All the heroes of the world are now in my grasp.

Chapter 10 Secrets in the Book

The blizzard lasted for three days and three nights without showing any sign of stopping.

The entire Yongming tribe was shrouded in a vast expanse of white snow. The mountain path at the valley entrance had long been completely blocked by snow, and even the patrolling cavalry had retreated. The entire tribe huddled in their tents to avoid the cold. Apart from the occasional sounds of adding firewood and feeding the horses, the only sound in the valley was the howling of the wind and snow.

Gao Zidan also stayed in her tent and read for three days and three nights straight.

The books Liu Yao had brought over filled the corner of the tent, ranging from official national histories and classics of previous dynasties to military strategies, miscellaneous notes, and old news—everything imaginable. Apart from necessary eating, drinking, and resting, Gao Zidan was almost always engrossed in his books. The charcoal fire crackled in the copper stove, but he was oblivious to it, his mind completely absorbed in these yellowed pages, wanting only to thoroughly understand this bizarre and chaotic world.

Since transmigrating, I've basically been on the run, my mind filled with nothing but survival. Now I can finally calm down and read a few pages of a book, gather intelligence, and assess the situation.

Han Xin stood quietly in the corner of the tent, grinding ink, adding charcoal, and tidying up the rumpled books for Gao Zidan. He didn't say a word throughout, remaining as reserved and dutiful as ever. Only when Gao Zidan stared at the pages for too long would he silently offer her a cup of hot tea; otherwise, he rarely disturbed her.

After three days of reading, Gao Zidan's shock grew deeper each day.

He finally understood that this world, and the world he originally lived in, were fundamentally different from each other.

The legends of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors are largely the same, but after that, the trajectory of history took a completely different turn. It was not Yu the Great who controlled the floods, established the nine provinces, and began the hereditary rule, but King Wu of Liang, Zhu Shi; it was not Tang of Shang who overthrew Jie, destroyed Liang, and established the dynasty, but King Wu of Zhou, Ji Shi; and it was King Wu of Jin who took his place, ending the rule of the Zhou dynasty.

At the end of the Jin Dynasty, the excessive enfeoffment of members of the imperial family led to a period of great division that lasted for hundreds of years. The various states were constantly at war with each other, much like the chaotic Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods he was familiar with. However, the names of the states and their rulers were completely different. In the end, it was not the powerful Qin Dynasty, which had built up its strength over six generations, that ended this centuries of chaos and unified the country, but the Han Dynasty under the Liu family.

The Han Dynasty lasted for three hundred years before finally disintegrating, much like the chaotic end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The Liu family imperial clan became puppet emperors in the hands of various powerful ministers, and this chaos lasted for another two hundred years. It wasn't until Emperor Taizu of Tang, Li Zheng, emerged that the dynasty ended the two hundred years of chaos by sweeping away the warlords, unifying the north and south, and establishing the Tang Dynasty.

However, records about this dynasty became extremely secretive.

Official histories only lightly mention the late Tang Dynasty, a time of a young and unstable ruler. Zhao Sheng, entrusted with the late emperor's will to assist in governance, was renowned for his virtue and prestige. His son, Zhao Ren, was also highly accomplished and virtuous. The Li family, following the will of Heaven, abdicated the throne, and Zhao Ren established the Song Dynasty. Details of how Zhao Sheng overthrew the two regents, how he wielded absolute power for sixteen years, and how he paved the way for Zhao Ren's usurpation—these details that should have been recorded in the official history—were almost entirely erased, leaving only a few euphemistic embellishments.

Gao Zidan closed the book, understanding dawning on her. The scandals of the usurpation of the throne would naturally not be written in official histories. These secrets were mostly passed down orally within the top families and would only be revealed after the change of dynasties.

The more he read, the more he felt an inexplicable eeriness about this world. The dynastic changes subtly aligned with the history he knew, but the specific figures, dynastic names, and events were all misplaced. It was like a copy of a painting; the outline looked familiar, but the details were entirely different.

