Tucked away in a quiet nook of the Shu Nan Bamboo Sea, Wen Mang had been living the kind of slow, peaceful life he had been daydreaming about for months. The air smelled of bamboo and damp earth, the food at the Zhou Lou Inn was cheap and hearty, and his weekly video schedule was light enough that he had booked a solid two weeks just to unwind and recharge.
Most mornings, he would be jolted awake by something scratching or yowling at the door. Stray cats, mostly, hanging around hoping for scraps. He would grumble, drag himself out of bed, and shuffle over in his slippers to shoo them away or toss them a leftover bun. Routine, right?
So when he heard the familiar scritch-scratch-scritch one morning, he mumbled into his pillow, "Ugh... is that you again? Stop terrorizing my door, you little menace..."
He pulled on a tunic, shuffled over, and swung the door open.
His brain hit pause.
Crawling around on his doormat, batting at the frayed edge of his slipper, was a fluffy black-and-white ball that definitely was not a cat.
"Whoa... okay, I definitely got up too fast," he babbled, reaching down and scooping it up anyway. "How in the world did I look at a panda and think stray cat? I need more sleep. Or coffee. Or both."
He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
Small round nose. Beady little eyes peeking out from those big black patches. Claws that were already surprisingly sharp.
It really was a panda cub.
Wen Mang froze. A very specific, very famous legal slogan popped into his head so fast it was practically a reflex: Confession earns leniency; resistance brings severity.
"Am I, a proud member of the flexibly employed workforce, about to begin a new career sewing prison uniforms alongside foreign inmates for illegally possessing a national treasure protected species?"
Watching the cub curiously climb over his slippers, Wen Mang swallowed hard.
After a long moment of hesitation, he finally dialed the authorities.
"Hello? I am turning myself in... no, wait, I mean, I am reporting an incident."
As it turned out, the entire panic was a false alarm.
The police arrived together with experts from the National Treasure Protection and Breeding Base.
Given Wen Mang's clean record and the sheer absurdity of the situation, he was released after only a brief statement.
Just as he was about to leave, the captain handling the report called him back.
"The experts searched the surrounding area. It appears this cub was abandoned by its mother. It is a rather rare case."
Wen Mang's face lit up instantly. "Oh! Oh, I can take him! I have got savings! I can build him a little enclosure! I can buy him bamboo! I can..."
The captain's expression turned subtle.
"You do not actually think you can adopt him, do you?"
Wen Mang's smile instantly froze.
"The experts are taking him to the reserve," the captain continued. "But since you were the one who found him, they asked whether you had a name in mind."
The disappointment lingered for only a moment before Wen Mang grinned again.
"How about calling him Xuande?"
---
Meanwhile, back in Gong'an County, the hole in the side hall was still only patched over with rough wooden planks. Proper repairs would have to wait. Right now, they had more pressing things to discuss.
Liu Bei was speaking softly with Ma Liang, whose face was glowing with the shock and delight of receiving such personal attention from his lord.
Nearby, Pang Tong was completely absorbed in a scroll containing the previous records of the Lightscreen.
Zhuge Liang, meanwhile, stood staring at the empty space in the center of the hall, lost in thought.
Earlier, when they had tried to send the White Bear cub through the screen, the system had initially rejected the offering with a flashing warning:
[Lightscreen]
[Live Biological Quarantine Inspection Failed!]
Zhuge Liang had scratched his head for a minute, then figured it out. He had spent years going through every medical text he could find, and he knew the gist.
"Quarantine... they mean checking for sickness or pests," he had reasoned. "We have to make sure it is clean."
He had gone over to the local physician, borrowed a bunch of herbs, lit a fumigation pot, and carefully smoked the little white bear. All while the cub looked distinctly unimpressed. Until the screen finally flickered green and accepted the offering.
"Looked perfectly healthy to me," Zhuge Liang murmured to himself now, still turning it over in his head. "But the future still checks for hidden sickness? That is... thorough."
