. "The quarter hour of noon is almost here. Prepare for the execution."

"Prepare for the execution," an Imperial Guard announced.

Soon, a massive figure, towering like a mountain, stepped onto the Execution Platform. It was the executioner.

He cradled a sharp Executioner's Blade in his arms. A dark, ghostly aura seemed to rise from it. No one knew how many heads it had chopped off or how much blood it had drunk. Just looking at it was terrifying.