Liu Bei let out a long sigh.
"I was born at the wrong hour, meeting the furious anger of heaven."
He meant every word. Liu Hong was a math genius, and the chaos of a broken era had swallowed him whole. Dead men do not come back though. Liu Bei forced a smile and looked at his strategists.
"When we finally revive the Imperial Academy and restore the ancient capital, we must carve his name into stone," Liu Bei said. "We will erect a monument for Liu Hong right inside the academy grounds. Future generations need to know exactly who this man was and what he achieved."
The room nodded in agreement. A society that forgot its geniuses deserved to collapse.
After packing away his melancholy, Liu Bei shifted his attention back to the table. He noticed a strange object resting right next to the newly discovered calendar manuscript. He reached out and picked it up.
It looked like a miniature wooden window frame. Instead of the usual lattice pattern, a single horizontal beam ran directly through the middle.
Thin wooden rods ran vertically from top to bottom. Each rod was threaded with five small wooden beads. The beam split them into two sections. Four beads sat below. One bead sat above. The solitary beads on top were painted bright red. The whole thing was surprisingly delicate and precise.
"What in the world is this contraption?" Liu Bei asked. His curiosity peaked instantly.
He poked at it aimlessly. He pushed a red bead up. He flicked a plain bead down. He stared out the window trying to deduce its purpose. He decided he was definitely holding it wrong. Then he gave the entire frame a vigorous shake. The wooden beads slid in unison and crashed against the frame with a sharp and rhythmic clatter.
Liu Bei's eyes lit up.
"This musical instrument has a rather pleasant ring to it," he declared.
Across the room, Zhuge Liang's previously somber face twitched violently. The strategist clamped his lips shut and fought a desperate losing battle against laughter.
Standing right next to him, Jian Yong offered no such courtesy.
"Hahaha, my lord, that is not a musical instrument," Jian Yong said between laughs. "You are supposed to calculate with it, not play a tune."
Liu Bei realized his guess was wrong. The warlord did not feel particularly embarrassed. Instead, the frame got two more shakes just for fun. The wooden beads clacked crisply against the wood. Then the thing was set gently back on the table. Liu Bei looked at his chief strategist and waited patiently for the real explanation.
Jian Yong managed to stop laughing long enough to provide context.
"According to the local officials, Liu Hong practically coughed up blood working on that new calendar," Jian Yong said. "The volume of mathematics required for astronomical tracking is completely beyond the comprehension of normal men. Because of this extreme workload, he invented several devices to speed up his counting process."
Jian Yong pointed at the frame in Zhuge Liang's hands.
"This specific tool was his favorite. He carried it by his side for years and never abandoned it. The one you see is actually a replica. Our carpenters built it from detailed verbal descriptions provided by the local officials."
A fresh wave of admiration washed over Liu Bei.
"Since Liu Hong invented this miraculous device, we should name it after him," Liu Bei said. "We should call it..."
Zhuge Liang cut in before the sentence could finish. The strategist knew exactly what kind of terrible name was about to leave his lord's mouth.
"My lord, the records say Liu Hong already named it," Zhuge Liang said. "He called it the thread-bead abacus."
Liu Bei froze. He awkwardly stroked his beard and coughed softly to save face.
"The thread-bead abacus? Hehe...That is a fantastic name. Very descriptive."
Then a loud voice echoed from the doorway. Zhang Fei poked his head into the conversation.
"I completely disagree, Kongming," Zhang Fei bellowed. "I think the name my big brother was about to give it sounds way better. The Yuanzhuo Calculator has a much nicer ring to it."
Liu Bei's face turned bright red. Both arms waved wildly at his sworn brother.
"When did I ever say such a thing?" Liu Bei yelled. "Do not ruin my pristine reputation with your nonsense, Yide."
Despite the loud protests, Liu Bei absolutely refused to reveal what he had actually been planning to name the device.
That secret would go to his grave.
Standing in the corner, Ma Chao watched the chaos unfold with genuine envy.
"The bond between our lord and his sworn brothers is truly remarkable," Ma Chao murmured. "Their friendship rivals the love of blood relatives."
Zhuge Liang shot him a sideways glance and shook his head in disbelief.
No wonder the future records described such a disaster involving these two men. In the alternate timeline, Ma Chao and Zhang Fei formed a vanguard unit together. Two warriors with the strength of ten thousand men. And they somehow got completely routed by Cao Cao's forces.
