Hu Sanniang said, "I've always had a bad temper, and it's not like it's only been a year or two."
Bian Que said, "I'm talking about temperament and energy, not temper."
Hu Sanniang: "..."
Beside Mulan was Fatty Ying. I raised my voice and said, "And this is none other than Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor in Chinese history, Brother Ying!"
Another gasp rippled through the room. Xiuxiu covered her mouth in surprise and exclaimed, "Qin Shi Huang was fat?" Hua Rong pulled her aside, "Keep your voice down, or someone will hear you."
But everyone had already heard it. Ying Ge stood up, looked at the young couple, pointed at Hua Rong, and said to Xiu Xiu with a smile, "Wait until he's my age and then you'll see. He was quite a handsome young man back then." Everyone burst into laughter, and Xiu Xiu shyly hid her face in Hua Rong's arms.
Yan Zhenqing sat right next to Qin Shi Huang. He hadn't expected this fat man to be the First Emperor of Qin, who had just been excitedly shaking hands with Jing Ke. So, Yan smiled awkwardly at Qin Shi Huang. The fat man didn't take it to heart at all, and grabbed Yan's hand and pulled it.
Then I continued the introduction, and after Yan Zhenqing, the next topic was Wu Sangui. This put me in a bit of a dilemma. The old man was infamous, and the audience was full of people knowledgeable in history. Li Tianrun and Pang Wanchun were both intellectuals, and even Wang Yin and Bao Jin, though from working-class backgrounds, had probably heard of the notorious traitor Wu Sangui. I'd spent a few days with Old Wu and found him to be a decent person, just sometimes a bit extreme and with a somewhat contradictory personality. If you confronted him about his past actions, he would absolutely not back down, but if you left him hanging to reflect, he'd likely regret it. So I didn't want to embarrass him too much.
I dodged the question and said, "This... is our third brother, hehe, he led over a hundred thousand brothers to fight to the death with a guy surnamed Li for quite some time for the sake of his beloved woman."
Sure enough, amidst the commotion, the Four Heavenly Kings huddled together in confusion, asking, "Could this be referring to Wu Sangui?"
Wu Sangui stood up abruptly and declared loudly, "I am Wu Sangui. For Chen Yuanyuan, I betrayed Li and then surrendered to the Qing. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of me, and the Manchus entered the pass because of me."
Wang Yin rolled his eyes at him and said, "We didn't say anything to you, why are you shouting so loudly?"
I quickly said, "Don't get excited, everyone. Let's not talk about the past anymore. If any of you were missing from history, things wouldn't be the way they are today, and we might not even be who we are today—I'm talking about those born after the 20th century."
Fang Zhenjiang nodded and said, "That's right, Tong Yuan is a Manchu."
Hu Sanniang listened with longing and grabbed the back of the chair in front of her, shouting to Wu Sangui, "Brother Wu, you're so cool! I support you!" Wu Sangui laughed at her.
I'm speechless. Old Wu seems to have always been popular with women because of Chen Yuanyuan. From Mulan to Hu Sanniang, even Xiuxiu, who received years of rigid moral education, looked at Wu Sangui with kindness. Women are truly emotional creatures; as long as you treat them well, they don't care who you betrayed or what bad things you did.
The subsequent introductions went much more smoothly. The remaining speakers were all renowned scholars or heroes, and most importantly, there were no other sensitive figures. Even so, the venue was still frequently interrupted by gasps of amazement and applause. Senior figures were generally fawned over by their younger counterparts, while they themselves naturally received flattery from even younger generations. Xiuxiu and I were the most pitiful; those present were either thousands or hundreds of years old, and even those born in the 1970s had their own separate identities. We could only look on in awe.
The last person to introduce himself was Su Wu. The old man consciously sat in the corner of the last row, wearing a thick cotton-padded coat and holding his cane. Lord Su was not fond of communicating with people, and he hadn't talked to anyone since he arrived. Moreover, Lord Su was really too aloof; if Su Mala Gu didn't come, no one could stay with him for more than 5 minutes, although people all expressed their admiration for his integrity.
