He slit open the imperial edict, iron‑sealed with the royal wax, and flattened it.
Scanning the flowery bureaucratic prose felt like flicking through a supermarket sale flyer; he folded it back into his sleeve with the same casual flick.
Back in his seat, he lifted the now‑cold tea and took another sip.
Mental note:Project Kick‑off. Nothing surprising.
Having lived in this "hardware" for twenty years, Tang Xuan—now calling himself Tang Sanzang—had already pinpointed his place in history. In the Zhenguan era, Master Xuanzang travels west for the scriptures; that storyline is not only memorized in his modern mind, he's even lectured graduate students on "Tang‑Era Classical Cultural Exchange and Geopolitics."
"Li the Great (Li Shimin) summoned me, probably for that very thing."
He knows Li's hidden agenda, but Li has no clue that Tang has already seen through it.
He swallowed his tea, and a ROI spreadsheet instantly flashed in his mind.
Costs: a kilometer‑long journey, zero infrastructure, wildly unpredictable environmental variables. Monsters? No mention in the original histories or the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, yet he has personally verified the existence of high‑dimensional energy systems and abnormal frequency resonances. The risk can't be evaluated with mythological anecdotes—it must be modeled economically. Conservative time‑to‑start: ten years.
Benefits:
Aligning with the historical main line is the optimal solution; fighting the tide would incur enormous hidden costs.The resource and information density along the westward route dwarfs the physical limits of this ramshackle temple.
His gaze drifted to the locked wooden box at the bottom of the shelf—reminding him of the high‑privilege signal he sensed years ago, the oddly‑structured equation paper in the study, and that faint, lingering cry‑frequency deep inside his new body.
Those system bugs aren't rooted in the monastery.
He set his tea cup down, tapped the table twice with his finger‑bones.
Conclusion – Take the contract.
But a merciless businessman's glint crossed his eyes. If Lord Li wants to use this top‑tier labor to pioneer a frontier, you can't just promise sunshine without offering options. An orphan‑raised lone wolf never loses on the negotiation table—that principle is hard‑wired into his DNA.
He rose, walked to the corridor, and gave his first order of the day to the sweeping monk Zhì Míng:
"Find a stable supply chain for the purest sulfur and potassium nitrate nearby."
Zhì Míng stopped mid‑sweep, broom hovering: "Master, those two are…?"
"Alchemical elixirs." Tang didn't raise an eyebrow; his hands were already clasped, his tone benevolent, "Amitābha."
Zhì Míng bowed, muttered a mantra, and left.
Alchemy was merely a cover story; in the Zhenguan market, "alchemy" held a 99 % market share. The fertile soil of feudal superstition perfectly concealed his covert ambition to hand‑craft chemical explosives.
Two Days Before Departure
A finely crafted soft‑sleigh pulled up to the gate. Seven or eight attendants ushered a lavishly dressed noblewoman into the guest hall. She wept, pleading about a "persistent palpitations" condition, hinting at a politically powerful family background.
Tang Sanzang listened for two sentences, then interrupted:
"Excessive fatty diet, nightly alcohol, chronic lack of aerobic exercise."
He stared into her eyes. "Your heart isn't sick; it's just sending you a credit‑card bill."
The aristocrat froze, her jeweled hair swaying. "Master, what devilish entity is this credit‑card?"
"Remember three actions," he raised three fingers, his tone like a physician issuing a final decree, "Less fatty meat, no alcohol, walk a thousand steps daily. In three months the palpitations will vanish on their own."
She tried to ask for a donation: "May I leave some gold for the Buddha—"
"No need." He lifted his tea cup, the consultation is free. "Spend the silver on coarse grains; the ROI is higher. Amitābha."
She left bewildered, whispering to her retinue: "What kind of 'investment' did the master mention?"
A classic early‑stage atherosclerosis warning—he delivered the lowest‑level physics solution that the imperial physicians had been too afraid to voice for three years.
(He would have added "no smoking," but tobacco hadn't even entered this era yet.)
Same Afternoon – The Young Warrior‑Monk
Another visitor arrived: a traveling martial monk who'd heard Master Xuanzang "was adept at martial arts" and wanted to "test the Dharma."
He stopped dead at the sight of Tang seated on the cushion. The monk's robe was stretched tight, the trapezius ridge pronounced, forearms bulging with visible veins—far beyond what a typical monk's physique should be. The young warrior's confrontational grin wilted by three degrees when he met Tang's unflinching stare.
Tang made no move, simply gestured for the monk to speak.
The monk ramblingly argued: "Buddhist disciples cherish compassion; how can we practice combat? Martial arts are killing tools—doesn't that break the KPI?"
Tang sipped his tea, no eye‑contact granted, and replied coolly:
"How far did you travel to get here today?"
"Two… two hours."
"Walking requires legs; leg movement requires muscle contraction, which produces force. Force is the physics foundation of 'martial.'"
He set his cup down.
"You've come here using the underlying logic of martial arts, yet you question why I master that same logic. Your system has a serious bug. Fix your code before returning. Amitābha."
The monk stood mute, unable to utter a word, and left.
