Fearing being killed for his overwhelming merits, the empress decided to marry him.

"I plucked flowers from the south of the Yangtze River, facing the spring breeze and red candles; my passion is as boundless as my romantic love for the world..."

As dusk fell, Shen Lang, carrying a bundle of oil paper and a jug of white wine, hummed a tune as he entered a courtyard.

He kicked open the door and entered the room, then closed it behind him. He threw the oil paper package on the table and spread it out. With a flick of his finger, the candlelight on the table suddenly became bright.

In an instant, a colorful array of appetizing braised dishes appeared: a plate of dried bean curd, a plate of beef, a plate of cucumber, a roast chicken, a dish of peanuts, and a small jar of low-alcohol liquor.

"The only downside is that there are no sausages, which is a pity, but it doesn't matter."

Shen Zhao clapped his hands, took off his cloak, and flicked it, accurately hanging it on a clothes rack.

Uncork the bottle, pour the wine, tear off a chicken leg, and stuff it into your mouth.

"Um……"

A look of satisfaction was on his face.

He picked up the wine glass and gently tapped it against the wine pot, producing a clear, resonant sound.

"Celebrating another day of life in this wonderful world."

Taking a sip of wine, Shen Lang was completely satisfied.

"Who says time travelers have to be successful? This is fine too. After all the fighting and killing, you still end up eating three meals a day, right?"

Shen Lang was talking to himself when he suddenly put down his chopsticks, got up, opened the window, leaned against the windowsill, gazed at the moonlit sky, and drank alone.

My thoughts drifted back to my experience of coming into this world.

In his previous life, Shen Lang was a typical laborer, living a monotonous life.

Once, while playing games with friends at an internet cafe, I accidentally clicked on an ad at the bottom of the computer screen that said "What are you doing, ouch!" and then my vision went black and I lost consciousness.

When he woke up again, he found himself in a place called the River of Time and Space, and was surrounded by a group of things called systems, who said they wanted to bind to him and take him flying.

Shen Lang, adhering to the principle that free is the most expensive, politely declined the system's offer, humbly stating that he was too big for the system to handle.

This puts the system in a very awkward position; what would happen if the "tools" were gone?

How do I gain luck points? How do I devour the host and seize his successful life?

So the systems began to take turns threatening and enticing, trying to force Shen Lang to bind to them.

Unfortunately, Shen Lang, who was already immune to empty promises, was determined not to go along with the system that was trying to make him live the life of a 007 beast.

And so, the system and Shen Lang began their confrontation in the long river of time, a confrontation that seemed to last for an eternity.

After an unknown amount of time, and having become one with the system in both mental and physical aspects, the more than three hundred systems were moved by Shen Lang's persistent spirit and decisively chose to give up.

With a flash of light, Shen Lang successfully transmigrated to this fantasy world called Taiwu Continent.

He was then surprised to find that he had transmigrated into the body of a five-year-old child with the same name.

According to the standard settings of fantasy web novels, he gloriously became a member of the army of orphans without parents.

However, becoming an orphan at the age of five, and in a fantasy feudal world where it's obvious that the strong prey on the weak, how to survive is a problem.

However, this problem did not trouble Shen Lang for long, because less than two minutes after he transmigrated, he was carried onto a prison van by two human traffickers and driven northward.

According to the standard plot of time-travel novels, at this point, a group of sect disciples should appear, or a rich and beautiful woman should appear, and the protagonist should be captivated by her own protagonist halo and save her, then follow her, and finally reach the pinnacle of life.

But sorry, nothing happened along the way. No sect came to the rescue, and no beautiful young ladies or beautiful masters threw themselves into their arms. All that happened was the snakehead's whip and the pitiful cries of the children around them.

A month later, Shen Lang was sent to Bingzhou and then sold to the Bingzhou military camp for five taels of silver.

Two days later, at the age of five, I was sent to the battlefield to transport supplies.

Bingzhou was the northern border of the Great Chu, and the front line responsible for resisting the Yan army.

