Chapter 395: Finale (Part 1)

The sky-screen just dissipated.

That extinguished lamp at Wuzhang Plains was still lit in many people's minds.

Zhuge Liang himself had already walked out of the main tent.

He wore an old robe, stood at the camp gate, and looked up at the direction where the sky-screen disappeared.

The sky was completely dark, and the wind of late autumn blew his robe hem and then let it go.

Jiang Wei followed behind him, without speaking.

Zhuge Liang watched for a long time, then lowered his head and smiled, turned and returned to the tent.

The next morning, Liu Bei was invited to Gu Shanhe's spirit ship.

The tea in the cabin was freshly brewed, and the nine emperors sat in a row.

Gu Shanhe sat in the main seat, holding a bowl of tea in his hand, and nodded to Liu Bei when he entered.

"Little Liu, sit."

When Liu Bei sat down, his back was still straight, but his back relaxed slightly.

Gu Shanhe put down the tea bowl without beating around the bush: "I want to help you unify the world."

Liu Bei's hand pressed on his knee: "What does the immortal master mean..."

"I have already talked to Cao Cao and Sun Quan."

Gu Shanhe said, "Cao Wei's great army goes overseas, and Sun Quan also goes overseas."

"The land conquered is their own, which is more cost-effective than fighting back and forth in the Central Plains."

"You stay here, establish Shu Han, and be the emperor."

Liu Bei was silent for a while.

His Adam's apple moved, then he stood up and bowed to Gu Shanhe, bending down very deeply: "Imm

"You just need to be a good emperor."

Three days later, the three parties completed the handover.

Outside the city of Ye, Cao Cao took one last look at the sky of the Central Plains, then led his great army into the space-time tunnel opened by Gu Shanhe.

On the other side of the tunnel was an unfamiliar land, more vast than any place he had ever seen.

Before boarding his ship at the port in Jiangdong, Sun Quan looked back in the direction of Jianye, then turned and boarded the vessel.

Liu Bei ascended the throne in Chengdu, with the state name Shu Han.

The enthronement ceremony was very simple, without any extravagant display.

Liu Bei sat firmly in the great hall, and after the officials performed the three bows, his first decree was to reduce taxes for three years.

Gu Shanhe stood outside the hall and did not enter, but he heard the sounds of prostration and acclamation from within.

Over the next half year, Gu Shanhe successively introduced sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, and a type of rice seed with a yield of one thousand catties per mu into the territory of Shu Han.

The method for making snowflake salt was printed into booklets and distributed to every province.

The technical blueprints for steel refining were taken by craftsmen, and they produced a finished product after three days of testing.

On the day the steam engine began to rumble in the workshop outside Chengdu, Liu Bei went to see it in person.

He squatted by the boiler for a long time, reached out to touch the iron casing, and it burned his hand.

In the span of half a year, the nine emperors were not idle.

Ying Zheng broke through to the ninth level of Foundation Establishment; his breakthrough had the least disturbance—he simply stood in the courtyard and closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, his entire body floated up half a foot, landing without a sound.

Liu Bang's breakthrough caused a greater disturbance; most of the leaves on the old locust tree in the courtyard were shaken off.

Liu Che and Liu Xiu broke through one after the other, with Li Shimin following closely behind.

Yang Jian, Zhao Kuangyin, Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Di were slightly later, but they all successively crossed the threshold of Foundation Establishment.

After Foundation Establishment, one could ride a sword.

Zhu Yuanzhang circled the sky above the Shu Han imperial palace and returned; his expression was normal when he landed.

When Zhu Di flew for the first time, he nearly crashed into the palace wall and was yanked back by Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhao Kuangyin flew steadily, while Yang Jian flew low, sliding along the ground for a long distance before stopping.

Gu Shanhe stood in the courtyard watching them practice flying; he finished looking at the peach trees in the courtyard, then withdrew his gaze and let it fall upon his own hands.

That night, when he returned to the spirit ship, the system notification sound suddenly rang in his mind.

Only he could hear it; it was that cold, electronic sound, but it carried a hint of an indescribable emotion compared to usual:

【Detected host hidden achievement: Unify the Three Kingdoms.】

【Now issuing hidden achievement reward: Reward 100,000 years of cultivation.】

Then he sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.

The Qi in his dantian exploded instantly.

It was like a riverbed that had been dry for a long time suddenly having its dam dug open; water rushed down from upstream, clearing away all the silt and blockages.

The Qi transformed into immortal energy, surging from the dantian to his limbs and bones, then returning from his limbs and bones to the dantian, each cycle faster and more violent than the last.

Gu Shanhe's outer robe was billowed by the airflow, making a hunting sound, and fine cracks began to appear on the edges of the wooden couch where he sat.

The cracks crawled down along the grain of the wooden couch and stopped halfway.

He opened his eyes.

The light in the depths of his eyes brightened for an instant, then retracted, returning to its usual appearance.

