Zhuge Liang had no idea that someone from another era was trying to claim a personal connection with him.
The Light Screen shifted, its images transitioning slowly. Kongming wasted no time on pleasantries. He held up three fingers.
"Three questions only," he said. "After that, you watch with us. With Zijing's intellect, piecing together the truth should be easy."
Three questions. That was all Lu Su got.
The initial panic had faded. Looking around the hall, Lu Su noticed that everyone else acted as if this divine phenomenon were completely ordinary. Zhang Fei was staring at him with undisguised concern, the way one looks at a lost toddler.
Then his mind connected the dots to the intelligence reports he had received back in Jiangdong. Liu Bei's inner circle held secret meetings once every three months.
A slow realization crept over Lu Su.
As for his earlier meltdown, the one where he had asked whether he had drowned at sea and entered the underworld, his face flushed with embarrassment just thinking about it.
He had been a diplomat for over a decade. He had negotiated with Cao Cao's envoys, debated Zhou Yu to a standstill, and talked Sun Quan out of at least three terrible decisions.
And his first reaction to a floating screen was to assume he was dead.
Great. Truly the sharpest mind of Jiangdong.
To hide his fluster, Lu Su composed himself, sat down, and popped a sugar-coated lychee into his mouth. The sweetness washed over his tongue, gradually soothing his nerves. He lowered his head, thought for a moment, and asked his first question.
"Zuo General... when did this Light Screen first appear to you?"
Kongming remembered the exact moment. His mind flashed back to a cold winter when they had just taken control of the southern Jingzhou commanderies.
"The 14th year of Jian'an. Winter."
That matched the timeline. Lu Su nodded silently to himself.
He immediately moved to the question weighing heaviest on his mind.
"The matters regarding Marquis Sun... did you learn of them through this screen?"
Out of respect for his former master, Lu Su phrased the question gently.
But the war between Liu Bei and Jiangdong was still actively raging. Everyone in the room understood exactly what he was asking.
Including Zhang Fei, who jumped in before Kongming could even open his mouth.
"Hahaha! Zijing asks an interesting question!" Zhang Fei boomed. "Which matter of Old Sun Shiwan are we talking about?"
He counted on his fingers.
"Was it the time Zhang Liao took eight hundred men and scared an army of a hundred thousand half to death? Now that deserves an award. Eight hundred. Not eight thousand. Eight hundred!"
"Or was it when he attacked Hefei five times, failed every single time, and then decided my brother was the real problem?"
"Or perhaps it was when he sent Cao Cao a lovely little memorial and accepted the title of King of Wu from Great Wei? How dignified. How loyal. I'm sure his father would've been proud."
"Or maybe..."
"ZHANG YIDEEE!" Liu Bei sprang up.
He clamped a hand over his third brother's mouth and offered Lu Su an apologetic smile. No words were needed. The apology hung in the air.
Lu Su, however, staggered back 2 steps. His composure shattered.
"Marquis Sun surrendered to Cao Cao?! Yide, are you serious?! How... how can this be?!"
"Bitch. How dare he?!"
"Damn it. How could he betray the legacy of his father, his brother, and Gongjin?!"
He was not done.
"That fucking memorial. To Cao Cao. King of Wu. In Great Wei."
Lu Su laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
"I served that family for over a decade. I bled for them. I negotiated for them. I stood in Cao Cao's camp with nothing but my tongue and my life, and I walked out alive. For what? For this?"
He turned away, fists clenched.
"Gongjin is rolling in his grave. And I do not even have a sword to offer his memory."
Lu Su had served the Sun family for over a decade. He had been close friends with Zhou Yu. They had worked seamlessly together.
Even after 5 years, the roaring fire of Red Cliffs still visited his dreams. The night he and Zhou Yu joined forces from inside and out to incinerate Cao Cao's grand fleet.
Hearing Zhang Fei lay out these cold facts, Lu Su instinctively reached for his hip. His hand closed on empty air. No sword. Of course. They had not even let him finish tying his belt this morning.
It did not stop him.
"If I had known that hosting Cao Cao's envoy at the New Year banquet in Jian'an was just a prelude to bending over and spreading his legs for Cao Cao..."
"I would have drawn my blade, burst through those doors, and cut that envoy's fucking head off to offer as a sacrifice to Gongjin's memory!"