Night – Packing
After securing the sutra box, he walked to the deepest part of the shelf and retrieved a wooden chest sealed with three brass locks.
Unlocking revealed not Buddhist scriptures but a stack of diagrams encrypted in the most obscure Sanskrit‑like symbols:
Mechanical firing mechanism for a single‑shot black‑powder gunBurn rate formula for fusesEarly flash‑powder chemical ratiosA rudimentary directional blast model
To an outsider, it looks like indecipherable commentary; to him, it is the physics‑level "dimensional‑reduction" dossier he'd painstakingly compiled over fifteen years.
Flipping to the last page he found a blank sheet—intentionally left empty years ago with the note "address later if physics can't solve it."
He stared at the void for five seconds. Click. The chest relocked itself, slid back into the bottom of the box, and was covered by three hefty copies of the Diamond Sutra.
Plan B is now sealed. When the moment comes, those "technical documents" will be ten thousand times more persuasive than any scripture. For now, they remain silent, ready.
Morning – The Abbot's Send‑Off
The senior abbot lingered in the courtyard, sounding like a worried relative sending "the village fool off to the capital's exams." He ramblingly gave a fifteen‑minute lecture about taking care on the road, being patient, the dangers of Chang'an's waterways, and the virtue of taking a step back.
Tang Sanzang joined his hands in prayer, playing the perfect holy monk:
"Thank you for your guidance, venerable."
The abbot, convinced Tang had not heard, slapped his thigh in frustration: "Master, you're blunt; avoid confronting the powerful! When trouble arises, first step back…"
"Rest assured, Abbot," Tang interrupted, voice calm, eyes clear, "I have a modest grasp of worldly conduct."
The abbot stared for three seconds, felt a sudden chill down his spine, sighed, shook his head, and left.
Worldly conduct? Tang sneered internally. He's a 50‑year‑old with three interdisciplinary PhDs, having completed over two thousand intense interpersonal negotiations in the modern world. "Don't tell me a max‑level boss should never pick a fight in a starter village."
Amitābha, as long as they don't provoke him, everyone will be fine.
Zhì Míng stood by, tightening the straps on the luggage.
He barely remembered what the middle‑aged monk muttered last night: "The water quality on the road is unstable; use this one‑gram of tea leaves to compensate."
Tang slipped the porcelain jar into his inner pouch, offering no thanks. In a perfectly streamlined workflow, what the execution layer needs most is not gratitude but stable, predictable rules.
The Night Before Departure – The Final Puzzle Piece
From the side of the bookcase he pulled out an unidentified sheet. Under the dim oil‑lamp he examined it again. The page bore Sanskrit characters and a structure he could not classify with contemporary science. Strangely, each time a particular symbol appeared, his 260‑IQ fired a wave of absurd familiarity—as if he had written it himself.
He grasped a charcoal pencil and attempted a reverse derivation on scrap paper:
Some variant of an energy‑conservation law… no, it mingled with a high‑dimensional frequency‑resonance equation…The interface where his pen tip stalled looked like a system‑initialisation input node.
He hit a dead end—the equation lacked its core initial condition. He jotted a diagnostic on the margin:
"Without an initial condition, the equation behaves like a singularity; after the 'explosion' everything is random. It could also be nothing more than waste paper."
The provenance of the sheet was highly suspicious; the handwriting wasn't his. After fifteen years his study's security rating was off‑the‑charts—no physical intruder could have entered.
He folded the sheet, tucked it close, and recorded the night's final entry in his pocket notebook:
"Equation structure abnormal; core variable missing. Source extremely dangerous; watch for high‑dimensional interference."
He blew out the lamp and sunk into darkness.
The Dream
The dream was crisp, not a collage of fragments: an old temple, wooden floor, a lamp flickering out. He was five years old, sitting on the floor, looking up.
In the doorway stood a shadowed figure, backlit, face concealed. Yet the eyes shone blindingly.
Those eyes held no ignorance, no fear, no emotion—only a deep, almost cruel tranquility, like a millions‑year‑old entity bored by endless cycles of life and death, calmly watching a pre‑determined, repetitive task.
He tried to interrogate the figure with sociological methods, but his body wouldn't obey; the floor glued his legs like strong adhesive. The figure stared silently, then the lamp went out and the dream shattered.
He awoke as the morning bell of Chang'an tolled. Grey‑blue light filtered through the paper windows. The wooden chest containing the lethal device lay at the bottom of the box; his notebook rested on the pillow; a half‑cold cup of tea lingered on the table.
Lying still, his mind processed the night's data for ten seconds, then he threw back the covers, sat up, and opened the notebook to a fresh page. With steady hand he wrote:
"The gazing eyes in the dream were not me. This body has hosted others, and that other may already know where I'm headed."
He traced the ink, closed the book, and rose.
Donning the finest Tang‑era monk's robe, he slung the box—filled with thermal weapons and unknown equations—over his shoulder, opened the door, and felt the Zhenguan cold wind kiss his face.
He squinted westward.
Let's go. It's time to uncover the hidden hand behind this massive, real‑world simulation.