“Nonsense! If he doesn’t believe me, why would he kneel before me…?” Zu An suddenly snapped out of it. “Wait a moment, I nearly got led by the nose. What can he possibly do to me? I’m the First Sovereign Emperor, Ying Zheng!” 

The feminine voice was silent for a while, clearly stunned.

“You’re still going to continue that act?” sneered the feminine voice. “Do you know who I am, then?”

“You are…” Zu An was just about to reply when he suddenly remembered his role and quickly corrected himself. “Aren’t you my wife, the empress of the Qin Dynasty?”

Again, the feminine voice was silent for a moment.

“Then shouldn’t you know better than to talk nonsense in my presence?”

Zu An scratched his head sheepishly. “What can I say? I just regained my memory after all. There is much I still don’t remember…”

“Shut up! How could I possibly fail to recognize my own husband? Don’t bother trying to use that nonsense that you fooled Zhang Han with on me!” sneered the feminine voice. “Besides, you didn’t fool Zhang Han one bit.”

“What do you mean?” Zu An remembered that she had previously said something similar. Did Zhang Han really see through my act?

“You made three mistakes in front of Zhang Han earlier,” said the feminine voice. “First, Ying Zheng is a vicious tyrant who knows no compassion. If he truly came back to life and learned that Zhang Han sent the main army of the Great Qin Dynasty to its grave, he would never spare him so easily.”

“I’m still weak from having just regained my memories. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with me trying to placate him for the time being.” Zu An was getting more and more immersed in the act.

“There’s nothing wrong with trying to placate him, but your words were too naïve. ‘Such is life; there’s little that a man can do before heaven’s will’ is never something that Ying Zheng would say. Ying Zheng believes that his merit surpasses that of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and he sees himself as an existence on par with the sun and the moon. How could he possibly bow down before life or heaven?” scoffed the feminine voice.

Zu An fell silent. He was just a keyboard warrior, after all. He might be able to dominate the online community, but pretending to be the First Sovereign Emperor without any prior practice was clearly beyond his means.

“The second error you made was claiming that the ponytailed girl is your friend,” said the feminine voice.

“What’s the problem with that?” asked Zu An in confusion.

“Ying Zheng is an arrogant person. He would never allow anyone to be on the same standing as him, let alone have any friends. You could have called the woman your subordinate, your servant, or even your plaything, and Zhang Han would have spared her. Yet, you chose to address her as your friend,” explained the feminine voice.

Zu An nodded in realization. That would explain Zhang Han’s change in tone. Unwilling to admit defeat, though, he tried to defend himself. “Hmph! I’m a changed man after living a new life. What’s wrong with having a new personality? How could that alone prove to him that I’m a fake?”

“How could a person’s personality change that much? Besides, you’ve committed an even more fatal error besides those two,” said the feminine voice.

“What is it?” Zu An’s heart skipped a beat.

“You mentioned that you’re worried that those dead spirits will alarm me if they manage to escape the lake.” The feminine voice was filled with ridicule.

Zu An was confused. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Instead of answering the question directly, the feminine voice asked, “Do you know who those undead spirits are?”

“Aren’t they the dead souls of the revolutionaries from the Six Eastern Countries?” asked Zu An.

“Hahaha! If you wish to act as Ying Zheng, you shouldn’t trust the words of others that easily!” The feminine voice let out a chilling laugh. “Those dead spirits aren’t the revolutionaries of the Six Eastern Countries, but the two hundred thousand soldiers that formed the core army of the Qin Dynasty!”

“What?!” Zu An could not cover his shock.

“Back then, Zhang Han, as the Chamberlain of Palace Revenue, was in charge of supervising the prisoners at Mount Li who were constructing the imperial mausoleum. The world was in disarray back then, and the Qin Dynasty was under threat. He led the prisoners of Mount Li and defeated the invading revolutionary armies. Because of this contribution, the imperial court began supplying him with more and more soldiers, eventually entrusting the core army to him.

“Zhang Han was indeed fairly capable. With his skills, he suppressed the enemies of the Qin Dynasty and nearly quelled the revolution. However, a formidable figure emerged. In the Battle of Julu, both he and Wang Li were defeated by the Hegemon-King of Western Chu, Xiang Yu[1], and he suffered yet another defeat in the Battle of Zhangwu. On top of that, he was also on bad terms with Zhao Gao[2]. Fearing that he would be killed, he chose to side with Xiang Yu, so he led the two hundred thousand elite soldiers of the Qin Dynasty into a losing battle against Xiang Yu.

“Those sealed under the lake are the dead spirits of these two hundred thousand elite soldiers of the Qin Dynasty.”

Zu An was alarmed. No wonder those dead spirits were filled with hatred for Zhang Han… He had betrayed them!

Zu An tried to analyze where he had gone wrong. “So, they wouldn’t alarm you because they are Qin soldiers?” 

“No. It’s because Ying Zheng wouldn’t worry about that,” replied the feminine voice.

Zu An was bewildered.

What’s up with you and your cliffhangers? Can’t you just finish your sentences properly in one go? Don’t you know how tiring it’s me to keep cueing you to continue on?

“Do you know what Zhang Han was doing before he led the soldiers to suppress the revolutionaries?”

“Didn’t you mention earlier that he was the Chamberlain of Palace Revenue, in charge of building the imperial mausoleum or something?” replied Zu An.

