Li Shimin's face twisted into something wonderfully complicated.
Writing that message to the Marquis Wu of Shu had been born purely of intellectual curiosity. He had pictured it as a thrilling match of chess played across the centuries. The chance to trade strategic banter with the legendary Zhuge Liang, perhaps even coordinate a phantom strike against Cao Cao from opposite ends of time, had sounded far too entertaining to pass up.
The good news? Zhuge Liang had actually replied.
The bad news? The reply was a surgical strike aimed straight at Li Shimin's deepest wound.
Your Majesty Erfeng, please do not forget the tragedy of the Crown Prince.
Standing frozen before the slowly dimming Light Screen, the Emperor of the Great Tang felt a thousand thoughts crashing together inside his skull. The Crown Prince. Li Chengqian. His own flesh and blood. The son who had raised a rebellion against him. Zhuge Liang had reached across a thousand years and placed his finger directly on that scar.
Strangely enough, the first thing that surfaced in the wake of that blow was not Zhuge Liang's warning at all. It was a casual remark the screen had tossed off earlier about Emperor Wu of Han:
If Liu Che had died five or ten years sooner, his place in history would have been spotless.
Li Shimin knew the life of Emperor Wu inside and out. Back when he was still the Prince of Qin, he had idolized the Han Emperor's sweeping vision and unyielding ambition.
He still remembered asking his trusted advisor, Yu Shinan, whether any ruler in history had ever matched the sheer audacity of Han Wu.
Yet after taking the throne himself, that old admiration had curdled into frustration. He had come to despise how Emperor Wu spent his twilight years chasing after mythical immortals. The man had torched the empire's wealth, drained the common people dry, and gone chasing fairy tales, leaving a dark smear across his own legacy in the end.
On the very first night the Light Screen revealed that future generations hailed him as an Emperor for the Ages, Li Shimin had tossed and turned in his bed without sleep. He had warned himself over and over, swearing to the heavens that he would never, under any circumstance, repeat the catastrophic mistakes of Qin Shi Huang or Emperor Wu of Han.
But now he stood staring at Zhuge Liang's words. The Marquis Wu had not warned him about policy failures or military overreach. He had warned him about his own son. A cold and heavy dread pooled in Li Shimin's stomach.
Yu Shinan's old assessment surfaced unbidden in his memory, sharp and merciless as the day it was spoken.
Emperor Wu of Han surpassed the First Emperor of Qin in sheer talent. But when it came to arrogance, extravagance, and cruelty, the two men stood as equals.
Thinking about the final verdict history had passed on Emperor Wu, Li Shimin let out a long and heavy sigh.
Could it be that even he, the mighty Emperor for the Ages, would not escape that same closing judgment? Abundant in merit, yet wanting in virtue.
Would future generations study his final years and quietly wish he had died a little sooner, too?
While Li Shimin stood there sighing and mourning a future that had not yet arrived, Zhangsun Wuji decided he was finished trading death glares with Wei Zheng.
He sidestepped the stubborn minister, glided directly to the Emperor's side, and offered his comfort.
"Your Majesty, the Crown Prince is only eleven years old.
The younger princes are barely more than toddlers. You stand in the very prime of your life, overflowing with strength and vigor. Why cloud your heart with such grim sighs?"
Li Shimin's gaze drifted straight past his brother-in-law and locked onto his designated human mirror. Wei Zheng.
"The ancient sages taught that a gentleman does not use still water as his mirror. He uses other men." Li Shimin's voice had steadied.
"I believe the sages missed one crucial detail. Using a man as a mirror does not merely show you when fortune or disaster draws near. Far more than that, it exposes the exact gaps in your own virtue and your own achievements."
A complex wave of emotion surged through Wei Zheng. He lowered his head and bowed, deep and reverent.
"This subject only hopes that our Great Tang, guided by Your Majesty's steady hand, will strike awe into the four corners of the earth, enrich the common people, bring peace to the seas, and fill the granaries of the realm to overflowing."
From the background, Zhangsun Wuji's expression curdled into something close to pure and naked jealousy.
His heart fluttered with a tight and deeply unpleasant sensation. Even a stubborn mule like Wei Zheng had his name blazoned across the magical Light Screen.
Where was Zhangsun Wuji's mention? His quiet resignation from the chancellorship in the first year of Zhenguan had been a tactical retreat, a single step backward meant to clear the path for two steps forward.
