Governing the country, enriching the people, an unparalleled imperial tutor

Lin Yanzhou asked, "Does the mainstream academic community recognize that fragment?"

"I don't recognize it." Wu Yuanqing's answer was faster than before, as if he didn't need to think. "The reason is simple—there are no corresponding written records to corroborate its age. The tomb where it was unearthed is clearly dated, but the characters on it are unrecognizable, so it is classified as 'unknown.' The academic community has a very low tolerance for the 'unknown.' Many people would rather leave it to gather dust in unsolved archives than say, 'This thing may represent a piece of history that we don't know.'"

Wu Yuanqing's gaze fell on the bronze seal: "If this thing of yours is real, then it may be the only known physical object that clearly belongs to Xuan Shuo."

"Xuan Shuo?"

Wu Yuanqing leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands on the table, and spoke more slowly than before: "While organizing the fragments of local gazetteers from the late Xin Dynasty, I found three records that mentioned the term 'Xuan Shuo Nian Zhi' (玄朔年制). One was a copy of an old gazetteer from a county in Sichuan, which mentioned an inscription on an ancient bridge dated 'Xuan Shuo San Nian' (玄朔三年). Another was an old collection of a family in Jiangnan, where the mounting paper of a painting had the characters 'Xuan Shuo' on it. Even just yesterday, during construction at a certain site, several stone slabs were unearthed, with inscriptions and pictures on them, one of which depicted a group of people standing beside a canal."

Wu Yuanqing paused for a moment: "According to the photos sent by the archaeological institute, that canal map doesn't seem to be up to the standard of civilian engineering that would exist in that era. The canal walls have a clear layered structure, as if they were systematically surveyed and calculated. But the most outrageous thing isn't even this—among several stone slabs, there's a metal tubular object, about the length of a palm, with a clear light-gathering structure at one end. Composition analysis shows that its outer shell is made of modern industrial alloy, but the time it's been buried in the soil indicates that it's at least three hundred years old."

When he said "at least three hundred years," he lightly tapped his finger on the table: "The academic community has yet to find a reasonable explanation, and no one dares to discuss it publicly. Because once the discussion begins, an unbridgeable crack will appear in the timeline of the entire dynasty's history."

Lin Yanzhou didn't respond. The shape of the "metallic tubular object" matched his powerful flashlight perfectly, but now was not the time to ask questions.

Wu Yuanqing placed the bronze seal on a clean sheet of white paper, then closed the yellowed book beside him and pushed it aside: "Can I leave this seal here to make a rubbing? You can take the original back."

"Can."

Wu Yuanqing looked up at him. "If the archaeological institute makes any new progress in their analysis of the stone slab and that metal object, I can contact you again. That gap you mentioned earlier, if Xuan Shuo really existed, that's one of the traces it left behind." He paused. "Do you have any other similar items on you?"

"Not at the moment."

Wu Yuanqing nodded and didn't ask any further questions. However, he didn't rush to lay out the paper to make a rubbing. Instead, he glanced at the bronze seal again and said, "If you dig up anything else at your construction site in the future, you can let me know. You don't need to bring it with you. Just take a picture and send it to my email."

Lin Yanzhou stood up and slammed his hand on the table: "Professor Wu, what I've said today—if Xuan Shuo really existed, why were its records erased?"

Wu Yuanqing didn't answer immediately. He looked down at the bronze seal, his fingers resting on the edge of the white paper. After a few seconds, he spoke, his voice lower than before: "If it was erased, it means someone doesn't want that history to be remembered. As for the reason—I don't know yet."

Wu Yuanqing didn't start making rubbings immediately. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the bronze seal on the table. After a moment of silence, he spoke: "Have you ever wondered why, if that metal tubular object really is from three hundred years ago, it would be there?"

"What direction are you thinking in?"

"Time travel." Wu Yuanqing said this word without any hint of sarcasm, but rather stating a possibility he had seriously considered many times. "The academic community rarely mentions this word publicly, because it would be considered an anomaly. But when I was working on the Xuan Shuo storyline, I couldn't get around one question—if Xuan Shuo really existed, how did the technological gap between it and known civilizations form? A dynasty suddenly appeared and then suddenly disappeared, leaving behind artifacts that did not belong to any known technological chain—this is similar to those 'unclassifiable' phenomena in history."

He tapped his finger lightly on the table: "Take Wang Mang, for example. Many of his reforms had no evolutionary path in the historical context of the time—land nationalization, government control of prices, establishment of a loan system, abolition of slavery, and implementation of standardized weights and measures. These ideas had no precedent in his time, and many historians have privately discussed that some of Wang Mang's policies seem to have been brought from another era."

He took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on: "I'm not saying Wang Mang was definitely a time traveler. But if that modern alloy tubular object did indeed appear in the strata three hundred years ago, and if Xuan Shuo really had records of water conservancy projects that surpassed the technological level of that time—then 'someone with knowledge that doesn't belong to this era, crossing time to appear in another era' is a possibility that needs to be considered."

Throughout his speech, Wu Yuanqing maintained a steady tone, his rhythm unaffected by the sensitive nature of the topic. He was stating a hypothesis he had pondered many times before, but today he was finally sharing it with someone else.

"Of course, this is just speculation," Wu Yuanqing concluded. "What the academic community needs is not speculation, but evidence. Your seal—can be considered a piece of evidence."

"Xiaolin, I'm very interested in you. Add me on WeChat, and you can ask me anytime if you have any related questions."

As Lin Yanzhou walked out of the ancient books reading room, Wu Yuanqing's last speculation about "time travelers" was still lingering in his mind. He hadn't expected that an old scholar who had dedicated his life to historical documents would bring up the example of Wang Mang, and that he had said it without any hesitation, indicating that he must have thought about it for a long time.

The fact that the powerful flashlight appeared in the strata three hundred years ago is itself an anchor point that cannot be explained by existing historical frameworks. Wu Yuanqing was not wrong—Xuan Shuo really existed. Those artifacts did not belong to any known technological chain; someone had crossed timelines and brought things that did not belong to that era. Wasn't that person himself?

When Lin Yanzhou reached the lobby on the first floor, sunlight streamed in through the glass doors, casting a long shadow on the polished floor tiles. Standing in the center of the lobby, he silently repeated the principle he would remind himself of before each future time travel: try not to leave anything behind, as this could alter history, and if the changes caused the modern world to spiral out of control, he wouldn't know the consequences.