Li Shimin had always appreciated a good reveal. After dropping a revelation of this magnitude, he naturally expected some kind of reaction from Sun Simiao.
Shock? Disbelief? Utter awe? Trembling reverence? Honestly, he would have accepted any of them.
The Emperor of the Great Tang had even prepared responses in advance for every possible outcome. If the famed Medicine King believed him, Li Shimin intended to invite him for a private viewing of the light screen in mid-January. If the old physician remained skeptical, Li Shimin had already prepared a calm, knowing smile, the kind that practically said, Just wait until the future blinds you with its brilliance. Then he would turn around and leave behind a perfectly mysterious impression.
Unfortunately, Sun Simiao reacted in a completely different direction.
The man whom future generations would deify as the ultimate medical sage merely blinked, reached into his sleeve, and calmly pulled out a small notebook along with a charcoal stylus.
Fixing the Emperor with an unusually serious, clinical stare, Sun Simiao asked, "Exactly how many days has this illustration been in Your Majesty's possession?"
"I obtained the chart a little over two months ago..." Li Shimin began. Then his voice stopped abruptly. Sun Simiao was already rapidly recording notes onto the paper.
The Emperor's brow twitched. "I am not sick!"
Sun Simiao merely nodded and calmly recorded that statement as well, apparently treating the Emperor's protest as part of the diagnosis.
Without missing a beat, he looked back up. "Does Your Majesty happen to possess any other artifacts from several centuries in the future?"
And thus, the peanut gallery of imperial doctors secretly eavesdropping outside were treated to the glorious, rare sight of the Emperor storming out of the Medical Bureau, his sweeping sleeves practically cracking like whips with the sheer force of his annoyance.
Anyone with eyes could guess that the Emperor's dramatic exit was entirely Sun Simiao's doing.
A particularly nosy doctor snuck over to the east wing and peeked around the corner, only to find the Medicine King standing quietly under the eaves, his eyes swimming with profound, undisguised medical concern for the Emperor's mental state.
Although the conversation had gone entirely differently from what he imagined, Li Shimin understood that Sun Simiao genuinely cared about saving lives.
Therefore, he issued no punishment upon leaving the Medical Bureau. At the very least, he had succeeded in persuading the famed Medicine King to remain in Chang'an until mid-January.
With his main objective completed, Li Shimin decided to take a leisurely stroll through the sprawling palace grounds.
At this point in time, Chang'an was divided into three distinct sections.
The Taiji Palace, Ganlu Hall, and the imperial gardens formed the Palace City, the private center of imperial residence and governance.
South of the Palace City, separated by a massive, straight avenue, lay the Imperial City. This district housed the central nervous system of the empire: the major ministries, the ancestral temples, the ritual grounds, and the various state bureaus.
Beyond those walls stretched the Outer City. Comprising countless residential wards and bustling markets, this was where the commoners lived, breathed, and traded. It was the true, beating heart of Chang'an's prosperity.
The Imperial Medical Bureau, falling under the jurisdiction of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, was located in the eastern district of the Imperial City.
After a brief, aimless walk, Li Shimin found himself standing near the eastern exit of the Imperial City: the Jingfeng Gate.
The gate commander practically snapped his spine bowing, offering a crisp, crossed-hand salute as the Emperor approached. Li Shimin waved him off casually, leaning against the massive stone archway and tilting his head to listen.
He knew the geography well. Just beyond Jingfeng Gate lay the Yongxing and Chongren residential wards. If one walked down the grand eastern avenue dividing the two wards and took a sharp south, they would plunge directly into the infinitely chaotic, wildly prosperous East Market.
It was already the twelfth lunar month, the bitter end of winter. For the commoners of Chang'an, this year's metric for a "good year" was incredibly simple: The Illig Qaghan of the Turks has surrendered. How could this possibly be a bad year?
The Emperor smiled faintly. He knew in his heart that this unprecedented national euphoria was the first of his dynasty, but it would absolutely not be the last.
The distant, roaring cacophony of the Outer City, the shouts of merchants, the laughter of children, the clatter of carts, acted like an invisible hook, tugging relentlessly at Li Shimin's adventurous spirit.
