The Tyrant Says He Doesn't Want a Bad Ending - Chapter 1

The instant I opened my eyes, the little tyrant was standing beside my bed.

Nighttime candlelight flickered in his dark, sinister eyes. His features were lost in shadow as he stared at me without a word.

Like a ghost come to call.

“Ah!”

With a howl, I scrambled from the head of the bed to the foot, every hair on my body standing on end.

Hearing the little tyrant call me his sister the moment I arrived here had scared me half to death. Opening my eyes to find his face right there was straight out of a horror movie.

His skin was very pale. As he stared at me, his gaze began to overlap with that of the brutal emperor in the history books.

As though he might kill me at any moment.

He froze. Tears instantly welled in his glass-marble eyes, like a three-year-old on the verge of bawling because someone had stolen his candy.

He cautiously caught the hem of my clothes, his lashes wet.

“Sister, what’s wrong? Do you hate me?”

This threw me completely. Some instinct kept warning me how dangerous he was, yet under that gaze I didn’t dare shake off his hand.

All I could do was study him in bewildered alarm.

This wasn’t right.

Ji Ye, the last ruler of the Zhou dynasty, was synonymous with tyranny. He had slaughtered his mother’s clan and executed members of the imperial family. He hadn’t even hesitated to condemn Senior Princess Rongguo, Ji Heng—the sister who had depended on him for survival since childhood and helped him claim the throne.

How could he be this gentle?

Besides, hadn’t Ji Heng treated him rather badly when they were young?

When I remained motionless, Ji Ye couldn’t help speaking again.

“You’ve always been so good to me, Sister. What would I do if something happened to you?”

I climbed out of bed barefoot and even backed away a couple of steps.

This childhood version of the tyrant was nothing like the historical accounts. It was terrifying.

Children were generally cute, and even history had praised Ji Ye’s looks. At seven or eight, he was already showing the first hints of a handsome young man.

His eyes reddened, and he began to choke back pitiful sobs.

Something was wrong.

Little tyrant, you were breaking character!

I bit the tip of my tongue, hoping to wake myself up. The sharp pain only confirmed the truth.

I was done for. The hater had actually landed right in front of her target.

The historical Ji Heng was Ji Ye’s elder half sister, born to a different mother and taken in by the late empress. After Ji Ye’s accession, she had been made Senior Princess Rongguo and wielded immense power.

Innocently implicated in a rebellion, she had been sent a length of white silk by Ji Ye, who by then had lost himself in killing. Her death had cemented his reputation as a tyrant.

Was he really going to have me hanged?

I clawed at my hair, frantic at having ended up in the body of someone doomed to die.

Yet with the little tyrant standing in front of me, still so young, I couldn’t find the words to reject him.

“I’m fine. Go back for now. Don’t worry.”

I awkwardly averted my gaze, silently cursing the people who had compiled those history books a hundred times over.

Those books had screwed me over!

I’d thought the young tyrant and Ji Heng hated each other. I’d nearly given myself away.

Ji Ye tipped his head up to look at me. Daylight fell into his eyes, bringing out a rare glimmer of innocent brightness.

Then he smiled and nodded firmly. “All right!”

Only when his shadow disappeared from the hall did I finally breathe out.

I realized I was drenched in cold sweat. Still, I couldn’t stop feeling relieved.

At least he was young. He hadn’t gone wrong yet.

The unfamiliar clothes I was wearing left me feeling slightly dazed.

The Zhou dynasty was nearing its end. The emperor spent his days seeking physicians and pursuing the Dao. He had driven the empress to her death, and now a wicked consort ruled the palace. As a motherless crown prince with no favor from his father, Ji Ye had naturally suffered a great deal.

The books described him as cold and heartless: when one person offended him, the whole family paid. And the family he had punished that way had been his own mother’s clan.

Even as a child, he had supposedly been a scheming star of calamity, bringing doom upon both his parents.

After thinking it over carefully, I reached a conclusion through gritted teeth.

So I’d been reading unofficial history!