The conference had been going on and on for nearly three hours, and everyone was still reluctant to leave. It's truly remarkable that these people got together; even if they had other friends in society, they wouldn't be able to speak so freely. I said, "How about we send a representative up to say a few more words?"
People looked at each other, a little embarrassed, and finally started shoving each other with smiles. Fang La said, "What are you letting them say?" Although he had regained his memories of his past life, he still considered himself a modern person.
I said, "You can say anything, but it would be best if you talked about how to get along with people nowadays. You can't stay in school all year, can you? Even if you do stay in school, you still have to interact with others. By the way, speaking of which, I have to remind those of you who just came back from Singapore that you need to step up your teaching duties for the children starting tomorrow. After all, this is a school." And to the old gentlemen who write and paint, don't just focus on your own work; teach our children. The skills passed down from you are almost completely lost. If this continues, no one will appreciate your work in the future.
The old men broke out in a cold sweat and nodded repeatedly.
I glanced down and immediately spotted Li Jingshui. The kid was dressed like a big bad wolf, sitting at attention. I pointed at him and said, "Li Jingshui, come up here and say a few words."
Li Jingshui was taken aback: "Why me?"
I said, "You're dressed more like someone from the 21st century than I am. Who else would I choose if not you?"
Li Jingshui didn't refuse and strode onto the podium. As he passed by me, I whispered to him, "Share some thoughts and experiences; make sure the newcomers feel motivated."
Standing on the podium, Li Jingshui looked down at the students below, her gaze intense, and slowly said, "When I first arrived, I felt just like you, lost, disoriented, and helpless. Everything around me was bizarre and surreal. I felt like I had been abandoned by everyone. It wasn't that I didn't understand; it's just that the world changes so fast..."
I sensed he wasn't going to finish anytime soon, so I sat down in the audience and took a few sips of water. I'd never been on a stage for so long and spoken so much before; it seemed I'd done the job I'd originally wanted Li Shishi to do. Sipping my tea, I glanced back at my packed audience of clients, and a sense of satisfaction welled up inside me. It wasn't so bad to be on friendly terms with emperors and bandits; the real challenge was getting Qin Shi Huang and Jing Ke to sit together, or the Liangshan heroes and Fang La's Four Heavenly Kings to have a meeting on the same stage. Even more challenging was: I was sitting in the front row…
These people now knew each other, and regardless of whether they had heard of each other before or were in the same line of work, they started chatting. Yan Zhenqing took the opportunity to ask Ersha about the situation back then for a long time, while Wu Daozi listened and drew in a small notebook, probably trying to recreate the scene for his painting.
However, most people were still captivated by Li Jingshui's speech. He, too, had traveled from another time, and many of his experiences and thoughts resonated with those present; often, a single sentence could elicit a knowing smile from the audience. Finally, Li Jingshui passionately declared, "...Therefore, we must never give up, we must never lose heart. Since it was our own choice, we must strive to catch up and achieve even greater success. I believe—the world will be changed again because of us! Thank you!"
Thunderous applause erupted from below, and many people excitedly stood up. Even Xiang Yu said to me, "This young man spoke very well."
I grunted in agreement and clapped my hands as I said, "This kid probably did some pyramid scheme work a while back."
Chapter Twenty-Five: Overlord Spear
After Li Jingshui left, I went back up to the podium and said somewhat shyly, "Our meeting is coming to an end today. I have a personal matter I would like to ask the people here for their help with." I took out the fax that Yan Jingsheng had given me. "I'm getting married in a few days, and I've been thinking about it. I'll have to ask the three teachers, Wang Yanliu, to take care of these invitations. Since you all teach at the school, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to use those machines to print them."
When everyone heard I was getting married, it caused another huge stir. The old men I'd specifically mentioned, upon hearing this, were indeed all beaming and stroking their beards. Having these luminaries write the invitations was something I'd already planned. Firstly, I'm now part of Yucai School, so the invitations need to be sophisticated, highlighting its cultural depth and heritage.
