Life is a gamble, so no one can always win without losing…

From the moment of birth, every choice a person faces is a gamble.

422 AD, Capital City Jiankang

Liu Yu struggled to open his eyes. His already dim vision took quite some effort before he could clearly see that he was in his bedchamber, not in the chaos of war from his nightmare.

As the founding emperor of the Southern Liu Song Dynasty, the nearly sixty-year-old Liu Yu was famous for his strict frugality. He disliked banquets and entertainment, never decorated his palaces or carriages, and all wealth and treasures were stored in the treasury. His bedchamber had only plain cloth curtains, hemp lanterns, and rope dusters hanging on the walls, making it more like an ordinary civilian home, except that the room was much larger than a commoner’s dwelling.

Liu Yu now felt that such a bedchamber was too spacious, making it difficult for him even to call for someone. His lips moved for a while, but his throat was so dry he couldn’t make a sound. Liu Yu wanted to be angry but lacked the strength to lose his temper. It was he who had driven away all the attending eunuchs and palace maids before going to sleep – who could he blame now?

Perhaps his time had come?

Liu Yu gasped heavily and closed his eyes.

Perhaps when everyone is about to leave this world, they can’t help but replay their life’s experiences in their minds. He was no exception. When he first came into this world, his mother died in childbirth. He was born cursed to harm his mother, considered by fortune-tellers to have a hard fate. His father Liu Qiao even wanted to bury him alive. Fortunately, his uncle Liu Wan took pity on him and brought him home. His aunt raised him, and he was given a childhood name: Jinu.

Jinu, Jinu – just a foster slave, nothing more. Who could have imagined that such a slave would now become an emperor above ten thousand people?

Liu Yu slowly opened his clouded eyes and struggled to clench his right hand. In his palm was a dice that had accompanied him for many years.

After reaching adulthood, his life became even more difficult as he had to support two younger brothers. The hardships of life led him to become addicted to gambling, and this dice he had found in an antique shop could actually bring him luck to win every bet! The only time he lost was to local tyrants, and that was because he fell into someone’s trap. But he also remembered what the antique shop owner had said when he bought this dice.

“Life is a gamble. Are you willing to bet?”

Liu Yu tremblingly raised his hand and brought the dice to his eyes.

This was a dice made of ivory, already showing a ginger-yellow color with a bright patina. On the surface of the dice, hair-thin shallow lines had appeared – these were the “sparrow threads” on ivory objects. These sparrow threads were very long, indicating that this dice was quite ancient. This dice was a six-sided die, a perfect cube, with each face having one to six holes, with opposite faces adding up to seven.

Liu Yu gazed at the dice in his hand with fascination, his entire soul almost worshipping beneath this dice. Throughout his military career, since joining the army and uprising in the third year of Long’an, he had pacified internal rebellions, eliminated separatist forces, and brought the south to unity after a century of turmoil. Externally, he devoted himself to northern expeditions, annexing Huan Chu, Western Shu, Southern Yan, Later Qin and other states. But what no one knew was that most of the key decisions behind these glorious military achievements actually depended on this dice.

Whenever he faced indecisive moments, Liu Yu would cast the dice in his hand and use the number of dots to determine his decisions. For over thirty years, without exception.

Yes, after that devastating loss, he completely reformed himself. If one always wins at gambling, then isn’t every crossroads encountered in life, every decision made, a form of gambling?

That’s right, this was the true meaning the boss spoke of! Life is a gamble!

He had used this dice to become the greatest and most successful gambler.

He had won the world!

Liu Yu smiled silently, his consciousness gradually becoming hazy.

No! Not yet! Crown Prince Liu Yifu is still young! He cannot yet intimidate those court ministers!

Liu Yu struggled to get up, the dice slipping from his fingertips and falling to the ground, rolling away.

The eunuch outside heard the commotion and quickly pushed the door open, only to be shocked the next moment.

Your Majesty!

Shortly after, the sound of bells rang throughout the palace. Emperor Wu of the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Yu, had passed away.

Liu Yu stood dazedly in the corner of the bedchamber, watching as his corpse was dressed in the elaborate crown and imperial robes that had long been prepared.

People coming and going all wore sorrowful expressions, ministers prostrated themselves on the ground kowtowing and weeping, and his several sons threw themselves before his bed crying endlessly.

He… was he dead?

