Who Would Want To Be the Cannon Fodder Villain!

On the eve of the imperial examinations, Xiao Zhuoqing, the heir to the Duke of Yan, dreamt of his own future.

In the near future, he would be appointed as the third-place finisher, the Tanhua. He would leave the Hanlin Academy and lecture at the imperial court, gaining fame across the land at a young age.

However, at his celebration banquet, an unknown, down-and-out boy would appear, holding a tattered sachet and demanding to marry his eldest sister. That sachet looked like it had been picked up from a tr*sh heap, and the boy himself was nothing but a lazy, freeloading scoundrel who loved to boast.

Xiao Zhuoqing took one look at him and threw both the boy and his belongings out of the Duke’s estate.

Little did he know, he was living in a brainless, “face-slapping” power fantasy novel called Stepping on Princes. That boy, Wang Yuan, was the “Child of Destiny” of the story.

And he, Xiao Zhuoqing, was just the short-sighted, arrogant noble who would eventually be humiliated and crushed by Wang Yuan once the protagonist reached the peak of power.

When reality began to perfectly mirror his dream, Xiao Zhuoqing saw the “Child of Destiny” at his own banquet, spouting lines like, “Do not bully a young man for being poor.”

Should he know the future, immediately suck up to the protagonist, and share in his wealth once the boy achieved greatness?

In his dreams.

Looking at this ignorant, rude, and lazy guy, Xiao Zhuoqing stood in front of his distraught and weeping sister. With a blank expression, he once again threw Wang Yuan out of the Duke’s estate.

Everyone said that Young Master Xiao had become a different person after passing the examinations.

The once solemn and aloof Xiao, as indifferent as snow on a mountain peak, had become a rising star in the imperial court. He helped those in need and handled crises with brilliant strategy.

He even accepted the Regent’s request to enter the palace and tutor the puppet emperor. On a bitter winter night, under the strange gazes of others, he reached out and pulled a gloomy, isolated boy out of a freezing pond.

Only Xiao Zhuoqing knew the truth: he was reclaiming the “destiny” that Wang Yuan had stolen, and while he was at it, he was raising the real big villain—someone who could crush Wang Yuan with one hand if not for the “plot armor” of the original story.

He was just waiting for the day to challenge fate itself.

To his surprise, before Wang Yuan could ever “transform into a dragon,” he was crushed to death by a single finger from the big villain.

Xiao Zhuoqing, who had prepared every possible countermeasure just waiting for the great enemy to arrive: ?

The young monarch, who held all the power and possessed a cold, ruthless gaze, had eyes as deep as an abyss. He gently twirled a strand of Xiao Zhuoqing’s hair around his finger.

“Anyone who makes you unhappy, teacher, deserves to be sliced into a thousand pieces.”