Ignoring Li Bai's excitement, Ian flipped his palm.
A quaint Modao appeared in his hand.
The blade was narrow and straight, its hilt quaint and unadorned. It lacked any ornate decorations, yet it exuded an aura of iron and blood, forged through countless battles.
Li Shimin found the blade incredibly familiar.
Ian handed the weapon to him.
"This blade is the key to opening a door."
Li Shimin reached out with both hands and accepted the blade.
The moment he grasped it, his entire body trembled violently.
A sense of familiarity, as if connected by blood, instantly spread from his palms throughout his body.
It was a feeling he would never forget for all eternity.
This was the very Modao he had wielded when he conquered the world all those years ago.
Ian's voice continued to ring in Li Shimin's ears. "Through it, you can establish a connection with your past self—the Li Shimin who is currently at his absolute peak."
"As long as you can convince him, you can 'borrow' any number of troops from his era to come to this world and aid you in battle."
The entirety of Zhao Mausoleum plunged into silence once more.
Everyone's minds went completely blank, stunned by these words.
Borrowing troops from the past? What an unimaginable, heaven-defying feat!
"Immortal Master."
Zhangsun Wuji was the first to recover. He took a step forward, his face etched with worry.
"Manipulating time and space like this... I fear it will trigger a temporal paradox. The consequences..."
A faint, nonchalant smile appeared on Ian's face.
"It's fine."
"You've never toyed with time, so you don't know, but time really isn't all that profound."
"Relax! I do this kind of thing all the time. I have experience, and besides, this world itself wouldn't dare let its timeline fall into chaos."
This explanation was delivered casually, yet it highlighted an absolute mastery that could mold the laws of time and space at will.
Hearing this, Zhangsun Wuji and the others voiced no further objections, left only with hearts full of profound shock.
Li Shimin tightly gripped the Tang blade in his hands.
Its familiar weight and cold touch seemed to transport him back to the days of armored steeds and clashing weapons, an era where he swallowed thousands of miles with his ambition.
A long-extinguished grand aspiration reignited within his chest, blazing into a roaring inferno.
The sorrow and bewilderment in his eyes were swept away, replaced by unparalleled heroic passion.
"Ministers, heed my command."
Li Shimin's voice regained the majesty of a ruler who reigned over the world.
"Using Zhao Mausoleum as our foundation, prepare our military forces."
"Xuanling, you are in charge of logistics and dispatch."
"Keming, you will formulate our preliminary strategy."
"Zhijie, Jingde, you two will organize the army and prepare to welcome the return of our Great Tang soldiers."
"Understood!"
Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Cheng Yaojin, and the others accepted their orders in unison. The soaring fighting spirit belonging to the founding heroes of the empire was instantly ignited.
In this moment, a slumbering imperial tomb seemed to transform into a fortress of war, ready to stir the winds and clouds of the world.
Watching all of this, Ian pondered for a moment. He then inverted his wine gourd, allowing the liquor to flow into a clear spring within the mausoleum.
As the wine mixed in, the spring transformed, emitting a refreshing and exotic fragrance.
Li Shimin and the others looked over, only to hear Ian speak.
"Although the Great Tang army is strong, it is still not enough to rapidly sweep across this world."
"Now, just one sip of the water from this spring will allow an ordinary martial artist to break through to the Great Heavenly Position."
Hearing this, Li Shimin was incredibly thrilled.
After all, the Great Heavenly Position was already the pinnacle of combat power in the current world. Unless the legendary Divine Firmament Position appeared, those at the Great Heavenly Position were exceedingly difficult to kill.
Li Shimin couldn't help but begin to fantasize about leading a hundred thousand soldiers at the Great Heavenly Position, sweeping across the Divine Land, trampling over all nations, and imposing his might across the seas.
Seeing Li Shimin's expression, Ian couldn't help but chuckle. It seemed that students of future generations wouldn't need to learn English anymore.
"I'll leave this place to you all."
"I still have some other matters to attend to," Ian said, turning around to leave.
"Immortal, please wait."
Li Bai took a step forward and bowed deeply to Ian.
