The tombstone of the Wu family bore inscriptions.

In the mist-shrouded mountain city of Yuzhou, at Yuzhou Experimental Middle School, the sun of the fourth day of the first lunar month in the Year of the Dragon had just passed its zenith.

For most people, this was a time to celebrate the festival—eating, napping, or indulging in some afternoon entertainment. But for students in their final semester of senior high, anyone aspiring to achieve something in the college entrance exam had already dutifully entered their afternoon study session.

Of course, there were always exceptions. As a graduating student at this prestigious school, Yang Tang was still sprawled across his desk in the far corner of the very first row, sound asleep, showing not the slightest hint of studying.

His seat in the first row had nothing to do with academic excellence or nearsightedness; as one of the students dragging down the average in this elite liberal arts class, the homeroom teacher, Cen Li, insisted on keeping a close eye on this little group of troublemakers who threatened her bonus. Yet, the so-called underachievers mostly felt they were being punished with a mouthful of chalk dust.

Buzz... buzz... buzz...

"Damn, I think I just got electrocuted. I wonder if I scared my son?"

"Wait, no, where am I?"

As these fragmented thoughts flickered through Yang Tang’s mind, he realized his face was pressed against something hard, though he vaguely remembered collapsing onto a sofa before he blacked out.

Buzz... buzz... buzz...

Faint voices drifted into his ears.

"Hero Yang, wake up! Stop dreaming about martial arts!"

"Come on, let him enjoy the rare pleasure of Old Gan fanning him!"

"Tang, you pig, stop sleeping!"

The voices grew clearer, and Yang Tang felt someone nudging him. Irritated, he elbowed the offending hand away. "Quit it, let me sleep a little longer!" This earned a burst of laughter from the class.

The laughter jolted Yang Tang awake. He sprang upright, looking around in confusion and blurting, "Where am I?" He immediately spotted a small electric fan blowing at his forehead, held by a dark-faced middle-aged man whose visage seemed oddly familiar.

"It seems our classmate Yang is still half-asleep..." The man’s gaze was sharp as arrows, coldly fixed on Yang Tang. "But my session of thorny history questions must go on. Here’s the next one: What is inscribed on the epitaph of the first emperor of the Wu Zhou dynasty, who was also history’s first empress, Wu Zetian? Yang Tang, why don’t you try and answer?"

Clearly, this was a pointed challenge, but Yang Tang, still dazed, ignored it completely.

"Yang Tang!!" The black-faced man called his name again, teeth clenched. "Stand up and answer the question!"

Still bewildered, Yang Tang didn’t move until the classmate across the aisle whispered, "Third junior, Old Gan is mad, hurry, stand up!"

He didn’t catch the "Old Gan" bit, but "stand up" was clear enough. Knowing that classmate meant well, he subconsciously got to his feet but, clueless about what was happening, asked, "What do I do now?"

His neighbor rolled his eyes. "He’s asking you what’s written on Wu Zetian’s tombstone..."

"Wu Zetian’s tombstone has an inscription?" Yang Tang blurted, "That’s nonsense!" His words set off another wave of laughter, but then, as if struck by a petrifying spell, Yang Tang froze. Something in his mind exploded—fragments of memories and images flooded in.

While the class was still roaring with laughter, Yang Tang’s eyes rolled back. He toppled his desk and collapsed to the floor.

"Hey—what’s wrong with Yang Tang?"

"Did he just faint?"

"No way. Is he faking it?"

"You can tell the difference—just check if he’s breathing."

"This isn’t good, his breathing is weak! Quickly, get him to the infirmary!"

"Don’t just stand there—give us a hand!"

An hour and a half later, in the school infirmary.

Yang Tang, lying on the hospital bed, suddenly opened his eyes, staring blankly at the ceiling and muttering, "This is definitely a transmigration..."

"What did you say?" The female school nurse, writing at her desk, spoke up, startling him.

"Nothing, nothing..."

He answered meekly, but internally, Yang Tang had already accepted the truth—and the deluge of new memories in his mind. After all, he hadn’t crossed into another person’s life, but been reborn into his own high school days. Yet, this Earth and this era felt somehow unfamiliar.

He had the same parents, slightly different relatives, a similar school, a country that was almost but not quite the same, and a history that was downright astonishing... The only explanation, Yang Tang concluded, was this must be a parallel universe—otherwise, how could he account for the new history in his head?

Li Xian, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, didn’t regain the throne.

Wu Yanjie, son of Wu Chengsi, usurped the throne in 701 AD, becoming the second emperor of Wu Zhou. His rise derailed the careers of several great writers in the succeeding dynasties.