Without hesitating for more than a breath, the Emperor ordered his imperial palanquin to turn around and hastily retreated toward his private chambers.
The gate captain let out a massive sigh of relief. But half an hour later, his jaw dropped as he watched the Emperor, now dressed in the discreet, unassuming robes of a wealthy merchant, striding right back toward the gate.
After the towering, heavily muscled general Yuchi Jingde offered the gate captain some incredibly intense, unspoken persuasion, the disguised Emperor and a dozen elite Jinwu Guards slipped out of the Jingfeng Gate, melting into the vast ocean of Chang'an like a drop of water.
Li Shimin considered himself deeply familiar with Chang'an. After all, he had conquered it in his youth, and he frequently climbed the towering observation decks of the Changle or Chengtian gates to survey his domain.
But walking the streets on foot, without the elevated barrier of a warhorse, he realized with clarity just how massive and radically transformed the capital had become. It was a completely different beast from the war-torn city of his youth.
Standing in the middle of the grand avenue, assaulted from all sides by a hurricane of haggling, sizzling street food, and vibrant colors, the supreme ruler of the empire looked remarkably lost.
"Jingde," Li Shimin murmured, glancing around. "Which way should we head?"
Yuchi Jingde rubbed his chin, thinking practically. "Since Your Majesty has developed a strong preference for eating fish over the last few months, we should go try the Butterfly Sashimi."
A clear objective was all Li Shimin needed. His eyes lit up with predatory excitement. "Lead the way!"
The imperial field trip was a chaotic success. They bought two ornate paper lanterns. They stopped to watch a rowdy, stomping Nuo dance meant to scare away evil spirits. Passing by the main thoroughfare, they even caught a brutal, high-stakes game of Qian Gou, a tug-of-war, between the brawny men of the Pingkang and Xuanyang wards.
Watching the two massive teams of sweating, grunting men desperately hauling on thick hemp ropes, trying to drag the center flag across the dirt, Li Shimin entirely forgot his royal dignity.
He stood on the sidelines, pumping his fist and screaming encouragement at the top of his lungs.
Riding the high of the festival atmosphere, the Emperor casually grabbed two terrifying, fanged ghost masks used for exorcism dances off a merchant's rack.
While Yuchi Jingde sighed and pulled out his coin purse to pay for the impulse buys, Li Shimin suddenly remembered a childhood detail.
"Jingde," Li Shimin asked, tapping the mask. "Have we missed the days for Illuminating the Emptiness and Intoxicating the Arbiter of Destiny?"
Before the general could answer, the opportunistic stall owner leaned over the counter, grinning fiercely.
"Just so you know, My Lord, Illuminating the Emptiness and Intoxicating the Arbiter are strictly New Year's Eve rituals! It's far too early for that!" the merchant practically sang. "But! If you're looking to stock up on some premium Destiny Wine to get the Kitchen God properly drunk, there's a fantastic liquor shop right down the end of this street!"
Li Shimin chuckled, graciously thanking the man for the aggressive upselling.
"Late on New Year's Eve, illuminate the emptiness. Midnight on New Year's Eve, intoxicate the arbiter..."
"To catch the good fortune of the coming year, pasting the Kitchen God's horse on the twenty-third is the very first step."
Li Shimin softly hummed the old nursery rhyme. Through the fog of time, he could faintly remember his mother teaching those exact verses to him and his two brothers right before the chaotic, joyous New Year preparations.
The "Kitchen God's Horse" was a wooden block carved with the deity's image, traditionally pasted by the stove on the twenty-third day of the twelfth month. On New Year's Eve, families would light a lamp near the stove to banish shadows and evil spirits, a ritual known as Zhao Xu Hao, Illuminating the Emptiness.
Then, they would splash rich wine over the wooden block, hoping the Kitchen God would get thoroughly drunk and only report good things to the Heavens, a ritual known as Zui Si Ming, Intoxicating the Arbiter.
Those warm, domestic memories, buried under decades of blood and iron, suddenly surged to the forefront of his mind.
His mother was long gone. His brothers were... well, history knew what happened to them.
But inspired by the sudden wave of nostalgia, a brilliant, incredibly stubborn idea began to form in the Emperor's mind. He instantly deployed his elite Jinwu Guards, turning them into highly lethal personal shoppers.
