Martial King's Retired Life is a Manhua that follows the lazy Ming Fei Zhen, a young martial arts master who was forced to lead his faction after his awful mentor abdicated the position. However, Fei Zhen decided he didn't want to lead the faction either, so he left to join the Imperial court, where he hoped he could lead a carefree life. Unsurprisingly, things didn't go quite according to plan...
This work has examples of the following tropes:
- Action Hero: Tang Ye is much closer to the traditional hero of a martial arts story, but he constantly plays second fiddle to Fei Zhen.
- Almighty Janitor: The downside to Fei Zhen constantly avoiding combat (to prevent anyone from learning his true abilities) is that he has trouble gaining recognition. Hence why the official martial arts rankings have him listed as 400th in terms of strength among the three branches.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: As the title suggests, Fei Zhen simply wants to retire to a lifetime of careless self-indulgence. He is also unquestionably one of the most powerful martial artists alive.
- Deadpan Snarker: Su Wen's primary coping mechanism for Fei Zhen's laziness and stupidity.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Shen Kuang is repeatedly mistaken for a girl, much to his constant shock.
- Su Xiao is also often mistaken for a woman, and he's even less self-aware about it than Shen Kuang is.
- Glory Days: The Da Luo Shong faction was once one of the great martial arts sects, but it fell on hard times due to the negligence and reckless spending of its previous leader. Worse, the man who was supposed to take over after the previous leader abdicated also decided to abdicate, leading it without any clear leadership.
- Also applies to the Liu Shanmen, which fell into disfavor after its previous leader was caught in some kind of inappropriate sexual act.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: The Night Fortress, Fei Zhen's faction, isn't actually evil, it's just not very discerning about who it allows into its ranks. That bad reputation wasn't helped by its previous leader's love of women and reckless spending habits.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Yan Shi San, the previous captain of the Liu Shanmen, was forced to retire after a sex scandal. Thus far, he's still in hiding.
- Idiot Hero: Su Xiao, who is almost always oblivious to the greater schemes of the people around him.
- Interservice Rivalry: The Liu Shanmen, the Qilin, and the Imperial Guard all compete for funding, personnel and glory. It's why, when Qilin and Imperial Guards start dropping dead in the lead-up to the martial arts tournament, it's the Liu Shanmen that are first suspected as perpetrators.
- Made of Iron: The only reason Fei Zhen survived his mentor's reckless "training" is because of his absurd constitution. Fei Zhen attributes it to some perverse kind of luck.
- The Man Behind the Man: Shen Yi Ren, the Vice-Captain of the Liu Shanmen, is so deeply involved in running the organization that many of the Liu Shanmen's actual members don't realize she's (technically) not in charge.
- The real Captain of the Liu Shanmen, on the other hand, is basically a professional sycophant who bows and scrapes before other factions to reduce the political fallout of Shen Yi Ren's more controversial actions.
- Non-Indicative Name: The League of Assassins does carry out assassinations; however, that's more of a side business. Their real enterprise is trading information, which they are very, very good at.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Fei Zhen's mentor thought a great way to teach his student martial arts was to give him absurdly difficult and dangerous techniques and see if he survived learning them. Fortunately for Fei Zhen, he actually did manage to survive and became absurdly strong as a result.
- The Slacker: Fei Zhen can almost always be counted on to take whatever action will require the least amount of work, at least until he's forced to put effort in.
- The Svengali: Fei Zhen's previous master basically used Fei Zhen as a lab rat for various experimental and dangerous martial arts techniques, to see if it was possible to practice them and not die. Note that he started doing this when Fei Zhen was only ten years old.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Ming Fei Zhen's faction, the Night Fortress, is known as a villainous sect of horrible assassins and murderers. It sort of is... because Fei Zhen would literally let anyone in, and just beat them into submission afterwards.
- Survivor's Guilt: Tang Ye was the only survivor of the massacre that killed his entire family, and he wants revenge on the perpetrator, a man in a demonic mask.
- Training from Hell: Due to the aforementioned experimental training regimens, Fei Zhen has been almost crippled or killed numerous times. As a result, however, he became a peerless martial arts master at just 22.
- Tranquil Fury: Don't be fooled- just because Tang Ye is generally pretty even-tempered doesn't mean he won't smack you down if you get in the way of his quest for revenge.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: For someone who seems to look down on Fei Zhen so much, Su Wen is very interested in whether he's pursuing a relationship with Shen Yi Ren or not.