Speaking of writing invitations, there's a sad story behind it. A friend of mine got married two years ago. He has many friends, and before the wedding, he asked me to help him fill out the invitations—just the date, the names of the invitees, and the restaurant. I excitedly wrote over 20 invitations. My friend's father held them, examined them for a long time, then walked away without a word. Later, I overheard the old man say to my friend, "Let's just call these 20-odd people..." Then he casually burned all 20-odd invitations, muttering, "If people think I wrote these, where will I put my face?" From then on, I developed a mental block; except for going to the bank, I refuse to write by hand anywhere else. My handwriting is definitely rarer than those calligraphers whose works are worth a fortune. And given the numerous strokes in the characters "Xiao Qiang," I especially envy my classmate from middle school named "Ding Yi"...
Of course, I don't need to worry about the masters' identities being exposed when I ask them to write invitations; that's my bottom line. Actually, I've been conflicted. On one hand, I'm afraid their works will leak out and cause me trouble, but on the other hand, I don't want them to miss out on this era. So many calligraphy enthusiasts, even masters, can only copy those lifeless, photocopied works. How much could Wang Xizhi and his contemporaries contribute to traditional culture if they produced more works? So I came up with a compromise: let them write a lot of unrelated content in their own style, like "Study hard and make progress every day"—that's one example.
The old men were happy to help, but considering they weren't familiar with simplified characters, I had Xiao Rang assist them. The heroes were all clamoring to drink freely that day; it seems I won't have to worry about anyone forcing me to drink.
After the meeting, the three renowned physicians consulted on Mulan's case. After half an hour of debate and discussion, they finally...broke up. The reason was that they all insisted they were right and had significant disagreements about certain herbs. In the end, Hua Tuo withdrew temporarily and decided to use acupuncture to help Mulan, while Bian Que and An Daoquan agreed to each write a prescription, with the patient making the final assessment. Chronologically, Bian Que predated the latter two, and Hua Tuo and An Daoquan respected him greatly, but when it came to actual medical treatment, these three old men genuinely had a "I love my predecessors, but I love the truth more" mentality.
Overall, this conference deepened mutual understanding and strengthened relationships. It also broadened the historical knowledge of some earlier-born individuals, enabling them to truly "know five hundred years into the past and five hundred years into the future." Given the success of this conference, we decided to hold weekly internal client meetings, and a small welcome party for new employees; this has gradually become a routine.
Just after I finished calling Liu Bang and relayed his greetings to Su Wu, the blacksmith's son burst in, saw me immediately, and said, "Teacher Xiao, my dad said the gun you wanted is ready."
Without a word, Xiang Yu strode out. The heroes all asked me, "What do you need a spear for?"
"Brother Yu is going to duel with Erpang." I said as I followed Xiang Yu toward the blacksmith shop.
"Who is Erpang?" Zhang Shun asked, puzzled.
"Lu Bu!"
The heroes immediately erupted in commotion, chasing after us and shouting, "What grudge do they have?" Even Yan Zhenqing and Wu Daozi came running out. The battle between Xiang Yu and Lü Bu—anyone who knew these two names, whether scholar or warrior, certainly wouldn't want to miss it.
We arrived at the blacksmith's shop, where a spear taller than a man was displayed prominently. Xiang Yu ran up, grabbed it, and examined it closely. The blacksmith, clearly very confident in his craftsmanship, sat there smiling and said, "How is it? Satisfied?"
Xiang Yu held the spear horizontally in front of his chest, lowered his head and stroked the shaft. He seemed satisfied with its weight, but remained silent on the rest.
This large spear has a spearhead that is more than half a meter longer than a normal spearhead, covered with hemp-like patterns. The shaft is slightly thinner than a cup, and the neck and butt are hilts made of gold. Just looking at it is awe-inspiring, let alone using it.
Tang Long stepped forward from the crowd, stretched out his hand to Xiang Yu, and said, "Let me see." He took the spear in his hand and exclaimed, "What a weight!" Then he looked at the spearhead and said in surprise, "This is actually genuine Damascus steel. We didn't have this steel back then. This is a piece of jerky that can cut iron like mud." He then looked at the shaft and added, "Hmm, although the muzzle is gilded, it still cost a lot." Hearing him say this, I understood that the blacksmith had put all 2,000 coins into the cost price.