Today was only the nineteenth of the twelfth month; the markets were overflowing with festival goods. Kitchen God carvings, paper lanterns, Destiny Wine, terrifying Nuo masks, they bought it all.
The guards exchanged sideways glances. Can't the Imperial Household Department literally procure all of this in five minutes? But one look at the Emperor's glowing, nostalgic face told them to keep their mouths completely shut.
After marching into the Anyi Ward, Li Shimin finally laid eyes on the legendary culinary establishment Yuchi Jingde had mentioned.
Despite the freezing winter air, the chef stood behind the counter entirely shirtless. He wasn't overly bulky, but his physique was a masterclass in lean, perfectly proportioned muscle.
In his right hand, a terrifyingly sharp blade. Under his left hand, a massive, thrashing river fish.
The blade was as thin as a cicada's wing. The fish was still fighting for its life.
With a blur of motion, the chef brought the knife down. The rapid-fire thwack-thwack-thwack of the steel hitting the wooden cutting board sounded like a furiously plucked pipa, drawing loud cheers from the surrounding crowd.
In the span of a few breaths, the violently struggling fish had been transformed into a pristine platter of sashimi.
Li Shimin leaned in, his eyes narrowing in awe. The slices were so impossibly thin they were translucent, catching the winter sunlight. Every cut was mathematically precise, the flesh shaved down to the width of a hair.
"Last year," Yuchi Jingde whispered from the side, "this chef was hosting a banquet outdoors. A sudden rainstorm hit, followed by a massive gust of wind. The wind actually picked up the fish slices off the plates, and they fluttered through the air like a swarm of white butterflies."
"Hence the name," Jingde concluded. "Butterfly Sashimi."
After sampling the dish, the explosive, delicate flavor melting on his tongue, Li Shimin let out a long, satisfied sigh. "The Great Tang truly possesses an ocean of hidden masters."
His heart full and his agenda set, the Emperor hurried back to the imperial palace.
Knowing her husband's habit of casually ignoring protocol, Empress Zhangsun had already drafted a deeply respectful, logically flawless lecture on the dangers of an Emperor sneaking out of the heavily fortified palace.
Unfortunately, the moment Li Shimin pushed open the doors carrying armfuls of festival trinkets while looking absurdly pleased with himself, even she found it difficult to stay angry.
"Guanyinbi!" Li Shimin announced, beaming. "This New Year's Eve, I have decided we are going to celebrate exactly like the common folk! Just us and the children!"
His grand declaration earned him exactly two points of genuine praise and eight points of intense nagging.
Li Shimin aggressively repented for his unauthorized excursion and solemnly swore, "Next time, I will absolutely take you with me!"
Faced with his sheer enthusiasm, the Empress could only laugh and let him off the hook.
When the Emperor of the Great Tang set his mind to something, his execution was very efficient. Starting from the twentieth of the month, Li Shimin issued an imperial decree completely canceling all academic tutoring for the princes and princesses.
Instead of reading Confucius, the princesses were ordered to decorate the palace halls themselves. They joined Empress Zhangsun in the kitchens, getting their hands sticky learning how to boil malt sugar into "Tooth-Sticking Candy," assembling the pungent "Five Spice Plates," and participating in the traditional "Biting the Spring" radish-eating ceremony.
Meanwhile, the young princes were dragged out into the courtyards with the palace eunuchs, learning how to stomp and scream through the Nuo exorcism dances, throw cracking bamboo into the fire, and paste peach-wood charms on the doors to ward off ghosts.
The palace was suddenly deafeningly loud. The sheer, un-imperial chaos was so profound it eventually triggered the ultimate boss of buzzkills: Wei Zheng, the Head Censor, who immediately drafted a scathing memorial about royal decorum.
Li Shimin glanced at the memorial, smiled, and tossed it onto the "Pending" pile. Say whatever you want, old man. I am learning the advanced future technique of "Read at 10:00 PM, No Reply."
Faced with a complete wall of silence, Wei Zheng simply gave up. The end-of-year bureaucracy was a nightmare anyway; if the Emperor refused to engage, the Censor had more important paperwork to file.