His voice rang like iron striking stone. The intensity left Pang Tong and Kongming feeling a bit awkward. They hurriedly stepped forward to restrain the furious scholar.
"Zijing, please calm down," Kongming urged gently. "What Yide described are events from the future. As of this moment, Marquis Sun has not surrendered to Cao Cao."
Hearing Kongming's clarification, Lu Su slowly regained a shred of composure. The word "future" lingered in his mind, helping him finally grasp the miraculous nature of the Light Screen.
Seeing the commotion, Ma Chao stepped forward, brimming with confidence, ready to offer his own words of comfort.
"Zijing, don't panic! Doctor Sun Simiao is in Chang'an right now. He'll surely find a way to keep you alive for another two years. There's always hope!"
Lu Su: 🤨❓
Liu Bei: 😶💀
Liu Bei genuinely regretted not bringing his swords into the hall that day.
But Zhang Fei was faster. He raised a thick finger and flicked Ma Chao squarely on the forehead.
Thwack!
"How can you say something like that, Mengqi?"
"Besides, with Doctor Sun here, Zijing is guaranteed to live to a hundred! A long life is practically assured!"
Lu Su stared.
Liu Bei stared.
Silence descended upon the hall once more.
Lu Su wanted to thank them sarcastically. Instead, his fascination with the Light Screen deepened. It could predict the future? And he was destined to die young?
He did not even notice that his internal resistance to being called by his courtesy name had completely vanished.
Amidst the chaos, Lu Su completely forgot to ask his third question.
---
The Light Screen finished a brief visual transition, finally settling on a portrait.
A woman stood there, wearing robes of imperial yellow. On her head rested a grand crown entirely distinct from the traditional Han headgear. Her face carried an air of authority.
Small text annotated the image.
[Wu Zhao. The Wu Zhou Regime. Posthumous Title: Emperor Zetian Dasheng.]
The portrait slowly faded away into darkness. The screen showed a group of officials dressed in elaborate robes, rushing through the pitch-black night toward the center of the palace complex.
Accompanying the visuals, the familiar narrator's voice returned in a steady cadence.
[Lightscreen]
[The year was 705 AD. The first year of the Shenlong era.
Zhang Jianzhi, the 80-year-old Chancellor who had served barely a month, finally cornered the 82-year-old Wu Zetian in her bedchamber after months of secret plotting.
Led by Zhang Jianzhi, 5 ministers allied with Crown Prince Li Xian and hundreds of Imperial Guards. Under the slogan of clearing the court of corrupt advisors, they immediately executed Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, Wu Zetian's 2 favorite 20-year-old male companions. They then surrounded Jixian Hall and demanded the Emperor return power to the Li-Tang.
Cornered by overwhelming force, Wu Zetian had no second choice. What followed was a process exceptionally familiar to the people of the Tang Dynasty.
The Crown Prince assumed regency. The Emperor abdicated. Wu Zetian became the only female Retired Emperor in history.
One month after Li Xian ascended the throne, he formally issued an edict restoring the national title of Tang. Official uniforms, court colors, writing, and customs all reverted to the old Tang standards.
With that, the Wu Zhou regime officially ended. This swift coup, led by Zhang Jianzhi to clear the court and restore royal authority, became known as the Shenlong Coup.
This may have been the simplest coup in ancient history. On one side stood a unified coalition of Chancellor, Crown Prince, and Imperial Guards. On the other stood an 82-year-old woman, bedridden for months, while her two young favorites threw the court into chaos.
More importantly, throughout the months of plotting, the entire Wu clan maintained complete secrecy. This caught Wu Zetian entirely off guard. She had no choice but to accept her involuntary promotion to Retired Emperor.
For the loyalists of the Li-Tang, this coup was a blessing. It prevented the Tang from following the Qin Dynasty's path of collapsing after 3 generations. It extended the empire's lifespan.
However, looking back with modern clarity, we can see something Wu Zetian herself could never overcome. In a patriarchal society, no amount of political genius could fix her inherent structural flaw.
The Wu Zhou regime had no successor of its own.
This ultimately came down to a simple matter of kinship. Li Xian bore the surname Li, but he was also Wu Zetian's biological son. In the Li genealogy, she was the Empress of Emperor Gaozong.