Liu Yu had been an atheist, but at this moment, he had to believe in the theories of soul reincarnation spoken of by Buddhist and Taoist practitioners.

Was he a ghost now? Perhaps black and white impermanence would come to collect his soul for the underworld?

As expected, countless people had died directly or indirectly by his hand. Even though he was an emperor, he would definitely not go to the Western Pure Land.

Liu Yu was actually in good spirits because what he felt was a kind of liberation. Now he no longer felt confined by that aging body. His body felt light and comfortable, his vision clear and sharp. Look, he could even see that in the distant corner, his ivory dice lay quietly there, probably kicked over by people going in and out, with no one paying attention to it.

After looking again and again, Liu Yu couldn’t bear to leave his beloved dice lying there alone. He moved over, and though he knew that as a ghost he probably couldn’t touch objects, he still bent down.

The moment his fingers touched the ivory dice, Liu Yu was stunned, then picked up the dice in his hand.

How strange – wasn’t it said that ghosts were all phantoms that couldn’t touch physical objects?

Liu Yu looked down at himself and first saw a pair of slender, white hands.

Was this him?

Liu Yu stared blankly at his young hands, which radiated incomparable vitality in the sunlight streaming in from outside.

Don’t ghosts fear sunlight?

Liu Yu simply walked out of the bedchamber, his entire body bathed in sunlight, feeling the warmth of the sun’s rays, so comfortable he almost wanted to sigh.

“Who are you? How can you be here?”

A voice that was obviously still in the voice-changing period, sometimes hoarse and sometimes shrill, came through. Liu Yu turned to look and found the speaker was his third son, Liu Yilong.

Despite being nearly sixty years old, all his sons were quite young. Liu Yu had spent his entire prime years campaigning everywhere, only focusing on the issue of succession after things had more or less settled down. So his eldest son Liu Yifu was only seventeen, which was why Liu Yu had been most worried before his death.

And now Liu Yilong standing before him was only one year younger than his elder brother, just sixteen. The boy’s eyes were already red and swollen from crying. Liu Yu vaguely remembered that this third son’s health wasn’t very good, so he must have come out for fresh air. Thinking this, his face inevitably showed a trace of kind smile, which was already quite remarkable given Liu Yu’s irascible nature.

But Liu Yilong found this smile extremely glaring and once again sternly rebuked: “Which little eunuch are you exactly? How dare you stand here in a daze?”

Little eunuch? Liu Yu was startled, then immediately realized the focus shouldn’t be on this.

He was dead! He was a ghost! How could anyone see him?

Liu Yu instinctively looked down below. He was now standing by the lotus pond behind the bedchamber. On the rippling water surface, he saw a young boy.

That appearance was vaguely very familiar.

It was exactly himself at fourteen years old.

Liu Yilong furrowed his brow tightly, staring intently at this strange boy.

Calling him strange wasn’t actually referring to the coarse hemp clothing he wore. His father emperor was frugal and economical, turning the grand imperial palace into something like a village house. Liu Yilong still remembered that before he left the capital to be enfeoffed in Jingzhou, when he and his brothers came daily to pay respects to their father emperor, they could only wear casual clothing – no one dared wear formal court dress.

Even now, Liu Yilong was mindful of propriety, wearing extremely plain mourning clothes that no one could find fault with. So even if this boy was dressed somewhat excessively simply, Liu Yilong found nothing improper about it.

The strange thing was this boy’s appearance.

Liu Yilong rarely looked in mirrors, but he had two older brothers and four younger brothers. This boy’s age was about the same as his fourth brother Liu Yikang, and his appearance was also five or six parts similar. If he hadn’t just confirmed that his fourth brother was by their father emperor’s bedside, he would almost think the boy before him was his fourth brother in different clothes.

So after seeing the boy’s appearance clearly, Liu Yilong would no longer think this was some palace eunuch. An absurd yet seemingly logical guess even arose in his heart.

Could this boy be his father emperor’s illegitimate son?

Because the mother concubine’s status couldn’t be made public, he was raised in the rear palace. Liu Yilong had a good memory – when he first arrived at the bedchamber, he had seen this boy standing dazedly in the corner, but from far away, he hadn’t paid attention.

To arrive even earlier than the princes who were attending the illness outside the hall, he was either a eunuch or had always been staying here. That their father emperor would specifically call this boy to his side even before his death…

The more Liu Yilong thought about it, the more he felt his guess was correct, and his gaze inevitably became complex.