Gao Zidan rubbed her throbbing temples, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. She grabbed the thinnest booklet from the pile of books in the corner of the tent, hoping to clear her head.

On the cover of the booklet, two words were prominently displayed: "The Analects".

Gao Zidan's heart skipped a beat. The Analects? Could it be that this world also has a Confucius and Confucian classics?

He quickly opened the booklet, but after reading only the first line, he was stunned.

The opening sentence is not "To learn and practice what you have learned is a pleasure," but rather "Words are speech; discussions are debates. The Analects is for distinguishing speech, clarifying characters, and understanding punctuation, and is used to enlighten children."

Gao Zidan was both amused and exasperated. He closed the book and glanced at the cover again, confirming that it was indeed the Analects. He patiently flipped through the pages, only to discover that this so-called Analects was not the Confucian classic he was familiar with at all. It was simply a children's primer for learning to read, focusing entirely on the pronunciation, form, word formation, and sentence construction of characters, just like the Chinese textbooks he had read as a child.

He shook his head, finding it absurd, but just as his fingertips brushed across the pages, a thunderbolt suddenly exploded in his mind, freezing him instantly. It felt as if all the blood in his body rushed to his head and then instantly turned cold.

wrong.

Something's not right.

He suddenly lowered his head, staring intently at the pages of the book in his hands, at every single word on them.

These characters are all simplified Chinese characters.

It is the standardized simplified Chinese characters of modern China that he has ingrained in his bones over more than 20 years.

It's not traditional Chinese characters, not seal script, not clerical script, not regular script; it's simplified Chinese characters with straight horizontal and vertical strokes and extremely simple strokes. Moreover, this entire book teaches people how to use simplified Chinese characters.

Gao Zidan then recalled that during the days he had traveled through time, everything he had seen—from road signs and military documents to the markings in Liu Yao's tent, and the dozens of historical books he had read over in the past three days—was written in simplified Chinese characters.

But it wasn't until this moment that he realized it.

In the days before, he had been struggling between life and death, his mind preoccupied with how to survive, how to deal with the people around him, and how to understand the chaotic situation in this world. When he saw that he could understand the text at a glance, his first reaction was only relief, assuming that the language of this world just happened to be the same as the one he was familiar with, without thinking too deeply about it. In the past three days of reading, all his attention was focused on the content of the history book, only caring about what was written, completely unaware that what he was reading was simplified Chinese characters that should not exist in this era at all.

It wasn't until this book, "The Analects," which explains characters and distinguishes their forms, was placed before him that he was jolted awake as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water over his head.

How could the entire country be using simplified Chinese characters in this era?

unless……

A startling idea suddenly popped into his head.

With trembling hands, he quickly flipped back to the title page of the book to see who the author was.

On the title page, there was only one line of neat, small print:

Li Zhengzhuan

boom--

Emperor Yuanwu of the former Tang Dynasty, Li Zheng!

Gao Zidan froze on the spot, her mind blank, with only this one name echoing repeatedly.

Li Zheng.

The founding emperor of the previous dynasty who ended two hundred years of chaos and unified the world, the Yuanwu Emperor who was praised in history books as a genius who created laws and whose power extended to all corners of the world.

He's a time traveler too?!

The wind and snow continued to howl outside the tent, and the charcoal fire in the bronze stove crackled, but inside the tent was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Seeing that his face was deathly pale and he stood frozen in place for a long time, Han Xin quickly stepped forward, bowed, and asked, "Young Master, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

Gao Zidan snapped out of her daze, barely managing to suppress the turmoil of shock churning within her. She waved her hand, her voice trembling slightly, "It's nothing, I'm just a little dizzy from reading for so long. You can go out now, I want to be alone for a while."

Han Xin bowed in agreement, carefully withdrew, and lowered the tent curtain.

Gao Zidan was the only one left in the tent. He looked down at the Analects in his hand, and seeing the familiar simplified Chinese characters on the page, he felt as if the whole world was spinning before his eyes.

He originally thought he was the only variable in this chaotic world.

But he never expected that before him, there had already been a time traveler who, single-handedly, stirred up the entire river of history.