Had the Emperor truly forgotten the old guard the moment a new favorite appeared? A thick and suffocating anxiety flooded his chest.
"Your Majesty, the matter of the coming floods must be addressed as well." Du Ruhui stepped in smoothly, cutting through the tension as he presented a fresh stack of records.
To the ever-watching Light Screen, these historical disasters were little more than passing clouds, casually dismissed with a single word while discussing Wei Zheng's protests. But to the men living inside the moment, every word of it was a matter of life and death.
Li Shimin needed almost no time to decide. He gave the order at once.
"Keming, you will draft the primary response. Deliver it to Dai Zhou first thing tomorrow morning."
Dai Zhou was the Minister of Revenue. Disaster relief and the release of emergency funds sat squarely within his jurisdiction. Du Ruhui nodded his acknowledgment.
The business settled, Li Shimin crossed to the desks where his two scribes had frantically copied down the swarms of tiny, glowing text from the earlier barrage.
He read through the transcripts line by line. The sarcastic jabs at Wei and Jin he brushed aside without a thought. When he reached the part describing Zhu Chongba of the Ming and his consolidated sacrifices at the Temple of Heaven, Li Shimin curled his lip.
The Tang Dynasty already held the Altar of Heaven, the Circular Mound, the Altar of the Sun, and the Altar of the Moon. There was nothing new in that.
But the notion of abandoning Mount Tai and simply conducting the grand Fengshan ceremony at the Temple of Heaven in the capital? That actually struck him as a rather elegant compromise.
Li Shimin stroked his beard and decided to shelf the idea for another ten or fifteen years. The foreign tribes were far from fully pacified. How could he speak of Fengshan now?
He read further down, and a genuine laugh escaped him.
"This line about selling your grandfather's farm and feeling not a twinge of regret is devastatingly precise. Burning through the funds meant for the Northern Expeditions just to buy a fool's reputation on a mountain."
He shook his head in pure disdain. And yet, despite everything, Li Shimin felt a strange impulse to find a sliver of credit for the pathetic Song Dynasty. "This Zhao Heng was a complete clown. But surely his father must have been a capable ruler to have built up such a treasury in the first place?"
Hou Junji let out a scoff. His face settled into open disapproval. He doubted it strongly.
Half those sycophantic, spineless ministers buzzing around Zhenzong's court were probably leftovers from the previous reign anyway.
Without warning, the dim Light Screen hummed and blazed back to full brightness. Hou Junji jolted in surprise.
"Relax," Fang Xuanling said, his voice easy and unhurried. "These short interludes do not usually carry earth-shattering news. Just watch with an open mind."
The screen displayed a short block of text paired with several sharp and vivid images. The format was almost painfully simple. Hou Junji narrowed his eyes and fixed his focus.
[Lightscreen]
[Big bosses, I am not even going to rate this one properly, okay? This is genuinely the first time your illiterate host has ever eaten a product made via an ancient canning method.
After chewing on this thing, I can only sigh in defeat.
Cao Pi was absolutely right when he said lychees are nowhere near as delicious as grapes!
He had a point!
Even though the taste is incredibly average, I will admit it is very organic and healthy. However, I highly recommend you just go online and buy the fresh ones...]
The first image flashed onto the screen. A squat and remarkably ugly jar. Hou Junji took one look at it and dismissed it on the spot. A crude clay pot. The craftsmanship was utterly without refinement. If someone had handed that thing to him, he would have pitched it straight into the trash.
The second image showed the same jar, now opened. Inside sat a neat and tidy stack of pale lychee flesh, still glistening faintly.
The third image showed the fruit transferred into a pristine bowl of brilliant white porcelain.
The fourth image showed the bowl scraped clean. A modern hand hovered beside it, thumb raised.
The final image was different. A piece of stationery, beautifully penned. The calligraphy was elegant and spare, carrying only a handful of lines.
"This fruit was harvested and prepared by Zhang Ziqiao of Chengdu in the middle of autumn. Liked and offered as a sacrifice to a distant friend in October, the sixteenth year of Jian'an."
Sent by the Village Scholar, Zhuge."
[Server Chat Log]
[IronKettle92: Hitting the like button for sheer dedication. The gift may be light, but the sentiment is heavy. Anyone still messing around with ancient canning methods in this day and age is completely addicted to historical roleplay. I respect it.
LazyFoxBrew: Wait, hold up. Did ancient people actually have canned food? I read very few books, please do not scam me.
