Chapter 43: Panoramic Map, Overlooking Chang'an One Thousand Four Hundred Years Later

Modern apartment.

Study.

The tea gradually cooled.

Xiao Sizi lowered her head, looking at the reflection of the water surface in the cup in her hand.

Then she raised her head, looking at Lin Xuan.

The foundation of Royal Education for a four-year-old girl made her smell an extremely cold scent of blood from these meteorological science popularizations.

"Lin Xuan, the Great Tang and the Turks are at war."

"The Turks are extremely skilled at ambushes, often using wind and sand for cover to sneak within dozens of li of the Great Tang's border camps."

"Those metal stars of yours that fly into the sky can penetrate clouds and water vapor."

"Can it see living people riding horses on the ground?"

Hearing this, a trace of admiration flashed in Lin Xuan's eyes.

He pulled open the drawer, took out a lens cleaning cloth, and wiped the screen of the Tablet Computer.

"You react quite fast, asking about military applications."

"What I just showed you is a Meteorological Satellite."

"The lens captures large-scale cloud layers, used to calculate the weather."

"There is another kind of star in the sky, called a Military Reconnaissance Satellite."

"The lens on that kind of metal star costs as much as the tax revenue of several cities."

"It hangs in space hundreds of kilometers away."

"Looking down, let alone the Turks' warhorses."

"You, holding a Memorial in your hand in the courtyard of Taiji Palace."

"The satellite in the sky takes a photo, and the Personal Computer zooms in to look."

"It can see clearly even how many characters are written on your Memorial."

Hearing this, Xiao Sizi shrank her body backward.

She glanced at the study window.

Although the curtains were drawn, she still felt that an invisible eye hung in Jiutian, coldly staring at her.

Xiao Sizi touched the goosebumps on her arm and couldn't help but sigh, "Lin Xuan, such a sharp weapon is too terrifying."

"The sky is full of eyes; if people live, what secrets remain?"

Lin Xuan stood up, walked to the window, and yanked the curtains open.

The rainstorm was still falling, washing streaks of water marks on the Glass. The sky was gloomy.

"No need to be afraid."

"These top-tier reconnaissance satellites are national weapons of mass destruction, used only to monitor enemy military bases and important targets."

"Taking a photo of your Memorial from hundreds of kilometers away is using an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken."

"Unless you are a top wanted criminal, no state machine is bored enough to watch you every day."

Speaking thus, Lin Xuan pressed the power button on the Personal Computer host.

The computer case fan emitted a hum.

A thirty-two-inch ultra-large curved Monitor lit up with white light.

Lin Xuan pulled over a swivel chair, sat down, and gripped the Mouse.

Seeing him open that big-screen iron box, Xiao Sizi's curiosity overcame her fear.

She ran over and leaned against the side of the computer desk.

"The rain outside is falling so heavily; we definitely can't go out today."

Lin Xuan clicked on a software icon with an Earth logo on the desktop.

"Since we are trapped in the room, and I see you are idle anyway."

The software started, and the screen went completely black.

A white English loading bar flashed quickly.

Immediately after, a deep blue three-dimensional Earth, suspended in the deep universe background, appeared in the center of the curved screen.

Lin Xuan turned the Mouse scroll wheel.

That Earth rotated slowly on the screen.

White clouds, blue oceans, and yellow-brown continental plates were presented before the eyes with extreme realism.

"Didn't you say that flat World Map was too big, and you couldn't find Chang'an of the Great Tang?"

Lin Xuan turned his head to look at Xiao Sizi.

The scroll wheel under his hand slid forward.

"Even if we can't go out today, I can take you for a ride."

"Take you to see Chang'an City one thousand four hundred years in the future."

Accompanying Lin Xuan's finger exerting force, the scroll wheel pushed forward.

In the center of the screen, that deep blue three-dimensional Earth rotated slowly on its own.

The scene changed abruptly.

Explore the infinite possibilities of historical novels, all in the category navigation.

