Do Not Damage the Emperor's Reputation

As Zhou Yun's gaze swept over the neat writing in the scholar's notebook, the scholar's memories began flooding into his mind bit by bit. From them, Zhou Yun discovered something:

Neither the scholar's memories nor his notebook contained anything about the Imperium, the Emperor, the Astartes, or Terra.

This planet truly was Macragge, and this city truly was Macragge City,

But this was not the Macragge of the forty-first millennium, homeworld of the Ultramarines. Nor was it the Macragge of the Horus Heresy, or even the Great Crusade.

This was Macragge from an era before the Emperor had led humanity to reclaim the stars, when human civilization was still scattered. It was...

From the corner of the drawer where the notebook had been kept, Zhou Yun dug out several coins.

These were the silver coins used on Macragge, known as dinars.

Each side of the silver coin bore the portrait of a man, representing Macragge's two ruling consuls.

One side depicted the Chief Justice of the Macragge Legislative Assembly, Jarlan, the Senate's finest statesman.

The other depicted Konor Guilliman, the King of Battle and adoptive father of the primarch Roboute Guilliman.

Zhou Yun was in the era when these two consuls commanded Macragge.

In other words, it was the era when Roboute Guilliman had just been adopted by Konor, or was about to be adopted.

It was the era when the Emperor had only just unified Terra, long before he took his seat upon the Golden Throne.

Zhou Yun clenched the silver coin tightly.

Its uneven surface made his palm ache slightly.

He had originally thought he had traveled to sometime around the six-hundredth year of the forty-first millennium, the era when Inquisitor Greyfax was just beginning her career.

But now, it seemed that when his will escaped the Golden Throne, it had not merely escaped through space. It had escaped through time as well.

The man whose body he had entered had not died at the same point in time as his original body upon the Golden Throne.

He could enter the bodies of those who had died in the past, and perhaps even those who would die in the future.

He should have realized it sooner.

His will had escaped the Golden Throne through the Warp.

One of the Warp's defining characteristics was that time did not truly exist within it.

The ships that traveled across the galaxy through the Warp relied upon precisely this characteristic.

Under certain circumstances, a starship could even arrive at its destination before it had departed.

But a case like Zhou Yun's, crossing more than ten thousand years out of thin air, was still exceedingly rare...

Zhou Yun quickly realized the value of this body.

Its primary value was that, if he could make proper use of it,

He might have a chance to change the tragedy of the Horus Heresy, prevent the Emperor from ending up on the Golden Throne, and thereby alter the future.

If he succeeded, then no matter how the future changed, he would at least have a chance to avoid being tortured upon that damned Golden Throne.

Its secondary value was this:

Macragge, especially Macragge in this era, was a relatively peaceful world.

From this moment until the end of the Great Crusade, Macragge—and later Ultramar's Five Hundred Worlds, with Macragge as their capital—would remain among the few peaceful places in the entire galaxy.

Even during the Horus Heresy, Macragge would be relatively stable amid the chaos consuming the galaxy... though there might occasionally be some Hakimi and Hakifu trouble.

As long as his luck was not especially bad, Zhou Yun could at least live peacefully for several decades without worrying about returning to the Golden Throne.

Whoever wanted to go back to that Golden Throne could go back. Whoever wanted to go to Terra could go to Terra.

Neither place was as good as Macragge.

From now on, he was going to enjoy himself on Macragge.

At that thought, Zhou Yun's mood improved somewhat.

He reached out and continued reading the scholar's notebook. The more he read, the better he came to understand this scholar of Macragge.

He was a teacher at Macragge National Grammar Academy, specializing in linguistics, literature, and history. After only five years in office, he had made a name for himself in Macragge City as a grammar instructor and was regarded as a rising star in academic circles.

As Zhou Yun learned more about his past, he also acquired some of his abilities.

He began to gain an understanding of Macragge's own history, its poetry and drama, and the grammar of its language. He could even roughly read ancient Macraggean cuneiform and speak a little of the language of Macragge's barbarians.

In Zhou Yun's experience, as time passed and he remained in the scholar's body longer, recovering more and more of the scholar's memories, he would gradually learn all of the scholar's skills.

Just as he had learned the forest hunter's hunting skills, and the diviner's psychic abilities and Emperor's Tarot skills.

Suddenly, Zhou Yun turned to a stack of papers tucked inside the diary...

He pulled the stack from the diary and was surprised to find that they were all promissory notes.

The coarse yellow paper recorded the amounts the scholar owed, the scholar's signature, and the seals of the temples that had lent him the money.

And the amounts of the debts kept growing larger.

From a mere six dinars, to twelve dinars, fifty-four dinars, three hundred and ninety-six dinars... The largest note had been issued last night, before Zhou Yun entered this body, for a full one thousand two hundred and ninety-six dinars...

The scholar's annual income was only a little over three hundred dinars, while the debts on these notes added up to no less than four thousand dinars.

Even if the scholar neither ate nor drank, it would take him ten years to repay them.

And as for his current savings... the few coins Zhou Yun had just found were all he had.

Had he gone insane? How had he borrowed so much?

Back then, even when the Emperor borrowed money in the Warp to create the primarchs, he had only owed half the primarchs, while this scholar owed more than ten times his annual income!

Some memories began surfacing in Zhou Yun's mind: shaking dice cups, the laughter of men and women, the pleasant buzz of alcohol, the thrilling rush of blood pounding through his veins.

Zhou Yun rubbed his brow.

He remembered now. This scholar had become addicted to gambling not long ago, and in just a few months, he had accumulated this much debt.

With so much debt, should he think of a way to repay it?

Zhou Yun muttered to himself...

Repaying it was impossible, Zhou Yun thought.

Leaving aside the fact that the only way Zhou Yun knew to make money was street fortune-telling,

Just consider his current identity. He had transmigrated into the Emperor.

As one of the galaxy's four greatest con artists, the Emperor's credit was so bad that he could not even unlock a shared bicycle by the roadside, let alone a shared unicycle.

If Zhou Yun repaid the money, would that not damage the Emperor's credit score?

Running away really was the best option. Macragge was a mountainous planet; he could pick any forest and, with his hunting skills, live quite comfortably there.

After all, the forest where that forest hunter had lived was filled with bizarre and terrifying beasts and giant monsters, yet Zhou Yun had survived there for months using his hunting skills. Compared to that, Macragge was practically paradise.

The only problem was that, if he did not remain in Macragge City, how would he come into contact with Roboute Guilliman? How could he change the fate of the Horus Heresy?

As Zhou Yun looked through the promissory notes one by one, his fingers found a letter pressed beneath them.

The envelope had long since been opened, and the sealing wax at its flap had loosened somewhat. Yet the flap had been folded back neatly, as though the scholar cared greatly about this letter.

Zhou Yun opened the envelope and drew out the letter within...

"Abbas, steward of House Guilliman, sends greetings to the esteemed scholar Zhou Yun.

Your outstanding performance in the assessment greatly impressed my master. He invites you and the other equally exceptional teachers to visit his residence on the twenty-second day of March..."

Before Zhou Yun could finish reading the letter, a sudden knock sounded at the door. He turned toward it, while noticing that sunlight had already streamed into the room through the narrow window. Two of the four moons had completely vanished, while the remaining two hung low on the horizon. Dawn had come.

The knocking grew increasingly urgent. Whoever stood outside seemed to be growing impatient.