"Taibai makes bold to request to travel alongside you, Immortal."
"I wish to see this land I once loved so deeply with my own eyes again, and I also wish to witness the various figures of this chaotic era."
Having returned from the dead and gained an immortal body, he was no longer the poet who single-mindedly sought an official career. At this moment, he only wanted to use these new eyes to measure this land's mountains and rivers once more.
"Immortal Master, this humble Daoist shares the same intention."
Li Chunfeng also walked over.
His interest in Ian, this "Immortal," had reached its absolute peak.
Nothing excited him more than personally verifying the heavenly secrets and observing an existence capable of altering the course of the entire world.
"Very well."
Ian agreed to their requests.
Thus, Li Shimin and his ministers began preparing their forces atop Zhao Mausoleum, readying themselves for a conversation across time and space.
Meanwhile, Ian, taking Li Bai and Li Chunfeng with him, transformed into a streak of light once more and vanished into the horizon above Mount Jiuzong.
...
Ian did not use his divine ability to shrink the earth into inches.
The three of them rode swift horses, traveling along the official road leading from Guanzhong to Shu.
This was for the sake of the experience.
It was also to allow these two "ancients" to feel this era more intuitively.
The official road had long been abandoned and was overgrown with weeds.
In the fields by the roadside, not a single trace of crops could be seen. There were only a few incomplete, withered skeletons, gnawed beyond recognition by wild dogs.
The wind carried not the fragrance of soil, but a foul stench mixed with blood and rot.
Outside an abandoned village, several emaciated villagers were gathered around a large cauldron. Murky broth boiled within, with chunks of unidentifiable meat bobbing up and down.
Their eyes were numb and hollow, devoid of any trace of life.
Seeing this scene, even Li Chunfeng, an accomplished Daoist alchemist, couldn't help but pull back on his reins, his face revealing deep compassion.
He let out a long sigh, his voice carrying endless desolation.
"The cycle of the Heavenly Dao... Although this humble Daoist calculated this calamity long ago, only by seeing it with my own eyes do I realize that the suffering of the common people is far worse than what the hexagrams showed."
Exchanging children for food.
These words were merely cold records in the annals of history.
But when they manifested into the reality before their eyes, the sheer impact was enough to shatter the emotional defenses of anyone with a benevolent heart.
Meanwhile.
In another hidden stronghold far away from there.
The fake Li Xingyun violently smashed the teacup in his hand onto the ground, splashing warm tea and porcelain shards everywhere.
His chest heaved violently, his face written with uncontrollable fear.
Reciting poetry to form swords, ten thousand swords returning to their origin.
In the flick of a finger, turning everything to ash.
The figure of that man in white lingered in his mind like a nightmare.
Was that truly something human power could achieve?
An unprecedented sense of threat left him on pins and needles.
"No."
"I can't wait any longer."
He knew very well that relying solely on his own strength and that of the Tongwen Manor, let alone eliminating that mysterious man in white, even dealing with the current Li Xingyun would be difficult.
Fear bred madness.
A ruthless glint flashed in his eyes.
To completely eradicate Li Xingyun and the massive anomaly that was Ian, he had to resort to any means necessary.
He picked up a brush and swiftly wrote several secret letters.
"Someone, come."
A trusted subordinate quietly appeared.
"Deliver this letter immediately to the Twelve Dong of Miaojiang and hand it to the Witch King."
"Tell him that I am willing to help him obtain what he desires, on the condition that he joins forces with me to eliminate someone."
"Send this one to Mobei and deliver it to the Khitan Queen, Shuliduo."
"Tell her that once the matter is settled, the Great Tang will withdraw its troops from the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun."
"And this one—find a way to send it to the Western Regions and deliver it to the envoys who call themselves the 'Zoroastrian Cult'."
"Tell them that the gates to the Central Plains can be opened for them."
A massive net targeting Li Xingyun and Ian was quietly being cast.
The fake Li Xingyun refused to believe that so many peak Great Heavenly Position experts wouldn't be able to defeat a single mysterious man in white!