If she had dared to defy all norms and name her nephew Wu Sansi as heir, then the moment that distant nephew ascended, the ancestors he honored would be his own father Wu Yuanqing and grandfather Wu Shihuo. Wu Zetian herself would be pushed entirely out of the main ancestral line.
Logic dictated this. Yet behind statesmen like Zhang Jianzhi stood another old minister who poured his heart into restoring the Li-Tang until his death. We all know his name.
Di Renjie.
Let us rewind 22 years.
683 AD. Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi croaked. Li Xian succeeded him.
Barely 2 months later, Wu Zetian personally deposed him, demoting him to Prince of Luling. She installed her other son Li Dan on the throne while she seized absolute control as Empress Dowager.
Over the next 6 years, she appointed ruthless officials like Suo Yuanli, Zhou Xing, and Lai Junchen to dominate the court. They purged rivals and crushed anti-Wu rebellions across the provinces.
Simultaneously, she aggressively promoted Buddhism, constantly spreading prophetic texts among the common people to legitimize the replacement of Tang by Wu Zhou.
By July of 690 AD, monks from Dongwei State Temple, led by Faming, compiled the Great Cloud Sutra. They declared Wu Zetian was the earthly incarnation of Maitreya Buddha, destined by heaven to rule the world.
Wu Zetian was delighted. She ordered the Great Cloud Sutra distributed nationwide. She commanded every prefecture to build a Great Cloud Temple to house, recite, and expound the text.
By September, the atmosphere was ripe. Officials, commoners, royal relatives, tribal leaders, monks, and Taoists jointly petitioned Wu Zetian to change the national title to Zhou and grant the Emperor the surname Wu. Wu Zetian refused.
Shortly after, Emperor Li Dan himself submitted a memorial, begging to be granted the surname Wu. Only then did Wu Zetian reluctantly agree.
With that, the Wu Zhou Dynasty was formally established. The Li-Tang royal clan and institutions were abolished and replaced with new systems.
After founding Wu Zhou, Wu Zetian balanced power in the court. On one hand, she allowed cruel officials to persecute Li-Tang loyalists. On the other, she lavishly promoted members of the Wu clan to high office.
The newly elevated nobles of the Wu family quickly presented their first token of loyalty to their aunt-emperor.
Di Renjie is plotting rebellion. Evidence is conclusive.]
Lu Su opened his mouth. From the start of the narration, he had forced himself to ignore Zhang Fei and Ma Chao's absurd comments.
Just watching the screen's transformations proved it was no ordinary object.
But as he listened, doubt crept in.
An Empress Dowager seizing power. Deposing an emperor at will. Granting a different surname to found a new dynasty. Finally abdicating to her own son and becoming Retired Emperor.
If the screen were not so miraculous, Lu Su would genuinely suspect it was another storyteller's fabrication, like the ones at the roadside tea stalls.
His skepticism was understandable. For once, he silently agreed with Zhang Fei's outburst.
"An 80-something female Emperor? With 20-something male companions?"
The subtext was obvious. With that age gap, one might believe they were great-grandmother and great-great-grandson.
Yet they were...
In the end, Jian Yong broke the tension with characteristic dry humor.
"It seems whether a ruler is male or female, these court matters do not change much."
Lu Su accepted that realistic assessment. Reflecting on the centuries of chaos within his own Han Dynasty, he could hardly call it unprecedented.
Still, he leaned over and asked quietly, "This Tang Dynasty... how many years separates their era from ours?"
Pang Tong smiled. During a pause in the narration, he leaned in and began quietly explaining the Tang timeline to Lu Su.
---
Inside Ganlu Hall in Chang'an.
Empress Zhangsun, attending her very first viewing, had resolved to observe quietly and ask few questions. But when a term related to her biological son appeared, she could not help herself.
"What does 'croaked' mean in this context?"
"Oh, I know this one!"
Li Shimin jumped up instantly, a proud, confident grin beaming across his face.
"In the future era, they do not say 'died.' They say 'croaked'! Like a frog!"
Empress Zhangsun froze, staring at him in disbelief.
Zhinu is your biological son too, you know.
Li Shimin's cheerful mood lasted only a moment.
As the Light Screen calmly detailed the events of 690 AD, the Emperor's face rapidly flushed red.
"Begging to abandon his own royal surname?! Completely abolishing our Tang institutions?!"