Yang Feng was utterly dumbfounded.
He stood rooted to the spot, as though a bolt of heavenly lightning had struck his brain, crashing it in an instant and leaving it utterly blank.
All the sounds of the world seemed to vanish at that moment, leaving only an incessant buzzing in his ears.
He raised his head blankly and stared at the dazzling golden words on the sky screen, reading them word by word, then putting them back together in his head, word by word.
[He had been biding his time all along.]
[He had been building up his strength all along.]
Was this talking about me?
That slave named Yang Feng... was me?
The future emperor for the ages... was me?
Had something gone wrong here?
Yang Feng felt his entire worldview suffer an unprecedented blow. This was ten thousand times more outrageous than discovering he had transmigrated!
An emperor for the ages?
Me?
Wasn't my starting point even lower than that of Emperor Gaozu of Han Liu Bang, who had laid the foundations for the Great Han's four-hundred-year reign?
At least Liu Bang had been a pavilion chief, eating on the government's dime-a low-level civil servant of sorts.
And me?
A slave!
A slave under Yuan Shu!
My starting point was outright negative! How could I possibly compare?
Just as towering waves surged through Yang Feng's heart, a complicated gaze filled with shock, anger, jealousy, and disbelief stabbed into him like a red-hot sword.
It was Yuan Shu.
The emperor of Zhong, who had just been raging impotently over not being the chosen son of heaven, now stared fixedly at him with a twisted face, his gaze seemingly intent on swallowing him alive and flaying him raw.
I'm done for.
Done for, done for. I'm completely screwed this time.
Yang Feng's heart instantly sank to rock bottom, and an icy chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.
Yuan Shu was going to have me beheaded on the spot!
This sky screen really couldn't do a single decent thing! Wasn't it blatantly trying to screw me to death?
No!
Absolutely not!
His survival instinct overwhelmed all his shock and sense of absurdity in an instant, and Yang Feng's mind began racing.
Almost instinctively, he repeatedly waved his hands at Yuan Shu on the dragon throne, forcing out a smile uglier than a crying face as he desperately tried to convey his innocence.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! This... this has to be a mistake!"
"The sky screen got it wrong!"
"I... how could I possibly be that sort of person?"
"Look at me! I'm just an ordinary slave! You'd even find me too clumsy to serve you tea and water!"
On the dragon throne, Yuan Shu's chest heaved violently. He gripped the armrests so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
Kill him?
The thought screamed madly through his head.
But... what if the sky screen was telling the truth?
This was the sky screen!
Unable to make up his mind, Yuan Shu found his already muddled brain tangled into an even greater mess. He could only turn a pleading gaze toward the civil and military officials below.
Standing at the head of the advisers, Yan Xiang kept his eyes lowered, but waves were already raging in his heart.
He knew that this Yang Feng before him was no mere creature destined to remain in a pond.
Although he still did not know whether the sky screen's words were true, he had long felt that following a stubborn, self-willed fool like Yuan Shu would sooner or later spell doom for them all.
Wasn't this an opportunity right here?
Yan Xiang's thoughts raced, and a bold plan took shape in an instant.
Why not go with the current for now, lead the civil and military officials in pleading for Yang Feng, and save his life?
That would both earn a favor and leave me a way out.
If the sky screen further confirmed that Yang Feng was the emperor for the ages, and that fool Yuan Shu really tried to act against him, I could simply join forces with Ji Ling and the others, depose Yuan Shu outright, and enthrone a new ruler on the spot!
Who the hell could stand following a fellow doomed to defeat and destruction like Yuan Shu, only to end up with their family ruined and dead?
At that thought, Yan Xiang dropped straight to his knees and called loudly to Yuan Shu, "Your Majesty, this sky screen is spouting nonsense! How could it possibly be this fellow Yang Feng?"
Yang Feng seized the opportunity and said repeatedly, "Exactly, exactly! There are so many people in this world with the same surname and given name, aren't there?"
"Maybe it's someone else?"
Yuan Shu looked at Yan Xiang, then at the others nearby. The rest followed Yan Xiang's lead and nodded repeatedly.
Meanwhile, across the Nine Provinces beyond the sky screen, this earth-shattering reversal had caused a complete uproar.
Yan Province.
Cao Cao, who had just been smugly congratulating himself on being heaven's chosen one, now had a smile frozen stiff on his face.
"Yang Feng?"
"A slave?"
"This sky screen... must have made a mistake, surely?"
Yuan Shao in Ji Province, Liu Biao in Jing Province, and the others had almost identical reactions.
They looked at the fair, clean-cut young man with the appearance of a scholar displayed on the sky screen, but no matter how they looked, they could not find the slightest trace of an emperor's bearing.
Among all the heroes under heaven, since when had it become a slave's turn to direct the realm?
Yet Cao Cao soon recovered from his initial astonishment. His signature short beard quivered slightly, and a hint of gravity flashed in his eyes.
"No."
"This man is no simple figure."
He spoke in a deep voice, his gaze as sharp as an eagle's.
"In this turmoil under heaven, from the Yellow Turban Rebellion to Dong Zhuo's calamity, and now to the division of the realm among the warlords, how many heroes have died with their reputations ruined?"
"Yet this man managed to keep himself unscathed throughout it all, and could even gather the troops after Yuan Shu's downfall and flee far away to Yizhou."
"Such patience and methods are far beyond the reach of ordinary men!"
In Liu Bei's main tent in Yuzhou, the atmosphere was stranger still.
The three brothers-Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei-all stared wide-eyed at one another, their faces plainly saying they had seen a living ghost.
"Isn't... isn't that the Yang lad?"
Zhang Fei slapped his thigh, his great bronze-bell eyes filled with disbelief.
Even Guan Yu's phoenix eyes narrowed to slits, a rare sight, and the hand stroking his fine beard stopped moving.
Liu Bei was utterly dumbfounded.
"Yang Feng..."
He murmured to himself as a dust-covered memory welled up in his heart.
After carefully comparing their recollections, the three brothers all confirmed that the Yang Feng on the sky screen was the young man who had briefly followed them during the campaign against the Yellow Turbans, and whom they had later seen a few times in the coalition against Dong Zhuo.
"Big Brother, I remember him!"
Zhang Fei bellowed.
"Aside from being a bit prettier than a pretty boy, he had absolutely nothing going for him!"
"When he followed us, all he did was eat and sleep! Once he woke up, he'd eat again. He could eat more than a pig!"
"A rice bucket like that could be an emperor for the ages?"
"I, Old Zhang, will be the first to disbelieve it!"
Liu Bei's brows were tightly knitted as well. No matter how he thought about it, he could not understand.
He remembered that the young man named Yang Feng had indeed had little presence, always sitting quietly in a corner.
But... thinking back now, he had survived the campaign against the Yellow Turban Army.
When they campaigned against Dong Zhuo and the realm plunged into chaos, he had survived that too.
Now he was staying in the fiery pit that was Yuan Shu's camp, yet the sky screen said he would ultimately escape unharmed and go to Yizhou.
They still could not believe that such a seemingly unremarkable fellow, even something of a "good-for-nothing," could be that legendary emperor for the ages who would end the troubled times and usher in a flourishing era!
This was simply more absurd than Yuan Shu proclaiming himself emperor!