The Archduke's Songbird - Chapter 8: Rock and a Hard Place

After being fired, Lu Qingjiu finally decided to return to his hometown to farm.

At first, he started raising a pig, and then he found that the pig could solve more high-level math questions than he could.

After that, he started raising a flock of chickens, and then he found that his own fighting ability was one-tenth of that of a single chicken.

Finally, Lu Qingjiu finally realised that this old home wasn’t quite right… Especially a certain person by his side who constantly stared at him day in and day out.

Lu Qingjiu: “Are you drooling because of the spicy stir-fry I’m holding or because of me?”

Bai Yuehu pointed at the stir-fry.

Lu Qingjiu: “Then can you let go??”

Bai Yuehu reluctantly glanced at Lu Qingjiu’s arm, before loosening his teeth.

- Description from Novelupdates

Genius, antisocial, solitary, intractable , maniacal.

At the turn of every era, it is he who raises the flag of the rebel cross.

Winners take it all, losers take the fall.

He who brings order to a chaotic world, assembles talents and masterminds.

He who hides among the crowd, yet stands on the top of the world.

— The one and only, him.

- Description from Novelupdates

At nineteen, Dexter was already one of the world’s most celebrated authors. His books topped charts. Critics praised his genius. Fans devoured every word. But behind the acclaim was a lonely boy—raised without parents, love, or real friends—just stories.He published his first novel at fourteen. By seventeen, he was a literary star. But the higher he rose, the hollower it felt.Then came the writer’s block. The headaches. The blackout. And the transmigration.Dexter awoke in the body of Daylan, a disgraced young man in a crumbling, medieval world laced with steampunk tech, divine law, and political unrest. Daylan had already failed two of the three sacred Trials—rites that determine one’s magical potential. He was drowning in debt, entangled in plots to overthrow a corrupt Divine Church, and branded a lost cause.With no way back, Dexter took the final Trial—the most brutal of them all—and began a path that would earn him the whispered title: Soldier, Poet, King.But as his powers grew, one question haunted him: Did he truly die? And if so, who—or what—chose to bring him back?

[An explosive and thrilling story, highly recommended by the Chief Editor himself. A must-read divine book, you’ll regret not reading this.]In the eyes of others, he might have seemed like a worthless fool, but he was revered as the master of appraisal, the miraculous healer, the charming sorcerer, the lord of the Dragon Palace, the invincible war god… With a hand that wielded golden needles against death itself, and another that brandished a longsword, compelling nations to submit, he possessed unparalleled prowess. His divine gaze surveyed the heavens and the earth, while his demonic sight pierced through the veils of yin and yang. He was unmatched in all the world!