Due to years of war, Bingzhou was severely short of troops, and in the end, they had to capture child soldiers to serve on the battlefield, which led to an exceptionally booming human trafficking business in the northern border of the Great Chu.

Fortunately, although Shen Lang's body was only five years old, his mind had been tempered through countless years of wits and courage in his battles with the system, and he was no longer as shameless as he thought. It was just a matter of joining the army, what was there to panic about?

He joined the supply corps at five, became a spearman at six, a swordsman and shieldman at seven, went to the battlefield for the first time at eight, became a squad leader at ten, led a hundred-man squad to a great victory against the 20,000-strong army of Northern Yan at twelve, was promoted to captain out of turn, and became the youngest instructor in the Great Chu border army at thirteen.

Shen Lang's life can be described as a legend. The Fenglei Battalion squad he led was like a sharp knife, piercing deep into the heart of the enemy.

However, when he turned seventeen, in the thirty-first year of the Yuan Shou era of the Great Chu calendar, a major event occurred in the empire.

Emperor Jiang Yan of the Great Chu Dynasty passed away, and Empress Jiang Mengxuan, who was only sixteen years old, ascended the throne and changed the era name to Xuan Yuan.

In the early years of the Xuan Yuan era, in order to end this protracted war as soon as possible, the Great Chu finally reached a unanimous decision in the court to negotiate peace with the Northern Yan.

In the end, the Great Chu ceded three northern prefectures and agreed to pay an annual tribute of 300,000 taels of silver and 100,000 bolts of cloth, finally securing a humiliating peace.

From then on, the Great Chu and the Northern Yan entered a period of peace, and both sides were finally able to extricate themselves from the quagmire of endless war.

At the same time, Shen Lang also ended his military career.

Because of his extremely abstract performance in the army, he was exceptionally chosen by Empress Wu Zetian's uncle, Jiang Shangxian, and recruited into the newly established Jingwei Division.

For Shen Lang, as long as the money is enough, it doesn't matter where he works.

In the long river of time, he had seen all sorts of scenes, and finally concluded that being above ten thousand people was just like that; one still had to go back to eating, drinking, and defecating.

Since the final result is the same, why bother fighting tooth and nail for something that doesn't exist? It's better to just sit back and enjoy a comfortable life with a government job.

Why can't we live a more carefree life?

So Shen Lang gladly accepted Jiang Shangxian's offer and successfully joined the Jingwei Division, where he lived a life of idleness and complacency.

It's not that Shen Lang particularly likes this country; on the contrary, he has never felt any sense of belonging to the Great Chu.

It was purely for the sake of the salary, which was far higher than that in the military, that I gladly chose to continue to stay in this land.

Shen Lang now receives a monthly salary of 25 taels of silver, and with the year-end subsidy for all households, his net income for the year is a full 400 taels of silver.

Four hundred taels of silver is indeed considered a high income for ordinary people in Jinling City, where the annual income is around twenty taels. However, compared to those aristocratic families that have been around for hundreds of years, it is really not enough.

Fortunately, the money was enough for his daily expenses, and because he had enough leisure time, Shen Lang could also take on some side jobs when he was short of money.

For example, one could become a referee in an underground fighting arena in Nanjing, or even take on a side job as a debt collector, which could generate additional income.

However, no matter what side hustle you take, your main job cannot be changed at will.

The Jingwei Division was directly under the jurisdiction of the imperial family, and was separate from all other government offices. The ranks from the bottom up were: squad leader, captain, general, centurion, deputy commander, commander, deputy commander, and the highest commander.

All members of the organization must maintain absolute loyalty to the royal family and possess sufficient cultivation and competence.

Every member of the Jingwei Division is carefully selected from military camps across the Great Chu, undergoing rigorous examinations. Most of them are martial artists without aristocratic or sect backgrounds.

(The cultivation levels in the Taiwu Continent are: Body Tempering, Qi Induction, Acquired, Transformation, Acupoint Opening, Innate, Immortal, Limit Breaking, Unity, and Divine Martial; each major realm is further divided into five minor realms: early stage, middle stage, late stage, peak, and perfection. Starting from the Innate realm, without external obstacles, one's lifespan will naturally increase by at least three hundred years.)