He thought about all the times the Lightscreen had mentioned how many people died from things that should not have been deadly. The Lightscreen had mentioned several times that the Han's lack of medical development caused many capable men to die from simple illnesses.
Then there was Liu Bei's earlier account of Chen Deng dying from parasitic infection.
Medicine is a true discipline.
In the eyes of the future, the Way of Healing was clearly a profound science.
Just then, the air in the hall shimmered once more, and the Lightscreen unfolded again.
Chen Dao immediately straightened, his eyes narrowing as he watched the miraculous glow.
This time, however, the presentation was different. Instead of the usual text and static images, the viewpoint felt as though it were held in the hands of a walking person. The image moved with the rhythm of footsteps.
[Lightscreen]
[Hello everyone, I am Wen Mang, and I have been dragged back into service!
No major donations this time, but as you all know, I found a panda cub in the Shu Nan Bamboo Sea. The reserve invited me to come check on the little fellow and confirm that his official name really is Xuande.
On the way there, let us do a quick science lesson on giant pandas. After all, I am basically a panda dad now, even if I only got to pick the name.]
The officials exchanged confused looks. They loved seeing the future, the towering glass buildings, the carriages that ran without horses, the way people lived. But a "White Bear"? What was so special about that?
Then the screen shifted, and an illustration of some massive, terrifying beast appeared. Something that looked like it had crawled out of a nightmare.
[Lightscreen]
[Lightscreen]
[First, pandas are ancient by modern standards, but they are definitely not dinosaurs. The non-avian dinosaurs disappeared roughly 66 million years ago, while the earliest known members of the panda lineage appeared much later, with panda-like bears dating back around 8 million years.
Their ancestors survived through enormous environmental changes while countless other species disappeared. China's isolated mountain forests, especially those around Sichuan, gave them a refuge when the world kept changing around them.
That is why people sometimes call pandas "living fossils."
Not because they are secretly dinosaurs in black-and-white pajamas, but because their lineage has survived for millions of years while retaining some remarkably distinctive features.]
8 million years?
The number was so big no one could even wrap their heads around it. Even Zhuge Liang's eyes widened a little. That was older than every dynasty, every kingdom, every civilization they had ever heard of.
Then the screen showed a big red cross stamped over the monster drawing.
[Lightscreen]
[There are plenty of ancient records and archaeological clues about pandas. Let us look at two major examples.
During the Han Dynasty, the imperial Shanglin Park was famous for collecting exotic animals from across the empire, and the mysterious creature known as the mo may have referred to the giant panda.
Then archaeology gave us something much more concrete.
In 1975, archaeologists excavating the burial complex of Empress Dowager Bo, the grandmother of Emperor Wu of Han, discovered the remarkably well-preserved skull of an adult giant panda among the animal remains.
So yes, a panda ended up in the grandmother of Emperor Wu's burial complex.
Does that mean she personally loved pandas?
Not necessarily. Archaeologists have pointed out that the same burial area contained other exotic animals as well. This was probably part of the royal burial system rather than evidence that the empress dowager spent her afternoons cuddling pandas.
Still, somewhere in Han China, someone apparently decided:
Put the panda in the royal tomb.
And honestly, that is a pretty serious endorsement.]
Liu Bei had originally been about to remark that being buried alongside royalty was a great honor for a beast.
But after hearing that the species had endured for 8 million years, the words died in his throat.
Compared to such a timespan, even the era of the Three Dynasty and Five Emperors was scarcely more than a blink.
Jian Yong, meanwhile, was utterly fascinated.
The future's ability to trace history back millions of years left him full of wonder.
He even found himself strangely curious about the crossed-out dinosaurs.
[Lightscreen]
[During the Tang Dynasty, Empress Wu Zetian may have pulled off one of history's earliest examples of panda diplomacy.
In 685, she sent two mysterious "white bears" to Japan along with a Tang diplomatic mission.
Modern historians often identify those white bears as giant pandas.