Zhuge Liang could picture it perfectly. Zhang Fei charging blindly into a trap while screaming insults. Meanwhile, this naive Ma Chao standing on a hill, waving a flag, and cheering for the sheer bravery of it all. Those two were a tactical nightmare waiting to happen.
If the army ever marched east out of Tong Pass, Zhuge Liang made a vow to the heavens. Zhang Fei and Ma Chao would never lead a joint military strike. Not on his watch.
That decision got locked deep inside his mind.
Zhang Fei scurried out of the room with both hands covering his head while Liu Bei yelled playfully at him. Zhuge Liang let out a long and exhausted sigh.
He turned toward the open doorway and stared at the sky.
The future Light Screen only appeared at the very end of the month, and it ran on a strict three month cycle. The last time they watched the miraculous display, they were sitting in Chengdu at the end of January. Now they stood in Chang'an, and it was the end of April.
The temperature outside, however, was a terrifying problem. Chang'an at the end of April felt exactly like Chengdu in January. That bitter and biting chill seeped straight into the bones. Zhuge Liang pulled out a piece of parchment. It was a carefully copied graph of the continent's long term climate, and the data came directly from the future screen.
The realization hit him hard.
The weather was only going to get colder, and this brutal chill would last for more than a century before global temperatures finally began to recover.
How was an empire supposed to survive a hundred years of winter?
The consequences for agriculture were devastating enough, but the geopolitical changes would be just as chaotic. The sheer scale of the crisis made his head throb.
Thankfully, nature offered a brief reprieve. As April gave way to early May, the frozen grip on Chang'an finally began to loosen, and the weather became genuinely warm.
With the bitter cold retreating, the city erupted into activity. Chang'an transformed into a chaotic hive of construction and repair.
The ruined districts needed to be completely excavated. Old houses were falling apart and required extensive structural repairs. The shattered remains of ancient palace walls had to be dismantled and hauled away piece by piece, while even the surviving streets needed to be leveled and repaved.
Across the city, the constant clatter of iron tools striking stone echoed through the air. Hammers rang against chisels, wood cracked under pressure, and foremen shouted orders over the noise.
The noise blanketed the entire city. It drifted over the walls of a relatively secluded courtyard and assaulted the ears of a captive general.
"I refuse to play another move."
Xiahou Yuan had been staring at the Go board for a long time. A black stone was squeezed tight between his fingers. The endless hammering outside finally pushed him past his limit. He tossed the stone onto the board and swept his hand across the grid. The black and white pieces scattered in every direction, and the carefully planned game was ruined.
"How is a man supposed to calm his mind and focus on strategy with this infernal racket going on outside?" Xiahou Yuan bellowed. "I quit."
Sitting across the destroyed board, the scholar Du Xi did not look particularly upset. He felt no pity for the ruined match. If he was being honest, he had already become numb to the thrill of victory.
Calling Xiahou Yuan terrible at Go would have been an understatement. His strategy was practically nonexistent. Even if Du Xi won the match, it offered no intellectual satisfaction. It was like beating a toddler in a footrace.
Du Xi turned away from the scattered stones and looked toward the third man in the courtyard. Zhang He was standing beside a pillar and watching the game unfold.
"Do you want to take over?" Du Xi asked, offering him the seat.
Zhang He had no objections. He waited for the furious Xiahou Yuan to stomp away from the table before calmly sitting down in the vacated chair. He then gathered the scattered stones one by one, sorted them by color, and placed them gently into their respective wooden bowls.
As he worked, Zhang He casually started a conversation.
"What do you think Liu Bei is actually trying to accomplish out there?" he asked.
"What is he doing?" Du Xi repeated with a sharp and derisive sneer.
The cynical scholar let out a cold snort.
"What else could it possibly be? The Liu clan has reclaimed the Guanzhong region, so now they need to put on a grand performance for the local people. They build a few cheap houses, pave a dirt road, and dig a muddy ditch. Then the foolish peasants will fall to their knees, praise the glorious Han Dynasty, and happily send their sons off to bleed and die for Liu Bei's ambitions. What else could it be?"
Du Xi crossed his arms tightly.
"I guarantee you, Liu Bei is sitting in his command tent right now and feeling smug about his little public relations stunt."
A few feet away, Xiahou Yuan let out a loud groan as he twisted his torso to stretch his stiff muscles. Being confined to a luxurious prison meant he could no longer lead cavalry charges, and the complete lack of combat had forced him to find other ways to keep his body from wasting away out of boredom.