He stood up and looked down at his hands; the lines on his palms had not changed at all.

But he could feel that when his hand pressed against the edge of the table, the finest fiber structure of the wood spread out within his perception.

Red Dust Immortal.

Outside the spirit ship, the nine emperors were originally cultivating in their respective rooms.

Suddenly, they all looked up toward the direction of the spirit ship at the same time; light shone through the gaps in the deck of the spirit ship, as if the entire ship had been ignited from within.

Liu Bang ran over the fastest; he took two steps before remembering he could fly, so he mounted his sword and soared into the air, landing on the deck of the spirit ship.

Ying Zheng followed closely behind, landing without a sound.

The others arrived afterward and saw Gu Shanhe standing by the ship's rail, his robes still fluttering slightly, but the feeling he gave everyone had changed—

He was standing there, but his aura was no longer there, as if his standing posture was merely a shadow he had left behind.

"Immortal Master?" Li Shimin spoke first.

Gu Shanhe turned around, his expression as usual: "Broken through, Red Dust Immortal."

The nine emperors did not press for what realm a Red Dust Immortal was, because just by looking at his bearing, they knew it was not low.

Just by standing there, the surrounding wind seemed to bypass him, and not a single bit landed on the hem of his robe.

Early the next morning, Gu Shanhe retracted the spirit ship.

He raised his hand and traced a line in the air; where his fingertips passed, the air split open into a seam, and warm sunlight shone through the seam.

The nine emperors mounted their swords and ascended, passing through the crack one after another.

Gu Shanhe followed behind them, and as he crossed the crack, he looked back—

The morning light of Shu Han was spreading over from the east, gilding the silhouette of Chengdu City with a layer of pale gold—

Then he turned back and walked into the crack.

The crack closed.

Qin Dynasty.

When Fu Su stood at the gate of Xianyang City to welcome them, he was wearing an old robe that had been washed until it was white.

He had been emperor for so many years, yet he had not changed into many new clothes.

Fu Su saw his Imperial Father and the State Preceptor walking out of the light gate and hurried to meet them.

He cupped his hands from afar, and when he reached them, his voice was thicker than it had been a few years ago: "Imperial Father. State Preceptor."

He glanced at Ying Zheng, then at Gu Shanhe, and stepped aside to make way.

The changes in Xianyang City were not great.

The streets were a bit wider, and the drainage ditches on both sides were newly repaired, with the walls of the ditches neatly lined with blue bricks.

There were some strange things in the shops along the road, and the rumbling sound of steam engines came from the workshops outside the city.

The pedestrians on the road wore thick clothing, and there was no hunger on their faces.

Children squatted by the roadside using branches to draw grids on the ground, and an old woman sat on a doorstep nearby shelling beans.

Ying Zheng walked beside his son, his pace neither fast nor slow, his gaze sweeping over the streets, shops, and the faces of the pedestrians one by one.

When those commoners saw the emperor walking through the street, they stopped their work one after another and bowed their heads in salute, but it was no longer the kind of prostration, but a slight bow.

Ying Zheng saw it; he said nothing, but his pace neither quickened nor slowed.

On the morning of the third day, Gu Shanhe was drinking tea in the courtyard when the system notification sound rang in his mind again.

This time it rang briefly, as if someone was in a hurry to finish speaking and hung up:

【Now issuing emergency mission:

A zombie virus has broken out within the Qing Empire, with Empress Dowager Cixi as the source.

Please lead the nine emperors to go and clean it up.

After the mission is completed, the host can open an unlimited channel to travel back and forth to the modern era.】

Gu Shanhe put down his teacup, was silent for a moment, then looked up: "Empress Dowager Cixi?"

He repeated the name in a low voice, "She can even create zombies?"

"Is there anything more absurd than this?"

The system did not answer.

Gu Shanhe stood up, finished the last sip in the teacup, and walked out of the courtyard.

The nine emperors were practicing swordplay; he walked over and called for everyone to stop: "Got a job. Go to the Qing Dynasty, fight zombies."

The tip of Zhu Yuanzhang's sword paused: "Qing Dynasty?"

"The Great Qing that replaced your Great Ming."

Gu Shanhe said, "Something happened in the capital; Empress Dowager Cixi developed a zombie virus and infected herself, and the whole city has changed."

The tip of Zhu Yuanzhang's sword paused again, then he gripped the hilt tightly, his eyes surging with battle intent.

He turned to look at Zhu Di, whose sword had already been sheathed: "When do we leave?"

"Now."

Gu Shanhe did not use the spirit ship.

He raised his hand and sliced a gap in the void, wider and more stable than any previous one.

There were no fluctuations at the edge of the opening, like a door that had been pushed open.

Gray-white daylight shone from behind the door, and an aura mixed with rotten soil and rust seeped out from the crack.

The nine emperors mounted their swords and passed through the door one after another.

Gu Shanhe followed at the very end; the moment he crossed the threshold, the hem of his robe was stirred by the wind from behind the door.