JadeRabbitZero: Why would anyone scam you? What do they get, your empty wallet? Our ancestors lacked modern science, but they were not stupid. Go read the Qimin Yaoshu for yourself.
MistyPeakBlade: The guy above is speaking facts. The Rites of Zhou even records recipes for canned fish. They would stuff the fish into a jar and seal the mouth tightly with mud, and it could last for two whole months. The UP probably received a fruit can made using the methods from the Qimin Yaoshu. You cure it with salt, seal it up, and it can easily last half a year. You can even add sugar to adjust the taste if you are feeling fancy.
ThunderDragonFist: Salt curing... wait, is that not just a primitive form of sterilization? Man, it is such a shame our ancestors did not invent the microscope. If they could have seen the bacteria, they would have realized that boiling the jars at high heat kills everything. Military-grade MREs could have been invented a millennium early. Why did we have to wait until the nineteenth century for foreigners to figure it out?
SilverTongue: True that. In ancient times, if you figured out how to make a proper fruit can and sold it to wealthy merchants, you would be swimming in gold. If you were willing to travel, you could sell them to naval fleets to prevent scurvy. You could trade them to the grassland nomads for premium leather. Hell, if you bribed Tang Xuanzong with enough of these, you might even score a job as a military governor.
BrokenArrow: Okay, I will give a solid six out of ten to that business mindset. But speaking of ancient tech, why did we not have glass? Everyone says blowing glass is way easier than firing high-grade porcelain.
SwordThief: I can answer that in one sentence. The ancient glass industry required massive amounts of alkali. Without modern chemistry, ancients had to rely on natural soda ash. The Yellow River and Yangtze River basins in China simply do not have natural soda ash deposits, so a large-scale glass industry was physically impossible. The few pieces they did manage to fire were treated as rare luxury ornaments.
PhoenixFeather: Exactly. That is why almost all ancient glass came from the Middle East. They have tons of inland saltwater lakes over there, so they had zero shortage of natural soda ash.
MoonlitBlade: So you are telling me every single time-travel novel where the protagonist goes back and instantly invents a glass empire is pure nonsense?
DrunkenAlchemist: Not entirely nonsense. There is a substitute called plant ash that actually works better than natural soda ash. But the processing method would look completely insane to ancient people. Who in their right mind takes a pile of burnt plant ash, cold-brews it, filters it repeatedly, and then boils it down? It looks like the behavior of a madman.
IronSticks: Whatever, I only care about the canned fruit. Based on the review, it sounds like it tastes terrible. I will stick to the Fezixiao lychees at the supermarket down the street. Nine bucks a pound, baby.]
Military-grade!
Hou Junji's heart slammed against his ribs. He might not grasp every fine thread of statecraft, but military logistics? That was his domain, the ground he knew better than his own pulse.
During the endless and grinding expeditions into the northern deserts and across the sweeping steppes, the soldiers had suffered beyond words. A desperate and maddening hunger for fresh vegetables and fruit gnawed at them, and men sometimes collapsed into severe illness from the sheer absence of it.
If they could get their hands on military-grade canned food, would that nightmare not be buried forever?
"Your Majesty, this policy of canning food..." Hou Junji stepped forward, his face arranged into its most eager and pleading expression, ready to claim the entire project for the military.
But Li Shimin's strategic vision ran light-years ahead of Hou Junji's. He had already mapped the entire chessboard in his head, and he knew exactly which man was suited for which piece.
"The trial production of these cans... Wuji!"
Zhangsun Wuji, who only moments before had been sulking miserably in his corner, snapped upright like a released spring. "I shall not fail Your Majesty's trust!"
Li Shimin was not merely a brilliant battlefield commander. He was a visionary Emperor whose gaze could cut through centuries. In the space of a few breaths, he had already absorbed the terrifying and world-shifting potential of this simple canning method.
The underlying principle was laughably basic. Salt and a sealed lid. Yet the absence of that simple trick had tormented the world's armies for more than a thousand years. Which meant that if the Great Tang could hold the exact boiling and sealing process as a tightly guarded state secret, they could command an absolute and unbroken monopoly for at least a decade.
With this technology, the armies of the Great Tang could march without pause across the barren steppes. They could launch fleets across the open ocean. They could seize control of the global trade routes with an iron grip on canned goods.
"Wuji!" Li Shimin's voice rang with solemn command. "This method seems simple, but if it is executed to perfection, it will lock in the prosperity of our nation for a hundred years. You will proceed with absolute caution and absolute secrecy."