He popped his lower back, stretched his hips, and then joined the conversation.
"I heard a completely different rumor," Xiahou Yuan said. "Apparently, Liu Bei turned the Imperial Academy into a massive public circus. Any random peasant can walk right in, sign their name in a book, and get a front-row seat to hear Strategist Zhuge Liang teach them how to plant crops."
Du Xi scoffed again. His cynicism knew no limits.
"Bah. It is nothing more than a cheap bureaucratic trick. He wraps it in mystical nonsense about farming, but it is really just a covert way to register the population for future taxation and military drafts."
Zhang He paused while sorting the Go stones and let out a soft, tired sigh.
After being stripped of their military commands and placed under house arrest in the courtyard, the three men had plenty of time to process their new reality.
The change in their psychological states was genuinely bizarre.
Back in the Wei River Valley, their attitudes had been completely different.
Xiahou Yuan had been the fanatic, fully prepared to die a gruesome death to repay his blood debt to Cao Cao.
Now, he ate well and slept well. Whenever boredom struck, he would stand by the courtyard wall and unleash a creative stream of insults at Liu Bei and his entire collection of palace animals. He had apparently decided that every official, scholar, and soldier serving under Liu Bei was some kind of exotic beast, and he had enough material to classify the entire zoo.
This inevitably provoked the local citizens passing by outside. The peasants would stop and shout insults back over the wall, and Xiahou Yuan would happily spend an entire hour arguing with random farmers about whether Liu Bei was more closely related to a pig, a donkey, or a particularly ugly monkey.
He usually walked away from these verbal battles with a wide grin on his face.
He usually walked away from these verbal battles with a wide grin on his face.
Then there was Du Xi. Back in the valley, Du Xi was the ultimate pragmatist. He was the man who actively sabotaged the suicide mission of Xiahou Yuan and aggressively advocated for surrender.
He chose life.
Now he was miserable. His face had become a permanent thundercloud, and the slightest inconvenience sent him into a cursing fit. Whenever anyone mentioned Liu Bei, Du Xi launched into an endless tirade of insults and cynical complaints.
The irony was almost physically painful.
Zhang He slowly shook his head and looked up from the neatly sorted Go bowls.
"If winning the loyalty of the masses really requires such ridiculously simple methods, why did Prime Minister Cao never bother with them?" he asked softly.
The question landed in the courtyard like a heavy stone. Du Xi's mouth snapped shut. He stared at the ground, suddenly unable to find a single word.
Xiahou Yuan stretched his arms over his head. His tone was remarkably casual for a captured commander.
"Let us be honest. If our army had the kind of military discipline Liu Bei enforces, pulling off something like this would be child's play."
Zhang He looked genuinely intrigued. He had never actually seen Liu Bei's main army in action. Since the beginning of the northern campaign, he had fought only against Ma Chao and the wild Qiang cavalry units. Hearing Xiahou Yuan openly praise the enemy's strict formations and discipline sparked a deep professional curiosity.
Du Xi twisted his face into an ugly scowl, as if he had just swallowed a bitter herb.
Seeing that expression, Zhang He decided to change the subject. He began wiping the dust from the Go board and chatted idly with Xiahou Yuan, who was currently wiggling his hips to loosen a stiff joint.
"I heard a rumor that Liu Bei led a huge column of civilian laborers out through the city gates a few days ago," Zhang He said. "Apparently, he plans to draw up blueprints for an entirely new district."
"He probably thinks the ruined imperial palace is an eyesore," Xiahou Yuan replied with a shrug. "Even if he repairs it, he cannot legally live there without looking like a usurper. Honestly, he might as well move in and claim the throne. Who cares at this point?"
"The local gossip says he is moving because the old city has accumulated too much feces in its streets."
Xiahou Yuan stopped stretching. For a moment, he considered the logistical nightmare of ancient city plumbing.
"Well, they are certainly not wrong about the smell."
"They also say he plans to dig an entirely new network of water canals," Zhang He added.
Du Xi spotted an opening and immediately forced his way back into the conversation.
"Ha! I knew it. Another vanity project designed to exhaust the people and drain the treasury. Classic tyrant behavior."
Zhang He did not even bother to raise his eyelids. He continued wiping the wooden board with slow, methodical strokes and answered in a flat, utterly emotionless voice.
"He is paying the canal diggers with actual grain rations. The workers are being fed."
Du Xi choked on his next insult. The cynical scholar stood there with his mouth hanging open, completely speechless.