Regent (1): 

Gu Juntian woke up to find himself in a simple stone house.

Or rather, it shouldn’t be called simple.

All four walls were built from stone chiseled so smooth it was clear the house was constructed with great care. The floor was also paved with stone, instantly giving the impression that it was meticulously built.

The house contained little furniture, but the lack of it meant no one could hide inside, ensuring the safety of the owner.

His clothes, though not finely made, were clearly woven by hand with considerable effort.

The brass lamps on the walls and the tiger skin spread over the bed revealed the extraordinary status of the room’s owner.

Gu Juntian didn’t know who he had originally been, but he knew he had likely become a noble from an era with low productivity.

While he was still lost in thought, a group of women entered under the lead of a middle-aged man with a pale, clean-shaven face.

As soon as the man saw Gu Juntian, he raised his voice sharply: “Your Majesty, the Regent’s army is about to arrive. You must prepare to leave the city and welcome him!”

He was a “king”?

But why did this eunuch show him no respect?

And who was this Regent?

Just as Gu Juntian was puzzled, the memories of the body’s original owner surfaced in his mind.

The original owner was the king of Jin, but he was nothing more than a puppet with no real power.

The most powerful person in Jin was the Regent, Zhou Qinghao.

To explain the original owner’s current situation, one had to start with the state of the world.

For hundreds of years, the Central Plains had been a land of many small kingdoms in constant war.

Big states swallowed small ones, strong states conquered weak ones… A hundred years ago, only three countries remained: Qi, Chu, and Jin.

Of the three, Qi had the largest territory and population, while Chu possessed the most fertile lands. The two had an ancestral feud and had fought without pause for a century.

Jin was the weakest, located in the north, with the smallest territory, the fewest people, and no fertile land.

Fifty years ago, a brilliant ruler—King Wu of Jin—rose to power. He employed capable ministers, reformed the administration, and emphasized farming. In just ten years, he made Jin strong.

Seeking fertile land, King Wu launched an attack on Chu, soon conquering half its territory.

Unable to withstand Jin’s forces, Chu persuaded the king of Qi that when Chu fell, Jin would be next to trample Qi.

Qi and Chu set aside their hatred and allied to attack Jin. Not only did they drive Jin out of Chu’s lands, but they also captured many of Jin’s cities.

If not for the two turning on each other over spoils, Jin might have been destroyed entirely.

Even so, Jin’s condition was dire.

King Wu was injured in battle and soon died. Most of Jin’s young and strong men perished in the war, leaving only women, children, and the elderly to work the fields.

The new king’s children were all taken by Qi and Chu as hostages.

Jin weakened, but when the late king took the throne, things improved again.

The late king had been sent to Qi as a hostage. He suffered greatly there, but also gained wide experience. Pretending to be weak and incompetent, he married a woman from Qi’s royal family, lowering Qi’s guard enough for them to send him back to Jin to take the throne.

Once home, he revealed his talents, ruling with dedication and making the country prosper.

Sadly, like King Wu, he died young.

Before his death, he entrusted his young son to his trusted minister, Zhou Qinghao, naming him Regent and giving him full control of state affairs.

Zhou Qinghao could both govern and command armies. While aiding the young king, he trained the troops, and just months ago reclaimed territory lost to Qi and Chu years before.

The Regent’s reputation among the people became unmatched.

But in court, he was slandered as someone whose power overshadowed the king, accused of disloyalty.

The original owner of this body shared that belief.

He was the son of the late king and the Qi princess.

The late king, weakened from his suffering in Qi, left only this one child.

When the king fell gravely ill, he could only pass the throne to his son.

The boy was eleven, close to his mother. The late king feared that under her influence, he might grow attached to Qi, and that Qi might seize Jin through him. That was why he gave Zhou Qinghao immense power, even allowing others to call him “king.”

He also instructed Zhou in front of the boy to personally raise him and keep him from being too close to his mother.

Zhou followed these instructions exactly.

But because the young king couldn’t understand his father’s intentions, he saw Zhou as a villain.

After the late king’s death, all royal duties fell to Zhou.

Zhou kept the young king by his side, making him study and train in martial arts, forbidding excessive closeness with his mother.

The boy grew to resent him deeply.

When he was seventeen, Zhou left to reclaim lost territory. The king felt freer and tried to exercise his royal authority—only to find he couldn’t.

He tried to give his uncle from Qi an official post, but the decree was blocked—because the Regent disagreed.

He tried to leave the palace, but the gate guards stopped him—because the Regent disagreed.

He wasn’t even allowed to see the memorials Zhou had approved—because the Regent disagreed.

His hatred for Zhou became absolute.

After seeing these memories, Gu Juntian sighed.

The young king was too naive to see reality.

In Jin, the only one who truly cared for him was Zhou Qinghao. The restrictions during Zhou’s absence were likely imposed not by him, but by the royal clan and the queen dowager.

When Zhou taught him, he gave his all without reservation.

The boy thought Zhou was too strict, but Gu Juntian saw that his standards were already lenient.

Even though the boy saw his mother rarely, her attendants—placed by her—constantly told him how much they “pitied” him for suffering under Zhou, making him believe Zhou was cruel.

The boy even thought Zhou forced him to train as a form of torment.

But Zhou trained alongside him, at several times the intensity. If forcing the king to train was cruelty, then what was he doing to himself—self-torture?

When Zhou was around, they always ate at the same table. Zhou would eat first, and only then allow the boy to eat.

The boy thought this meant Zhou disrespected him by giving him leftovers, but Gu Juntian noticed the truth: Zhou tasted every dish first, likely testing for poison. When the boy ate, Zhou never took food from him, only clearing the remaining dishes once the boy was full—truly eating the king’s leftovers.

It was prejudice, instilled by his mother and the royal clan, that kept the boy blind.

The queen was an ordinary, unworldly woman who genuinely loved her son, but with Qi agents constantly influencing her, she became biased against Zhou and wanted her son to align with Qi.

The Jin royal clan hated Zhou for being a non-royal elevated above them, and for the late king and Zhou’s reforms that weakened their power. They spared no effort in slandering him to the king.

Not long ago, Zhou’s victory in reclaiming Jin’s lost territory should have been a great achievement, but everyone around the king told him Zhou’s power was too great, and that he would soon kill the king to seize the throne.

It was under this influence that the original owner ended up causing Zhou Qinghao’s death.