Zhangsun Wuji understood the weight of the assignment in an instant. He offered a flurry of solemn oaths and firm guarantees.
To ensure no capable man sat idle, Li Shimin tossed the secondary task to his eager general with casual precision. "Junji, you will take men and begin surveying the inland saltwater lakes the screen described. We will trial the production of glass."
His economic and military directives now perfectly assigned, Li Shimin turned his full attention at last to the transcribed note left by the Marquis Wu.
"The Marquis Wu is actively teaching me," Li Shimin said, a soft chuckle escaping him. Profound respect settled over his features.
"However..." He turned and gazed out through the wide doors of the Ganlu Hall. The weather in Chang'an marked the beginning of July.
Yet Zhuge Liang's letter stated clearly that the fruit had been harvested in Chengdu by Zhang Song in the middle of autumn and gifted in October.
The magical Light Screen possessed a real and measurable time differential.
And even more staggering than that, Zhang Song was supposed to be dead by the sixteenth year of Jian'an. Yet here he was, alive and harvesting fruit. The Marquis Wu of Shu had actually managed to bend the iron laws of history itself.
And how had he sent a physical object across the void? The critical clues lay buried in the specific verbs of the note. Liked. Offered as a sacrifice.
For a long moment, Li Shimin sat in genuine awe. Zhuge Liang's message had been brief, only a handful of casual lines, yet every single word drove straight to the heart of the matter. To possess such terrifyingly sharp wit and such quick mastery over the unknown, the man truly lived up to the legendary title of Marquis Wu.
Du Ruhui, having finished processing the logistics, leaned back and stretched his arms with a lazy ease. A knowing and faintly wicked smile touched the corners of his lips.
"The future generations call Feizixiao lychees, Concubine Smiles lychees, . That particular name carries a rather profound historical allusion. Truly a fitting title."
Li Shimin caught the reference at once. A burst of helpless and booming laughter escaped him.
Meanwhile, in the makeshift palace of Shu Han, the atmosphere swung between triumph and mild indignation.
"How in the world could my lychees not be delicious?" Zhang Song's voice dropped into a wounded mutter.
People needed to understand the sheer investment involved. Curing the fruit had demanded an obscene quantity of premium salt, and he had personally selected the largest and sweetest lychees in the entire province.
When Chancellor Kongming had asked for them, Zhang Song had needed a moment just to steady himself before parting with such luxurious treasures.
And the result? The man from the future had the nerve to call them average and brush them aside without a second thought.
Liu Bei threw his head back and let out a full and booming laugh. He walked over and gave Zhang Song a firm and reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Ziqiao, do not let it trouble you. The knowledge we gained from sending that single jar of fruit is worth more than all the accumulated wealth in Chengdu for the next hundred years. This was profit on a scale no merchant has ever touched before."
Zhang Song was loyal to Liu Bei down to the marrow of his bones. Hearing his lord praise him in such sweeping terms smoothed his ruffled feathers at once, and a proud smile pushed through the lingering annoyance.
In truth, every man in the room had already grasped the terrifying weight of what they had just learned.
Even if the future netizen had not spelled out the phrase military-grade, the strategic minds of Shu Han could have pieced it together on their own. Every application the Light Screen had rattled off was something they could begin working on immediately.
In the corner, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun were already locked in an intense and whispered argument about how a steady supply of fruit rations could transform the stamina of their infantry on the march.
Across the room, Mi Zhu and Liu Ba were deep in fierce debate over the finer points of commercial espionage, drafting aggressive plans to ensure the canning methods stayed locked away as a tightly guarded state secret.
Liu Bei watched them all and gave a slow and approving nod. A man does not stop eating for fear of choking. The risks were worth the staggering rewards.
Amid the swirl of chaotic planning, Pang Tong caught sight of Kongming sitting apart from the noise. His brush drifted absently across a sheet of parchment, sketching shapes that made no immediate sense.
Pang Tong crossed over with a smirk already forming on his face.
"Kongming, are you worried that the Tang Emperor might be too dense to understand your hidden message?"
Zhuge Liang shook his head without looking up. The clues regarding the time difference and the method of transmission were practically stamped across the Emperor's forehead by now. How could a mind like Li Shimin's miss them?
"No, that is not my worry at all." Kongming's voice came out distant, his eyes wide and unfocused as he stared down at his own sketches. "I am simply..... endlessly mesmerized by this strange and mysterious thing they call chemistry."