"Uncle is at it again, adding useless features!"
Wen Mang curled his lips in disdain. Site 13 was a great platform, but the CEO they called Uncle was another matter entirely.
All day long the site just pushed out flashy gimmicks with no substance, completely pointless.
Without much thought, he tapped both options in the submenu and exchanged his points. Watching the red notification dot disappear instantly satisfied his obsessive tendencies.
His first priority was simple. He needed to confirm whether the other side was a scammer.
Following the address given over the phone, he took a taxi. After passing through the reassuring gates of Sichuan University, Wen Mang asked around and eventually found his destination.
The Sichuan University Archaeology Teaching and Research Laboratory.
"Hello, Qin Shi Huang. You can just call me Dongfang Ye."
The woman standing before him carried herself with confidence. Her posture was neat and capable, and from her appearance, she looked more like a student than a professor.
They shook hands.
"So, how is it? This place does not look like a pyramid scheme base, right?"
Wen Mang flushed red with embarrassment.
"I was just being overly cautious before."
"Being cautious is a good thing," Dongfang Ye said, her tone carrying a faint layer of meaning.
She handed over several printed images.
"These are the photos my colleague showed me earlier."
Wen Mang immediately recognized them. They were the exact pictures he had posted on Site 13.
"Judging from the color, this is very close to real gold."
Once she started speaking about her profession, her tone became smooth and confident. She laid out several comparison images of horseshoe gold and gold Wuzhu coins.
"These are reference images provided by the Shaanxi Museum. Comparing the craftsmanship details, the fine points align closely. There is a strong possibility they came from the exact same mold batch."
Wen Mang stared blankly. This was his first time truly experiencing how terrifying professional expertise could be. Everything Dongfang Ye pointed out looked like nothing more than a pixelated blur to him.
"Therefore, if possible, I would like you to bring the physical items over. We can conduct a proper craftsmanship analysis and date them."
Since she clearly was not short on funds, Wen Mang had no objection.
He was not completely ignorant either. Horseshoe gold and gold Wuzhu coins were highly valuable and often used as burial items. Many had been discovered in Han tombs, so they were not prohibited collectibles.
When he left, Dongfang Ye personally walked him out. Along the way, students greeted her respectfully as Professor Dongfang.
"Save my number." She brushed aside her short hair lightly. "If you have any questions later, you can contact me anytime."
Then she added casually, "By the way, I saw online that you received a calligraphy piece from Zhuge Liang?"
"That one is a fake." Wen Mang laughed helplessly.
If that "Glory belongs to the people" piece were truly written by Zhuge Liang, then the story of Xiao He chasing Han Xin under the moonlight might as well be real too. That would be utterly ridiculous.
"I see." Dongfang Ye nodded. "If you have the chance, let me take a look. The imitation actually captures about thirty percent of the original spirit."
What a strange professor, Wen Mang thought.
...
Gong'an County.
Sun Qian sat upright in the side hall, his posture perfectly straight and meticulous.
Nearby, Jian Yong and Mi Zhu whispered to each other. Both of them were puzzled. The light screen had clearly ended. Why were their lord and the others still here, looking as if they were preparing to sleep on the floor?
"There must be a reason," Jian Yong spoke with absolute certainty.
Looking around, he noticed that whether it was Liu Bei or Zhao Yun, both had faint smiles in their eyes when looking at the civil officials. It was the exact same expression they themselves had shown when they first saw the light screen.
Not long after, the screen slowly unfolded again.
Hmph... Still trying to watch me make a fool of myself? Keep dreaming. Jian Yong scoffed inwardly.
"Look, look... Kongming's calligraphy actually entered the light screen!" That was Jian Yong completely losing his composure.
Zhang Fei dug at his ear with his little finger. "Xianhe, composure. Maintain the composure of a scholar. It is just a piece of calligraphy entering the screen. Why so surprised?"
I haven't even bragged about my wine getting into the screen yet! Zhang Fei thought with a scoff.
Everyone focused their attention on the display.
[Lightscreen]
[Thanks for the donation! This calligraphy from Kongming matches the video perfectly. It is honestly hilarious. Also, I took a look at the paper. It is bark paper, and that stuff is not cheap. Thank you, thank you. I will definitely pour my heart and soul into the next video!]
[Server Chat Log]
[MarchIfPaid: That calligraphy killed me, plus one. Quick question, what is bark paper?
Unshaken Tree: If I am not mistaken, this should be Linqu bark paper. One roll costs over three hundred now.
BeyondSky: This is basically the Zuo Bo paper from the Three Kingdoms period. Zuo Bo improved papermaking by adding mulberry bark as raw material and made a fortune.
NerdCourse: Funny thing is, he was actually a calligrapher.
VoidTracker: He neglected his main profession and became famous for papermaking instead.
GuardianGrass: If we are talking about completing the final piece of papermaking, we have to look at Iron-blooded Coward Song. Movable type printing is the perfect partner.
WildPinguin: The gap between woodblock printing and movable type printing being four hundred years is honestly wild. It is just one extra step.
SmokeBar: No way around it. Ancient times did not value technological invention. The only dynasty that encouraged it, Iron-blooded Coward Song, still got beaten badly.
WifiWarrior: Even so, Song Dynasty inventions crushed all other dynasties, with a total of thirty-eight technology progress points.
Wait, were we not talking about bark paper?]
Zhuge Liang carefully copied every single word he saw on the screen, a faint smile of triumph appearing on his face.
'Hmph! You will not let me ask directly, right? You think I do not know how to beat around the bush? I can just observe widely, infer from fragments, and deduce the whole. It just takes a little brainpower!'
As he wrote, another thought arose.
Zuo Bo had achieved lasting fame, not because of his calligraphy, but simply because he improved papermaking. It seemed that later generations valued craftsmanship and engineering greatly.
Could it be that their so-called floating territories were also created by craftsmen? To achieve something akin to divine feats through ordinary human hands alone. Yueying would definitely be interested if she knew about this.
Zhang Fei, meanwhile, began counting on his fingers.
"Jin, the Sixteen Kingdoms, Tang, Song, Ming, the Manchu Qing, and oh right, that future dynasty with no emperor where the descendant lives."
"Yide, what are you calculating?" Liu Bei asked.
"Big Brother," Zhang Fei said seriously. "Just from what the light screen has revealed to us, there are already seven dynasties, and that is not even counting the ones it has not mentioned. We are separated from that descendant by one thousand seven hundred years. Does that not mean each dynasty only lasted about two hundred years?"
Zhuge Liang joined the conversation and shook his head. "It definitely would not be divided so evenly. But even if we calculate it the way Yide did, the land of Shenzhou would have to suffer through the chaos and displacement of a dynasty change every two hundred years. Calculating it this way..."
On this specific point, the Han dynasty could look down on the others slightly. The Liu clan had lasted for over four hundred years, far exceeding that two-hundred-year mark.
"The later generations are so powerful, and they value this technology so highly. Could it be that the secret to a strong nation lies within this technology?" Jian Yong could not help but ask.
Mi Zhu immediately objected. "Xianhe, the comments also said that the Song Dynasty had the highest number of so-called technology progress points in history, yet they were still beaten up and left crying. This shows that technology alone is not necessarily the correct answer."
Zhuge Liang raised his hand and stopped all the discussions. "It is too early to debate these grand topics. Today, let us first discuss this paper and the art of printing."
---
Fun Fact:
The technology progress points refer to statistics of technological innovations in ancient history. Setting aside the Shang, Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties, the Wei and Jin periods had 26 progress points, the Sui and Tang had 19, the Song had 38, the Ming had 18, and the Qing had 4.