The official duty of the Jingwei Bureau was to maintain order in the imperial city on behalf of the emperor.

In reality, the Jingwei Division did more of the work of handling thorny matters for the royal family, such as murder and intelligence gathering.

In the year since the establishment of the Jingwei Division, Shen Lang was the "laziest" but definitely the most reliable in terms of work ability among all the members.

On average, he goes on five missions a month, with zero failures to date and a 100% pass rate in assessments. He is definitely the king of kings.

Even Commander Jiang Shangxian planned to promote Shen Lang to the rank of commander of a thousand households, assign him a region to govern, and give him important responsibilities.

But Shen Lang rejected all of these offers, saying that he was poor and lacked ambition, and only wanted to live a life of leisure and waiting to die.

No matter how much Jiang Shangxian tried to persuade him, he only accepted the position of centurion, and stated that he would not clock in or out, and that he should only contact him when there was a mission, and not to bother him at other times.

It has been proven that capable people are valued wherever they go.

Faced with such an outrageous request, Jiang Shangxian agreed without hesitation.

Therefore, Shen Lang's presence in the Jingwei Division was practically nonexistent. Even his colleagues had rarely seen him, only knowing that the Jingwei Division had an elusive and incredibly powerful "senior."

It's purely a product of spiritual support.

Even the current Empress Jiang Mengxuan has never seen what Shen Lang looks like; she has only glanced at him briefly on the list and his resume.

After all, he is the ruler of a country, busy with state affairs. How could he be easily seen by just anyone?

Returning to the present, Shen Lang yawned and went back to the table to continue enjoying his meal.

"Having been given a second chance at life, one should be relaxed and carefree."

After downing a sip of wine, Shen Lang smiled and tossed aside his chopsticks.

Then he started fiddling with the models on another table:

Artillery, Gatling guns, rifles, battleships, ocean-going ships, mortars, howitzers, Maxim guns, etc.

This is a technology that Shen Lang stole from a system called the Military Industry System during his confrontation with the system.

However, he did not use it to contribute to the military progress of the era, nor did he arm himself to pursue his dream of imperial supremacy.

why?

Firstly, they find it too troublesome; secondly, they don't have the inclination; thirdly, they lack the money; and fourthly, they lack the background and support. Any attempt to do so would only benefit the powerful.

After all, building a modern army in this era is no less difficult than building a heavy mixed brigade in the Dragon Kingdom where he lived in his previous life.

(ps: A single heavy mixed brigade can easily defeat more than 90% of the land-based countries on Earth. China has a total of 29 such heavy brigades. Only China and the United States can afford to operate heavy mixed brigades, and the conditions are extremely demanding. In a previous live-fire military exercise between China and the United States, a single heavy battalion from China annihilated a motorized force five times the size of the Russian army in just 48 minutes. Note that this was only one battalion.)

So, just make a few models for yourself to play with, there's no need to think too much about it.

An hour later, Shen Lang got tired of playing, yawned, quickly washed up, went to bed, turned off the lights, and went to sleep.

Self-disciplined men are so attractive.

"If there are no missions tomorrow, go and take down Chun Tao from the brothel. She's even transmigrated!"

"I can't possibly rely on my skills to make a living anymore; if word got out, it would be a disgrace to my time travel."

In a daze, Shen Lang fell into a deep sleep.

According to his original predetermined fate, Shen Lang planned to just give up and live a life of mediocrity.

However, according to the laws of the fantasy world, every protagonist in a book will inevitably bring you an unexpected twist to your life.

Even Gou Daowen, with his monotonous cowardice, gets tiresome to watch.

Not to mention, Shen Lang was not as indifferent as he appeared on the surface; he just needed the right opportunity.

Shen Lang slept soundly that night, but as the ruler of the Great Chu Empire, he couldn't sleep at all.

However, at this moment, in the Imperial Study of Weiyang Palace, Empress Jiang Mengxuan looked at a newly delivered secret report on the table with an extremely solemn expression.