The Earth originally suspended in the deep space background rushed straight toward the viewer.

The extreme visual zoom-in brought an extremely strong sense of weightlessness.

Xiao Sizi's legs went soft, and she instinctively reached out to grip the edge of the solid wood desk.

She held her breath, her large eyes fixed tightly on the screen.

The view pierced through the atmosphere, tearing apart vast white cloud masses.

Brownish landmasses filled the entire field of vision.

The folds of mountain ranges and the courses of rivers appeared as clearly as veins in a human leaf.

The highly recognizable "ji"-shaped bend of the Yellow River flashed by.

Lin Xuan turned his wrist slightly, moving the Mouse pointer.

"Find the Guanzhong Plain, the region where eight rivers surround Chang'an."

The scroll wheel pushed forward again.

The oppressive sensation of a God's-eye view plunged straight toward the surface.

……

Above the Sky Screen.

The image of a plunging dive dragged the entire Jiuzhou land into a near-suffocating panic.

Great Tang.

The streets and alleys of Chang'an.

Countless commoners hiding under eaves to avoid the rain threw themselves down into the mud and water with a thud.

"Heaven has opened its eyes! The Heavenly Eye has descended to inspect the world!"

They kowtowed like pestles pounding garlic.

Such a view plunging directly from the heavens to the human world—how could a mortal ever witness it, unless one were a deity riding clouds and mist?

Taiji Palace.

In the square.

The hundred officials' calves cramped.

Had they not been mindful of court etiquette, most would have knelt as well.

Li Shimin stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the sky.

The course of the Yellow River, the confluence of the Weishui and the Jing River.

He had touched these mountains and rivers countless times on the royal geomantic maps.

"It is Guanzhong."

"What he is showing Sizi is the dragon-rising land of our Great Tang."

The image broke through the cloud layer.

The image broke through the cloud layer.

The topography of Chang'an exploded onto the Sky Screen.

Li Shimin's pupils contracted sharply.

He tried to find the orderly chessboard of the one hundred and eight wards among those color blocks.

He tried to find the Glazed Ware tiles of Taiji Palace, the spire of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

But alas, he could find nothing at all.

The Chang'an of the Great Tang was square and upright, enclosed by city walls.

But this city on the Sky Screen was so vast it had no boundaries.

It was like a giant beast that had broken free from its cage, spreading outward recklessly, swallowing all surrounding farmland and filling in the wilderness beyond the suburbs.

The gray-white clusters of buildings were impenetrably dense.

Black asphalt roads crisscrossed in every direction.

Massive ring expressways and layered overpasses coiled above the city like gray giant pythons.

Countless iron boxes smaller than rice grains wriggled along these lines.

"This... this is Chang'an?" the Minister of Works looked up, his eyes wide with shock. "Where have the city walls gone? Where have the walls of the wards and markets gone?"

Li Shimin's gaze wandered, locking onto a main thoroughfare in the city center.

That road was extremely wide, stretching straight south.

Its orientation matched the Zhuque Avenue of the Great Tang exactly.

But the road surface was entirely black.

On both sides, there were no low, green-tiled shops.

Instead, there were rows of Glazed Ware buildings, each dozens of zhang tall.

"He has changed the roads and rebuilt the buildings." Li Shimin took a deep breath.

This city was a hundred times more prosperous and ten times more vast than the Chang'an of the Great Tang.

The geographical location remained unchanged; the course of the mountains and rivers remained unchanged.

Yet that overwhelming scent of metal and concrete made the founding emperor of the Great Tang feel an extremely bone-chilling sense of strangeness.

Inside the study.

Lin Xuan stopped turning the scroll wheel.

The image froze at a high-angle view from several hundred meters above.

The entire core urban area of Xi'an was laid out before his eyes.

"How is it? Impressive, isn't it?"

He wanted to show this little girl from the Great Tang the muscle of modern infrastructure.

A new first-tier city with a permanent population exceeding ten million.

A concrete and steel jungle, enough to crush any ancient city.