Despite the murmurs of the traditionalists, under Li Shimin's absolute, stubborn authority, the royal children experienced the most wildly unorthodox, unforgettable New Year of their lives.
Watching Crown Prince Chengqian's face flush red with exhaustion and genuine, breathless laughter as he danced around a bonfire in a ghost mask, Li Shimin felt a profound warmth settle in his chest.
Regardless of what the horrifying future timeline dictated, at least for this one spring festival, he was going to try his absolute best to just be a good father.
But as his gaze drifted, the Emperor's smile faltered.
Standing right beside Crown Prince Chengqian was a small, knee-high figure, wearing a comically oversized demon mask and roaring adorably at the flames.
The Wu girl... Li Shimin thought, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.
Objectively speaking, his wife was right. The little girl was brilliant. She could already read and write beautifully, her intellect was terrifying for her age, and she possessed a fiercely competitive, unyielding spirit that easily rivaled the boys.
But every time the Emperor looked at the five-year-old toddler, currently barely reaching his son's waist, his brain violently reminded him: This child is supposedly going to become your concubine.
And worse, after he died, she would marry his other son, Li Zhi, and eventually pull a full Han Dynasty maneuver, ruling the empire from behind the curtain as Empress Dowager. The sheer, mind-bending awkwardness of the situation gave him a real migraine.
On one hand, possessing that level of ruthless political survival and genius proved she was a true product of his glorious Zhenguan era. If he could accept an eccentric doctor and a sulking architect as legends, having an unprecedented Empress didn't seem entirely out of character for the Tang.
But on the other hand, a dark, terrifying paranoia gnawed at his soul. The future histories barely mentioned his son Li Zhi's actual governing ability when discussing Empress Wu.
How the hell exactly did my son lose control of the throne to her? Li Shimin wondered grimly. What kind of vicious, shadowy bloodbath happened behind closed doors?
The only logical, terrifying conclusion he could draw from the future's silence was a chilling parallel to the warnings of the light screen.
Is my family cursed just like the Cao clan? Are the Li genetics fundamentally flawed?
Chengqian was destined to die early. Did Li Zhi die young too, leaving a power vacuum for her to fill?
Feeling a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the winter air, Li Shimin's eyes slowly drifted southward, in the exact direction of the Imperial Medical Bureau.
Medicine King... for the sake of my bloodline, you better live up to your historical hype.
Compared to the chaotic warmth of the inner palace, the massive New Year's Day Imperial Assembly was a rigid, highly choreographed affair.
The only event that broke the monotony was the joint presentation by the envoys of Gaochang and the Western Turks. Stepping forward in the grand hall, they officially proposed crowning the Emperor of the Tang with a brand-new, supreme international title: "The Heavenly Qaghan."
After a round of theatrical modesty, Li Shimin officially accepted the title, and the motion was overwhelmingly passed by the court.
However, as the Gaochang envoy let out a heavy sigh of political relief, he suddenly noticed the new Heavenly Qaghan staring down at him from the throne. The Emperor's expression was an incredibly complex mix of pity, amusement, and profound, predatory irony that made the envoy's blood run cold.
Following the New Year assembly, the entire bureaucracy entered a mandatory ten-day holiday. The sprawling capital of Chang'an settled into a lazy, food-coma-induced hibernation.
But right in the middle of this festive lull, Sun Simiao received an abrupt imperial decree, ordering him to report immediately to the Ganlu Hall.
Standing in the freezing courtyard outside the Emperor's private study, waiting for the heavy wooden doors to open, Sun Simiao looked to his left and his right.
The old doctor blinked, his mind struggling to process the sheer, bizarre absurdity of the group assembled before him.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him were the legendary artists and engineers, Yan Liben and Yan Lide. Next to them stood the twin pillars of the empire's bureaucracy, Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui. Flanking them were the empire's most lethal, blood-soaked generals, Hou Junji and Li Jing. And rounding out the group were the Emperor's brilliant brother-in-law, Zhangsun Wuji, and the stubbornly furious Censor, Wei Zheng.
A rural doctor. Two eccentric artists. The top political censors. The ultimate royal insider. The highest civilian chancellors. The supreme military commanders.
Sun Simiao stared blankly at the ornate doors of the Ganlu Hall.
What in the world is the Emperor planning to do with us?