The North's Most Arrogant Prodigal: Starting with a Forced Marriage to the Capital

Lin Ye, a business legend who clawed his way from a basement to a fortune of billions, blacks out at his celebration banquet—only to wake up as the spoiled young master of the Northern Frontier's most powerful military family. His father is the Zhenbei General, commanding two hundred thousand elite cavalry. On his very first day, he blocks the princess's royal procession in broad daylight and shouts for her to perform a lewd dance. The entire court files impeachment memorials against him. Prince Qin's household wants him flayed alive. Even the twelve-year-old crown prince marks him as a mortal enemy. Lin Ye just laughs. He's navigated corporate warfare from the bottom up—what scheme hasn't he seen? They set traps for him? He turns the tables and counters every move. They call him talentless and unvirtuous? He recites the Analects with one hand and Tang poetry with the other, throwing the Great Xia court into utter chaos. They send him to the capital as a political hostage? Then he'll show them exactly what it means when the door is easier to open than to close. Just as Lin Ye thinks he can settle into a carefree life of idle luxury, conspiracy after conspiracy surfaces—from the Eastern Palace, from the feudal princes, from the powerful ministers of the court. Everyone wants to use the Lin family as their blade, gambling on their future in the winds of the new emperor's reign. Lin Ye narrows his eyes. If you insist on playing, don't blame him for playing for keeps. The court's swords are dull—he'll sharpen them. Great Xia's cavalry have no stirrups—he'll forge them. The military's firearms can't hit their marks—he'll improve them. The crown prince is naive, scatterbrained, and foolish—he'll train him. From Northern prodigal to Great Xia's imperial son-in-law. From tutor to the crown prince to supreme commander of the three armies. When he finally stands atop the city wall, with a million cavalry at his back and a crumbling old dynasty before his eyes, he turns to the man on the dragon throne and asks the question at last: "If you are the emperor, then what am I?"