Chapter 1

"Hey, where am I? Shouldn't I be lying on my bed in the university dormitory? Why did I wake up here?" Lin Hao woke up and found himself lying on a wooden bed. He sat up and looked around the room, which was furnished in an ancient style, and immediately asked this question.

Just as he asked this question, he suddenly felt a dizzy spell and quickly grabbed his head, blinking five times before the dizziness subsided.

What happened next shocked Lin Hao greatly, because his mind was suddenly filled with another person's memories. This person's name was Cheng Jun, with the courtesy name Chuxia, and he was the sixth son of Cheng Yaojin, a commoner.

Just as he thought about this, Lin Hao realized something was not quite right. Why did his mind suddenly have another person's memories implanted in it, and they were from the Tang Dynasty? Was he the one who had traveled through time, or was it the other way around?

Lin Hao was not yet sure about this.

At this moment, he noticed a round bronze mirror on a table beside the wooden bed. He quickly got off the bed, walked barefoot to the table, and picked up the mirror to examine himself from head to toe.

This examination was quite startling. Lin Hao was surprised to find that he now had a head of black hair hanging down his back, and his face had changed. Before, he could be described as "plain-looking," but now he was "handsome and suave."

In addition, Lin Hao noticed that he was wearing ancient robes. He recalled that before he fell asleep, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, lying on his bed in the university dormitory.

Thus, Lin Hao made a bold guess in his mind: he had probably traveled through time, just like in online穿越novels, and after a night's sleep, he had arrived in ancient times, possessing the body of an ancient person and transforming into an ancient person.

Just as Lin Hao realized he might have traveled to the Tang Dynasty, he heard two knocks on the door. He quickly moved away from the mirror, "slid" back onto the wooden bed, and quickly got under the covers.

Although it was early March, and the sky had just brightened, there was still a chill in the air.

"Come in!" Lin Hao, who was under the covers, said.

As soon as Lin Hao spoke, the door, which had been closed, was opened from the outside.

Lin Hao, pretending to have just woken up, yawned and slightly raised his head. He saw a girl who looked about fifteen or sixteen years old walk in from outside.

The girl was very pretty, wearing a light blue long dress with white and red plum blossoms embroidered on the hem. She was tied with a white silk sash, which accentuated her slender waist. Her hair was styled in a如意髻 (ruyi bun), and she wore a white jade plum blossom hairpin. Although simple, she looked fresh and elegant, clearly a young lady from a wealthy family.

After staring at the girl's plump and pretty face for a moment, Lin Hao, based on the memories of Cheng Jun that were implanted in his mind, immediately recognized her.

She was not a young lady from a wealthy family but a maid named Chunmei, who was specifically responsible for Cheng Jun's daily life.

Chunmei, holding a wooden tray with a bowl of steaming soup, placed the tray on a round table in the outer room. She looked around, and a puzzled expression appeared on her face.

As she walked into the inner room, Chunmei muttered to herself, "That's strange. I clearly heard someone respond just now, but there's no one here. This is really odd!"

Lin Hao, lying on the wooden bed, heard Chunmei's muttering and immediately retorted, "Chunmei, what did you just say? Am I not a person?"

Chunmei, who had reached the wooden bed, saw Lin Hao open his eyes and was about to sit up, and heard him speak. She was so startled that she was speechless and her face turned pale.

After a moment of shock, Chunmei, regaining her composure, said in an incredulous tone, "Young Master, did I see wrong? You... you finally woke up, that's great!"

"Since last autumn, when Young Master followed Lord Cheng (Cheng Yaojin) on the expedition to the Pamir Mountains, you have been in a coma due to severe chest injuries for nearly half a year, which has worried Lord Cheng a lot."

"Two days ago, the Heavenly Khan sent Sun Laoyaoxian to treat Young Master. Sun Laoyaoxian gave you a pill that he had just refined over eighty-one days. It only took two days for it to take effect, and you woke up this morning!"

Hearing Chunmei's words, Lin Hao became more and more confused. According to historical records, Cheng Yaojin's expedition to the Pamir Mountains, where he fought the Turks, took place in the sixth year of Yonghui (655 AD), and the Tang Emperor at that time should have been Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi.

Why did Chunmei mention "Heavenly Khan" Li Shimin, which was quite strange.

Fortunately, Lin Hao inherited all of Cheng Jun's memories. After a moment of recollection, he was immediately shocked.

From Cheng Jun's memories, Lin Hao learned that everything Chunmei said was true. It was not the seventh year of Yonghui but the fifty-first year of Zhen Guan, and Li Shimin was still alive, and Li Zhi had not yet ascended to the throne.

Furthermore, through Cheng Jun's memories, Lin Hao learned that Wu Zetian had been made Empress two years ago, not by Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi but by Emperor Taizong Li Shimin. Even Li Bai, Du Fu, and Guo Ziyi, who lived during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong Li Longji, held important positions in the court.

At this point, Lin Hao finally realized that the Tang Dynasty he had traveled to, despite possessing the body of Cheng Jun, the sixth son of Cheng Yaojin and the youngest, was not the historical Tang Dynasty. There was a significant difference between this Tang Dynasty and the one he knew from over a thousand years later.

Moreover, in this Tang Dynasty, not only did humans live, but there were also immortals and demons.

Both humans, immortals, and demons could cultivate to seek immortality.

The human, immortal, and demon realms were divided into eighteen levels of cultivators, with the eighteenth level being the lowest and the first level being the highest.

Notably, the transcendent level was the highest, and there were only a few in the human, immortal, and demon realms. It took over ten thousand years of cultivation to reach this level.

However, among human cultivators, there were literary cultivators, martial cultivators, and those who cultivated both.

Literary cultivators were scholars who had no martial power but could "plan from behind the scenes and win battles from afar." In other words, the higher the level of a literary cultivator, the higher their intelligence.

Martial cultivators were those who practiced martial arts. As their level increased, so did their martial power. An eighteenth-level martial cultivator could fight ten people, while a first-level martial master could fight ten thousand, capable of taking on an entire army alone.

Cultivating both literature and martial arts, as the name suggests, could improve both intelligence and martial power. However, it was very difficult to achieve, and there were only a few people in the vast Tang Dynasty who could reach the fifth level or higher.

The Sun Laoyaoxian mentioned by Chunmei was the historical "Medicine God" Sun Simiao, who was a transcendent-level cultivator, a level higher than the first-level masters, and extremely rare.

As for Lin Hao, who possessed Cheng Jun's body, he was an eighteenth-level martial cultivator. If not, he would not have been severely injured in the battle at the Pamir Mountains last year. The old and vigorous Cheng Yaojin and the other twenty-three people on the Lingyan Pavilion were all fifth-level masters.

When Lin Hao, now sitting up, no longer a modern person but an eighteenth-level martial cultivator in the Tang Dynasty, thought about this, he was suddenly called by Chunmei, who was standing by the wooden bed: "Young Master, please drink this bowl of century-old ginseng soup while it's hot! I'll go tell Lord Cheng the good news that you have woken up!"

Lin Hao, regaining his composure, took the bowl of ginseng soup from Chunmei and watched her leave the room, skipping and jumping.

Just as Lin Hao was about to pick up the spoon and take a sip of the soup, he heard a "ding dong" sound, and a cultivation sign-in system appeared in his mind.

Lin Hao never expected that the beginning of his journey to this Tang Dynasty, which was different from the historical one, would be so magical!