“To be more exact, he wasn’t building the imperial mausoleum, but the empress’ mausoleum,” replied the feminine voice.

“The empress’ mausoleum?” Zu An was stunned. “Is there such a thing? I don’t recall there being such a thing in the historical records. In fact, there’s nothing about Qin Shihuang’s empress at all.”

“That’s because Ying Zheng destroyed all records of me, the same way he torched all of the Confucian books,” replied the feminine voice. “Since you have some understanding of this period of history, you should be able to guess my origin from my surname.”

Zu An hazarded a guess. “You’re a princess of the Chu Country?” 

“Indeed, I’m from the Chu Country. Because of my position as empress, many nobles from Chu held high places in Qin as well. At first, our interests were aligned with Ying Zheng, so we helped him to rule the country, and even to suppress all of the rebellions going on.

“Unfortunately, Qin was ambitious, and wanted to rule the world. The Chu stood in her way as well, which resulted in an irreconcilable conflict between us. My uncle was the lord of Changping, Xiong Qi, and even became the prime minister of the Qin Country. However, as a citizen of Chu, his heart still lay with our country. So, when the Qin first raised its arms to invade the Chu, my uncle rallied his soldiers and rebelled, resulting in the worst Qin defeat since the dawn of its ambitious conquest.

“Ying Zheng was infuriated with us. He entrusted six hundred thousand soldiers to Wang Jian[3] and tasked him to eliminate Chu, while clearing away all of Chu’s influence in Qin. As the princess of Chu Country, I was the first one targeted.

“I was soon removed from my position, and all the Chu nobles were slaughtered as well. Even my son, Fusu, lost his right to succession because of the Chu blood in his veins, and was exiled to the border to build the great wall…”

Zu An was taken aback. “Fusu is your son?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Mi Li’s voice suddenly turned chillingly sharp.

“No, no. There’s nothing wrong…” replied Zu An sheepishly. He had been imagining her as a beautiful and graceful big-sister sort of woman, but all of a sudden, she had turned into an auntie who already had a child, shattering his fantasy.

He finally came to a realization. In his previous world, the issue of succession after the passing of Qin Shihuang had been a highly contentious one. Most believed that Fusu, as the eldest son, should have donned the crown, and it was Huhai[4], Li Si, and Zhao Gao who plotted to steal the throne, eventually killing Fusu through their schemes.

Even so, historians couldn’t understand why Qin Shihuang had dispatched his eldest son, Fusu, away from the center of politics and to the border. Some claimed that he was trying to temper Fusu, and have him build good relationships with the Meng clan[5] and the military, in preparation for his succession. Others claimed that he had sent Fusu into exile. 

However, as it turned out, Fusu had simply lost his right to succession due to his mother’s bloodline!

“Ying Zheng always hated women because of his mother’s affair with Lao Ai, and the tragic defeat that Qin suffered at the hands of Chu further fanned his hatred towards me. Not satisfied with just stripping me of my position, he ordered Zhang Han to construct this mausoleum to seal me away, lest I seek vengeance on him in the future. So, if you were truly Ying Zheng, why would you care about these soldiers alarming me?” scoffed Mi Li.

Zu An finally understood where it had all gone wrong. Goddamnit, why do noble circles always have to be so messed up?!

“Wait a moment, auntie. I have a question…”

“What did you call me?” Anger simmered within Mi Li’s voice.

Zu An was rendered speechless. You already have a child, but you still don’t want people to call you auntie? What should I call you instead? Lil’ sis?

Despite his inner retort, he was a flexible man, and quickly changed his tune, “Big sis empress, based on the history I know, Qin Shihuang and Zhang Han should have been ordinary mortals. They shouldn’t have possessed such mystical powers. Yet, Zhang Han has somehow turned into an indestructible zombie that possesses great power, and big sis, you seem to have survived for thousands of years, transforming into something that’s neither living nor dead… 

“I want to know what happened to you all. How were you brought over from Earth to this world of cultivation, and where did you learn these abilities?”

Mi Li was bewildered. “Earth? I don’t understand what you’re saying. We’ve always been in this world, and our abilities developed naturally, over time. If not for Zhang Han’s strength, how could he have possibly become the Chamberlain of Palace Revenue, one of the Nine Ministers?

“As for Zhang Han’s current state, it’s a result of him cultivating a certain dark element cultivation technique, where he offered up his own physical body in order to attain eternal life.”

Zu An was baffled. “You’ve always been in this world?”

This left him extremely confused. It seemed like a huge coincidence that this world had the same dynasties and events as his previous one, the only difference being the existence of supernatural abilities.

Is this some sort of parallel world, just with an additional element called cultivation?

Putting together what he knew thus far, he deduced that something major might have happened in this world after the Qing Dynasty[6], resulting in a huge gap in civilization. It was only a long time later before civilization began to rebuild itself.

This new civilization not only consisted of human beings, but all sorts of other lifeforms. In the battle for resources, countless wars broke out. Eventually, the first emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty managed to come out on top, achieving victory for mankind and driving all of the foreign races into the border regions to suffer.

As for all of the dynasties prior to this huge gap in civilization, the people in this world collectively termed them as the ‘ancient era’.

Mi Li’s voice suddenly disrupted his train of thought. “You have too many questions. Hurry up and make your decision. Once Zhang Han finishes dealing with the escaping dead spirits, it’ll be the end of you and those two women.”