Thus, Lin Hanzhou began spending more time walking among the flourishing world he had created, living as an ordinary person.
He had seen farmers in the fields laughing heartily over their bountiful harvests.
He had seen the vivid bustle of vendors in the marketplace, arguing until they were red in the face over a few coins.
He had heard children in the schoolroom reciting together, "People are born good by nature."
He had also heard storytellers in teahouses recount the legendary tale of the "Enlightened Sage Emperor."
This was the human world.
It was filled with the seven emotions and six desires, with birth, aging, sickness, and death, with the daily necessities of life.
It was a world entirely different from the numbers and words he had seen in memorials over the past eighty years.
As he experienced the myriad aspects of mortal life, his state of mind began to transform without his even realizing it.
A month later, Lin Yuan's state funeral had concluded, and everything had settled.
Lin Hanzhou summoned the Crown Prince he had personally raised, Lin Qi, and entrusted all of Great Sui to him.
Lin Qi was now over forty. He was steady and capable, more than fit to become a worthy ruler.
Then, on a clear morning, Lin Hanzhou summoned the civil and military officials and announced before them all that he would abdicate and pass the throne to the Crown Prince.
He knew that his mission as "emperor" in this world was complete.
It was time to let go.
The news sent the entire nation into an uproar.
Countless commoners and officials spontaneously knelt outside the palace gates, weeping as they begged the "Enlightened Sage Emperor," who had brought Great Sui eighty years of prosperity, to stay.
But no one could sway Lin Hanzhou's resolve.
A grand and solemn abdication ceremony was held as planned.
Lin Hanzhou personally placed the Imperial Seal of State, symbol of the empire's supreme authority, into the Crown Prince's hands.
He himself withdrew from public life, becoming the "Retired Emperor" of the Great Sui Dynasty.
From that day on, he vanished completely from the sight of the world.
He secluded himself in the part of the imperial palace with the densest spiritual energy, devoting all his time and effort to cultivation.
After a month of cultivating this way, his cultivation remained stuck at the peak of the first tier, unable to advance even an inch.
Lin Hanzhou had clearly expected this outcome.
He knew that to break through to the second tier, he needed a large amount of natural treasures—preferably second-tier ones.
Yet during his reign, even after exhausting the resources of the entire nation in the search, he had found no second-tier natural treasures.
After all, spiritual energy was far too scarce in this world. Even first-tier natural treasures were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns, let alone second-tier ones.
Realizing that he could only break through with natural treasures, Lin Hanzhou changed his approach accordingly.
He left the imperial palace and went deep into the mountains to search for traces of natural treasures.
For convenience, he simply moved into the mountains.
Though he was nearly a hundred years old, he had taken good care of himself over the years, and his strength had barely declined.
That was why he could roam the mountains unhindered. Even tigers had to give him a wide berth.
Another ten years passed. Lin Hanzhou grew ever older, but still found no trace of second-tier natural treasures.
He had found only five first-tier ones.
Those five clearly weren't enough for him to break through, so Lin Hanzhou chose not to pick them. Instead, he waited for them to advance in tier.
As a result, a new item was added to his daily routine: he went to check on the five spirit herbs once a day.
At last, hard work paid off. In the thirteenth year of Lin Hanzhou's seclusion in the mountains, he found a second-tier spirit herb.
After confirming its effects, Lin Hanzhou swallowed it at once and used its medicinal power to break through.
There was no bottleneck. In almost an instant, his cultivation reached the first level of the second-tier Qi Gathering Realm.
Feeling the surging spiritual energy within him, Lin Hanzhou felt more at ease than he had in a hundred years.
The bottleneck that had held him back for decades had finally broken at last.
The benefits of the breakthrough were visible to the naked eye. His aged face grew ruddy, and he looked much more energetic.
After that, Lin Hanzhou stopped searching far and wide for spirit herbs and spent more time enjoying life.
He couldn't make any further progress in cultivation after reaching the second tier, and spirit herbs were a once-in-a-century find. He might as well take it easy.
If he ever grew truly bored, he could always go beat up a tiger for fun.
Another forty years passed this way, and Lin Hanzhou reached the age of one hundred and fifty-one.
He knew clearly that his time was nearly up. Even ordinary second-tier martial artists only lived a little over a hundred years.
With little time left, he returned to the imperial palace, hoping to see Lin Qi one last time.
But he discovered that the Crown Prince of those days, Lin Qi, had already died of old age. His son, Lin Mu, now sat on the throne.
Learning this news, he couldn't help but marvel once more at the power of time.
His heart was a tangle of emotions as he recalled the little moments of the past.
Just then, Lin Mu heard that the Retired Emperor had returned and hurried over.
He bowed respectfully to Lin Hanzhou, his eyes full of reverence.
Looking at the young emperor before him, Lin Hanzhou felt as though he were seeing his younger self.
After confirming that Lin Mu was up to the task, he politely declined the other man's pleas to stay and spent what little time he had left taking in the mortal world.
On the bustling streets of the Capital City, he watched the crowds milling about and felt both familiar and strange.
The scene was just like the Capital City a hundred years ago. It seemed to have changed, yet somehow remained the same.
In the end, Lin Hanzhou passed away in meditation in the depths of the imperial palace, one evening as the sun sank beneath the horizon.
Before his death, he dimly remembered that when he had first crossed into this world, it had been an evening just like this, with the sun setting in the west.
The setting sun was infinitely beautiful, yet dusk was near.
As he thought of this famous poem from his previous life, Lin Hanzhou's consciousness sank into darkness.
Just then, a long-silent system notification rang out in his mind.
[Beep. The host survived for one hundred and forty years in the "Great Sui Dynasty" world. Dream crossing complete.] [Beginning final settlement...] [Host identity: Eleventh Prince of the Great Sui Dynasty, Enlightened Sage Emperor.] [Core achievement one: Defy fate and ascend the throne. Changed his own cannon-fodder fate and successfully claimed the imperial throne. Rating: Excellent.] [Core achievement two: Eliminate the clans. Used thunderous methods to destroy the Five Great Clans, uprooting a thousand-year-old scourge of the empire. Rating: Outstanding.] [Core achievement three: Usher in a golden age. Enacted new policies and reformed the realm, creating the "Enlightened Prosperity Era" and bringing national strength and people's livelihoods to their peak. Rating: Outstanding.] [Core achievement four: Martial arts reform. Spread a new martial arts system, raising the overall level of martial arts in the world. Rating: Excellent.] [Final fate change assessment: The Great Sui Dynasty was originally destined to last three hundred years. Due to the host's intervention, its reign was greatly extended to eight hundred and thirteen years, causing a major deviation in the world's fate!] [Overall rating: S+ (Perfect)] [Issuing rewards based on overall rating...] [Congratulations, host. You have completed the newbie trial and received: cultivation feedback from the Dream World! One thousand points! System shop unlocked! Dream talent function unlocked!]
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