Yet, the gears of time are relentless. Over two centuries later, history returned to its tracks—Zhao Kuangyin staged the Chen Bridge Mutiny in 965 AD and established the Song dynasty.

Eleven years on, Zhao Dezhao, wielding the power of the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun, forced Zhao Kuangyi to his death and ascended the throne. Thereafter, throughout the Song dynasty, whether facing the Khitan or the Jurchen, the northern frontier never retreated south of the Yellow River.

But history’s momentum persisted. In 1275, Kublai Khan proclaimed the Yuan dynasty. In 1283, the Mongol Yuan forces flanked the upper Yangtze and captured Xiangyang. Two years later, the besieged Song dynasty finally fell.

Still, the Yuan could not escape its fate of brevity. The Ming dynasty was founded in 1367. In 1400, Zhu Yunwen, the second Ming emperor, annihilated his uncle Zhu Di at Shuntian and destroyed the Mongol Yuan in the northern deserts that same year.

Afterward, the Ming dynasty endured for over four centuries. Under its rule, the northern nomads were harshly suppressed or assimilated, erasing the rise of Later Jin. Even today, in the Russian Empire, at least half the population speaks Chinese.

...

Time passed. The Zhu imperial family of Ming had long since lost its former glory, lingering only as a distant echo, kept out of sight by the Chinese government.

But as the old proverb goes, those who plant trees do not always sit in their shade. Modern China, inheriting the Ming’s territory, is the world’s largest nation, unmatched in technology and economic development. Its legal system, standard of living, and entertainment industry far surpass those of Yang Tang’s previous life. Yet, the heart of world entertainment remains in the West.

Entertainment centered in the West—just like his former world? Yang Tang’s doubts flickered, but his middle-aged, "not my business" attitude quickly prevailed. What did any of this have to do with a nobody like him?

Indeed, it was irrelevant. In both lives, Yang Tang was nothing more than a fan—a music buff, a movie buff, a bookworm. Songs, films, novels—he consumed them and moved on. He could recite a few catchy lines or lyrics, but remembering entire plots or lyrics was beyond him.

Who would care where the center of entertainment lay? Yang Tang, reborn with memories of wife and child, cared only about the present, his future path, and his "future" wife.

As for that muttered "definitely transmigrated," he hadn’t meant himself, but Wu Yanjie, or perhaps Zhao Dezhao, and Zhu Yunwen, the emperor who should have died young!

Getting up from the hospital bed, Yang Tang said to the nurse, "Doctor, I’m fine now. Can I go?"

The plain-faced nurse shot him a glance. "You can go, but you collapsed in class and I couldn’t find the cause. Pay attention to your health, and if anything seems wrong, get a full check-up at a big hospital. The college exam’s only a hundred days away."

"Got it, thanks! I’ll be going."

Thanking her, Yang Tang hurried out of the infirmary. He didn’t return to class, but instead hopped over the southern wall and left the school grounds altogether.

It wasn’t that Yang Tang didn’t want to study or take the college entrance exam seriously—he knew his own abilities. In his past life, his scores had been so low he’d needed connections to get into Chengdu University through the adult entrance exam. In this life, reborn and transmigrated, he had no superhuman memory or abilities. Picking up two foreign languages plus history again was sheer madness.

Yes, two foreign languages—English and a second language. This was an Education Ministry directive, supposedly to "know yourself and your enemy, and win every battle." As he absorbed these memories, Yang Tang wanted to spit in the face of whoever came up with that.

Still, Yang Tang entertained a wild hope: to do well enough on the exam to enter Yujing University directly, and meet his wife from his past life ahead of time. But deep down, he was afraid—afraid that time and space had twisted so much that even the university’s name had changed, and his wife might never appear on that campus.

"No, it can’t be. My parents are still here, with the same names and faces!" Yang Tang mumbled as he walked toward Old Street, trying to comfort himself.

Passing an ATM, Yang Tang withdrew all his money—just eight hundred yuan. He wasn’t acting on a whim; he was heading to Old Street with a plan.

Old Street sold everything, especially antiques hawked by middlemen at prices ranging from tens to thousands. Back then, Yang Tang had been clueless, with barely a hundred yuan a week for living expenses, so antiques were never on his radar.

But the year he was in his third year, right around the Lantern Festival, Yang Tang had heard of someone picking up a genuine Chenghua porcelain for three hundred yuan on Old Street and reselling it for over two million. He’d looked into it, learned the ins and outs of the antique trade, and memorized every detail of that piece.

Reborn now, with such a windfall before him, Yang Tang would have been a fool not to seize it. But as he left the ATM booth and glanced at the banner next door—"Bank of China"—he froze.

Damn it, with the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties all out of step and Ming history rewritten, how could any antique windfall still exist?