Chapter 1: Historical Changes Caused by Meteorites

……

“Young Master, Young Master~” Chen Xi heard someone chirping in his ear, his consciousness hazy.

His head felt incredibly heavy. Chen Xi struggled to open his eyes. [I shouldn’t have drunk so much alcohol if I’d known...]

Three days had passed, and Chen Xi had finally grasped his current situation. It was the broad era of the Three Kingdoms, just after the Yellow Turban Rebellion had been quelled. It was an era where heroes emerged in droves—the very same era Chen Xi used to fantasize about whenever he was bored. After all, whether it was the white-horse-silver-spear Zhao Zilong or the embodiment of wisdom Zhuge Kongming, the number of fans and haters in later generations was infinite. There was no helping it; there were just too many Chinese people, that’s all one could say.

His current identity was that of a member of a branch of a branch of the Yingchuan Chen clan. He had a tenuous connection, but it was the sort where even if he ran away from home, no one would notice. At home, there was only a maid who took care of him and an old steward; he was the typical case of "one man fed, the whole family satisfied."

Watching the steward wield a sword so skillfully that not even a drop of water could penetrate his defense, Chen Xi truly didn't know what expression to wear. Could it be that people in this era were all this formidable? Was history actually correct, and the physical quality of ancient people was ten streets ahead of modern people? Was that even possible? Regardless, Chen Xi didn't believe it.

"Young Master Chen, are you feeling any better these days?" An old man dressed as a physician poked his head in and asked with a smile.

"I am much better already." Chen Xi hurriedly bowed. To be honest, as far as he knew, even a simple headache or fever could be fatal in this era. For this old gentleman to have pulled him back from such a severe illness was truly no small feat.

"Your complexion has improved quite a bit. Young Master Chen should still practice your internal energy more," the old man said with a smile. "Since that is the case, I will not linger any longer."

"Old Uncle Chen," Chen Xi called out as he turned back.

The steward quickly led a horse over, moving with incredible speed.

"Old gentleman, seeing how urgently you wish to leave, you must have pressing matters. Please accept this horse as a means of transport; I hope you do not find it beneath you." Chen Xi firmly shoved the reins into the man's hands. Come to think of it, he hadn't known the man's name for all this time, and the man had never mentioned it either.

The old man looked at Chen Xi, pondered for a moment, and then nodded, accepting the gift. He did indeed have urgent business, and having a horse would save him a lot of trouble.

[Phew, it was a life-saving grace, after all. Better to repay it while I can. "A physician's heart is like a parent's" is the physician's business; whether I repay it or not is my business. The chaotic times are coming soon; if something were to happen to the old man, I wouldn't be able to repay him even if I wanted to later.]

After the old man left, Chen Xi closed the door and prepared to return to the inner room to read. For him, nothing was more important than learning the script of this period. Although he had the memories of the former Chen Xi, they were clearly not entirely complete.

"Young Master, that horse was a gift brought back from Bingzhou by the Master for you when he was still alive. Is it really appropriate to give it away to someone else?" the steward asked after Chen Xi had closed the door.

"It’s nothing; I have no use for that horse anyway. By the way, bring all the books from the study to my room. I need to review them," Chen Xi said, shaking his head. He knew the horse was valuable, but compared to a life-saving grace, he felt it was worth it—at least it put his mind at ease.

Chen Xi’s family was not poor; on the contrary, they had been a wealthy household. However, after his father, Chen Luo, passed away, Chen Xi fell into a chronic illness. The cost of medicine and treatment drained the family fortune, and coupled with exclusion from within the clan, what was once a wealthy family had fallen into decline.

But for the steward, as long as Chen Xi recovered, there was still hope for the Chen family to rise again. Back when Chen Xi was bedridden, the vast majority of the servants and entertainers had left. Now, the only ones left in the vast Chen estate were the steward and Chen Lan, who served as both an entertainer and a maid.

Chen Xi was very open-minded about such things. If they wanted to leave, let them leave; it was a good thing that the two most loyal ones remained.

Ever since his health improved, Chen Xi hadn't stepped out of the Chen estate's gates for three full months. In that time, he had mastered everything the former Chen Xi had learned—things like the script, the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting. Of course, the most important among these were spiritual energy and formations.

After reviewing these things, Chen Xi realized that this late Eastern Han Dynasty was completely different from the one in his memories. Perhaps the history was the same, but the world was entirely different.

Flipping through the history of the Chu-Han era, Chen Xi silently noted a passage: At the Siege of Gaixia, Xiang Yu fought his way out alone. With his own strength, he routed thirty thousand of Liu Bang's elite troops before dying of exhaustion. Xiang Yu, who could have escaped, chose to die in battle rather than disappoint the men of Jiangdong. The undefeated Overlord—even in death, no one dared to approach him.

Chen Xi carefully examined all the historical records and finally confirmed one thing: history had changed four hundred years ago during the Chu-Han Contention.

The initial change came from a meteorite—the "Divine Stone" recorded in historical texts. A divine stone that fell onto the Central Plains, a stone that changed the physique of the people of the Central Plains.

In the seven hundred years of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, those who could cultivate "Qi" to strengthen themselves were few and far between. Those who could refine spiritual energy to resonate with heaven and earth were even rarer. But that stone caused a mutation across the entire Central Plains, and everyone's physique underwent a heaven-shaking transformation.

Qi could be cultivated by almost anyone, and the difficulty of refining spiritual energy was greatly reduced. This led to the martial generals of the Chu-Han period becoming increasingly powerful, and Xiang Yu was precisely the pinnacle among them.

"His strength could pull up mountains, his spirit covered the world"—if that sounded like an exaggeration in the original history, in this world, it was well-deserved. At his peak, Xiang Yu could use his own strength to pull a small mountain out of the ground and throw it. He could strike the air until it turned liquid; the solidified air could strike a crater into the ground like a small missile. In short, he was no longer human.

In the four hundred years of the Han Dynasty that followed, various schools of martial cultivation emerged. The martial generals who had relied on talent during the Chu-Han period gradually organized a systematic path of cultivation. Slaying a thousand with one man was no longer a myth, but a tangible reality.

Similarly, various schools of spiritual energy refinement appeared. So-called secret arts and Taoist magic emerged, and with their development, methods to restrain those top-tier martial generals also appeared. The emergence of formations caused the killing power of those top-tier generals to decline significantly—though, of course, if they were just scattered soldiers, they would still face certain death.

After four hundred years of development, Qi and spiritual energy could be said to have become widespread. Although most people didn't master anything particularly impressive, they were at least qualified to come into contact with these things. In other words, in this world's late Han, there were farmers who could toss a hundred-jin boulder over a dozen meters...

As for how strong the martial generals were, if the records clearly stated that Xiang Yu could pull up a mountain and throw it, then by proportional estimation, Chen Xi felt that Lu Bu’s full-force strike could probably shatter a mountain into gravel...

This was no longer the Three Kingdoms of history; this was likely the mythological version of the Three Kingdoms, Chen Xi thought silently.

(End of chapter)