Chapter 116

Just as Bai Lang was looking at the webpage, a person that Bai Lang felt looked like a despicable face with a lecherous grin walked over, 'Hey, Bai Junior Protector, why don't you go drink and have fun? All day staring at this computer, what are you doing?' Bai Lang, however he heard it, felt the pronunciation was off, 'I feel like you're calling me Bai Flirt.'

That guy, after looking at Bai Lang's face, feeling bored, put down a bottle of beer, casually said a few words and slipped away — compared to staying here to look at this guy who could be considered a burly big man, it's better to go outside to find beautiful women; could it be that he also has to...? Stand obediently! ♂

Bai Lang didn't know what that despicable person was thinking; frankly, he didn't even know the guy's name, so the less communication, the better. He continued searching on the computer, roughly figuring out the situation. 'Turns out the official history says I'm the White Tiger Star Lord descending to earth, then dying in thunder? I bet the historian who wrote this had a face like they'd eaten shit; anyone who truly believes this must be nonexistent.'

That's how the official history writes it, but many of the textual connections below basically overturn the description in the official history; what can be confirmed is that Jinzhou was burned by fire, so it should be said that this Ming Dynasty Bai Junior Protector perished in the fire together with his rival. This is the modern view.

As for the description of his heroic feats in killing enemies, there is now a saying: 'The king is no match for Xiang, the general no match for Li' changed to 'The general no match for Bai.' Bai Lang smirked; his battle record in the histories is exaggerated to the extreme—single-handedly breaking formations, leading a thousand to rout a great army, in one battle beheading hundreds or even thousands......

This is likewise considered part of bragging in various later analyses and declassifications...... Although it's impossible to directly expose the essence of this Bai Junior Protector's 'bragging,' because so many contemporaries left notes and wild histories that also praised Bai Lang and White Jade Pillar's valor, and he indeed rose from commoner to army, relying on his beheading merits to become Junior Protector of the Crown Prince in a short time——although this was also due to the Chongzhen Emperor's famous impatience......

No ordinary person could do that so quickly, yet the declassified texts only say that Bai Lang must have led a cavalry charge, likely a quite capable cavalry commander—but it's hard to explain how he perished in Jinzhou together with half a city's Tartar troops. One could only say perhaps he was secretly planning to surrender? Saying that, nobody would believe it.

Even if one were trying to curry favor by stirring up the masses, one couldn't say such a thing, because it's utterly illogical.

'So after my return, is it the peak of a several-year Little Ice Age? Summer snow in Liaodong, within a few years Liaodong's fields yield no grain, breath turns to ice...... even reaching Hainan Island there are frozen conditions?' Just thinking about it made Bai Lang feel this was terrifying; if Hainan Island had ice, Liaodong might be as cold as minus sixty or seventy degrees.

At such temperatures, you couldn't even think of fighting—your armor couldn't be worn at all, and even if you were warm enough, you couldn't wield a sword or draw a bow in that state—let alone marching in the wild? Humans might endure, but livestock would freeze to death. Then Bai Lang saw in the historical records that the Liaodong rebellion simply died out during the Little Ice Age.

The collapse of economic activity caused massive deaths among Liaodong's population, not just people but livestock as well; the only things likely to survive in such an environment would be wild beasts, yet even many wild beasts died in the Little Ice Age. In any case, the Qing dynasty silently vanished like that, and the Ming army couldn't go beyond the passes to fight—they'd freeze to death just the same.

And Liaodong just calmed down like that; after five years it finally warmed up a bit, the Liaodong Ming army tried to go out and scout, only to find that Liaodong had become a thousand-mile empty expanse, with a handful of people huddled in the cities. Not only Liaodong, but the population of the entire Mongolian plateau was likewise wiped out by ninety percent......

The Ming Dynasty itself wasn't doing well either; the cold wave brought drought, even though Li Zicheng and his followers were crushed and destroyed, there were still enough peasants unable to survive who rose in revolt—this time it happened across Jiangnan as well. In this situation, the Chongzhen Emperor actually bestowed many posthumous honors on Bai Lang......

「Then did the Ming Dynasty just perish? Turn into warlord fiefdoms fighting, the Northern and Southern Dynasties reappearing? 」 Bai Lang, looking at the completely altered history, also had nothing to say; anyway, when they later barely managed to reunite, foreigners also came, and the later history is not much different from the late Qing—just without losing so much national sovereignty or ceding so much territory.

「There's even a temple to me in Liaodong? 」 Bai Lang hurried to look up the situation of World War II, and found it was still the same few guys, only this time the outcome of WWI was different, and WWII naturally underwent corresponding changes. It's still a republic, just established earlier, of course with greater national strength.

After more than an hour, Bai Lang finally finished organizing these historical facts; of course, looking at his own biography, he was both amused and exasperated. 'In the official histories he's a war god; in the wild histories he's equivalent to hating heaven without a grip, hating earth without a ring; then in the current truth-telling texts he becomes a somewhat tough bragging king...... an example of the ancients' love of bragging.'

Bai Lang also decided he must go to his own temple to see it for himself, and there even is a tomb! As for the family mentioned in the biography? Bai Lang knows it's all fake.

Watching the guys outside out having fun, Bai Lang was also searching around, 'Finally found it!' He took the bag; inside was his ID. 'Eighteen again? This time it actually matches my real age.' Bai Lang gestured at his height—eighteen years old could be 1.86 meters, which is pretty good.

'This beard still won't do; it feels smooth to the touch, but it should grow soon.' Bai Lang rubbed his chin, thinking, 'In this world you can't cultivate any fancy techniques either, because it's fundamentally hard to circulate qi—not that you can't train internal force, but you get half the results for double the effort, relying entirely on moving your internal force and obtaining a trickle of vital energy from food to grow.'

'In this place, not only is the loss of internal force projected outward severe, but ten years of training here might be less than one month in the world before crossing over. Fortunately, the effect of circulating internal force within one's own body remains, the bodily effect remains, and the Golden Bell Cover technique hasn't been broken. This has become what is called in the mundane world Golden Bell Cover and Iron Cloth Shirt; I'd estimate it could still block the bullets of a small cannon.' Bai Lang didn't even think about finding a gun to try.

No matter how you say it, it's not like last time when coming to the modern world made me a wanted criminal; living peacefully, building up stamina and practicing external martial arts wouldn't be bad? Besides, maybe one could really find some other martial arts? Otherwise these ten years would really be for nothing. 'If I can borrow a yacht, maybe I'm quite rich in this world?'

Wrong, you're just hugging someone else's leg hair...... helping idle! Soon Bai Lang understood this matter; he's now in college, in the dormitory there's a rich third-generation kid; this time it's just that rich third-gen kid came out to play and invited his friends from the dorm who get along. Girls basically are rich third-gen kids and their rich third-gen friends' friends; he and that despicable face and the other three belong to the leg-hugging group...... naturally there are no girls, only beer and barbecue.