"Five hundred… thousand… ten thousand…"
Martha's fingers trembled as she flipped through the bills she had scraped together over the years.
The more she touched, the heavier her chest felt. It wasn't enough. It was never enough.
With a long, defeated sigh, she lifted her gaze skyward. The world still offered the same bright sun to everyone, mockingly so.
For her, its light only sharpened the edges of reality, a reminder that no warmth would ever ease the hunger.
"Guess I'll just sleep off the starvation," she muttered under her breath.
She left the fluorescent glow of the convenience store where she worked full-time, pulling a crumpled cigarette from her pocket.
The flame caught, smoke filled her lungs, and for a moment, the bitterness numbed the emptiness inside.
She was nineteen.
Nineteen and already chained to a life of exhaustion, nicotine, and cheap wages.
Her father was nothing but a rumor, a man who had vanished with another woman long before she could even picture his face.
Her mother, meanwhile, staggered through nights of perfumed strangers, trading dignity for survival as a prostitute.
People often said Martha had inherited her mother's beauty, that she'd be wasted behind a cash register.
"Fuck them," But Martha only exhaled smoke into the fading sky. She had too much self-respect to sell herself away.
When Martha got home, the first thing she heard was her brother's familiar whining.
"Ah, fuck! I died again?! These women are psychopaths!"
"Shut up, misogynist," she shot back, flicking her cigarette into the trash by the door.
"It's not what you think!" His head popped out of his room, eyes wide. "It's just a game!"
"Oh yeah? Let me see."
She stepped into his room, cleaner than hers, annoyingly enough, and found him glued to his cheap computer.
"Another one of your degenerate games?" she asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Shut up, misandrist," he snorted. "Look."
Despite the constant bickering, gaming was the one bridge between them. Today's treasure? A dating sim called Emperor's Forbidden Secret: Silk & Scandal Edition
The screen was a parade of bouncing badonkers, lewd poses, and suspiciously well-timed fanservice.
"Relax, it's not smut," her brother insisted. "It's just coombait."
Coombait? What the hell is with these degen terms…
As they played together, Martha slowly caught on to the gist of it.
The player wasn't some mighty ruler, but a completely useless Emperor stumbling his way through "historical Chinese life."
The real battlefield wasn't politics or war, it was the harem. A gallery of walking clichés that she had seen way too much in harem animes:
1. The shy, flat-chested childhood friend who only speaks in whispers.
2. The seductive big-boobed temptress who exists to jiggle and wink.
3. The tsundere concubine who slaps the Emperor every five minutes.
4. The cold, mysterious beauty who speaks in riddles but secretly craves affection.
5. The ditzy airhead whose brain cells have clearly been executed for treason.
And the list went on.
The so-called big twist was the "useless" Emperor was actually a girl in disguise, forced to juggle her secret while managing a palace full of drama.
"Yuri?… I didn't know you were into that," Martha teased.
"Stop questioning my tastes!" her brother snapped.
"Well," she smirked, "color me intrigued. This doesn't seem half as bad as your usual trash."
Tired of endless gacha grinds anyway, she decided to give it a shot and before long, she was knee-deep in her own grinding spree.
Beneath the panty flashes and gratuitous jiggle physics, the game turned out to be a surprisingly fun branching RPG with action-packed battles and empire management.
Each harem member wasn't just eye candy but a "route" with unique bonuses:
Woo the scholar → unlock cultural policies.
Woo the warrior → boost the military.
Woo the foreign princess → open new trade routes.
The catch was to balance them all without triggering the dreaded bad endings such as jealousy, betrayal, or assassination.
"I wish I had these kinds of problems instead of mine," Martha muttered, staring at the glowing screen.
Her real world was nothing more than a cramped room with peeling paint and a worn sleeping bag on the floor.
What did it feel like to stand so high that your only worry was slipping? To have everything, and only fear losing it?
"I really wish..." Her voice cracked as tears slipped down her cheeks. She wiped them away quickly, scoffing at herself. "Geez, am I seriously crying? Pathetic."
She hated tears more than hunger, more than pain because tears made her feel weak.
Her stomach growled, her body ached, and her mind felt heavy. So she did the only thing she could: shut her eyes and will it all away.
***
…
"Your Imperial Highness!"
…
"Imperial Highness, I beg you, wake up!"
…
"IMPERIAL HIGHNESS!"
Martha's eyes fluttered open, squinting against the warm glow falling across her face.
For once, she didn't feel the chill of thin sheets; what wrapped her now was soft, heavy, and warm.
"What the…?" she mumbled, sitting up. A man in ornate robes stood at her bedside, his sharp features unmistakably Asian, his stance rigid with urgency.
"Okay, first of all, why are you calling me Imperial Majesty? And second, where the hell am I?"
The man paled. "What are you saying?! You are Xu Wenyan, the Son of Heaven and Emperor!"
...
No way…
Her thoughts tumbled, each frantic turn smashing against the undeniable reality before her eyes: silken drapes, carved wood, gilded lanterns…
...
Oh god.