So if that identification is correct, Wu Zetian basically looked at two giant balls of black-and-white fluff and thought:
Excellent. Send these to Japan. Diplomacy has been solved.]
An Empress?
The entire room shook with surprise.
Huang Yueying leaned forward at once, her interest thoroughly stirred.
"The Tang Dynasty belonged to the Li clan, did they not? How did a woman named Wu suddenly become the Son of Heaven? Did she follow the path of Empress Lü?"
Zhuge Liang's gaze deepened.
"It is the most logical explanation, though several hundred years separate us from the Tang. Perhaps other extraordinary events transpired."
"Across the sea... could that be the land of Wa?" Pang Tong murmured.
Then the tone of the Lightscreen changed.
[Lightscreen]
[Then came the tragedy.
After the Second Opium War, the nation's gates were forced open. The treaties that followed gave foreign missionaries more freedom to travel and operate inside China than ever before.
One of them was a French missionary and naturalist named Armand David.
In 1869, David encountered the giant panda in Sichuan. He got a specimen through local hunters and shipped it back to France.
The reaction in the West was instant madness.
People went absolutely crazy for the strange black-and-white bear.
Museums wanted specimens. Wealthy collectors wanted trophies. Foreign explorers fought to be the first person in their country to bring one home. American, European, and Japanese expeditions all joined the growing rush to grab pandas and their remains.
The panda had gone from an obscure animal known mainly in China to one of the world's most exotic creatures.
And once something becomes exotic, someone will inevitably decide that owning its corpse is a brilliant idea.
By the 1930s and 1940s, live pandas, skins, and other remains were being smuggled out of China in growing numbers. Meanwhile, the Japanese invasion made everything worse. War shattered communities, wrecked government control, and made protecting remote mountain habitats nearly impossible.
For the pandas, this was the worst possible combination. Hunters. Habitat destruction. And a country too busy fighting for its life to spare much attention for wildlife.
After 1949, things slowly began to change. The new government introduced stricter wildlife protections. Over the following decades, China set up dedicated nature reserves and tightened the ban on panda hunting.
The panda went from being a prized hunting trophy to something the state was willing to guard with real force.
The National Treasure had finally acquired a bodyguard.]
Invasion!
The atmosphere in the hall instantly turned cold.
"Why must my children and grandchildren suffer such calamity?" Liu Bei cried out in pain.
The screen did not show the images, but the words were enough. Kicked open by force. Unequal treaties. Invasion. Smuggling. Poaching.
The term National Treasure was not merely about the beast itself. It represented the dignity of the realm.
To have it stolen and slaughtered while being powerless to stop it was like watching one's ancestral home looted by bandits while tied helplessly to a chair.
Those words alone were enough to make the entire hall go still.
Wei Yan's fist slammed against the pillar beside him.
"Those Wa people truly deserve death!"
Guan Yu rose to his feet, one hand resting on his belt.
"Brother, no wonder the future speaks so often of naval forces. It seems these islanders relied on their ships to bully our people. I am willing to build the finest naval forces for the Great Han, so that one day we may forge an ocean fleet and settle this debt with those pirates."
Zhang Fei, who had been quiet for once, suddenly spoke up.
"Wait. So the future called those Wa people pirates?"
He scratched his head, looking genuinely confused.
"Pirates? On ships? Like the ones on the rivers, but on the sea?"
Jian Yong sighed. "Yide, focus. The point is that they invaded our descendants."
"I know that!" Zhang Fei shot back. "I just never thought people from across the sea could actually reach us. If they can, then we need better ships too, right?"
Guan Yu nodded slowly. "That is exactly what I have been saying."
At that very moment, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun finally returned, both breathing hard.
Mi Zhu hurried over at once.
"Yide, Zilong, did you harm that White Bear?"
Zhang Fei blinked in confusion.
Ordinarily, people asked whether the bear had harmed him.
"It ran like the wind. Once it vanished into the mountains, we stopped chasing."
A collective sigh of relief swept through the room.
"Thank Heaven it was not injured."
Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun exchanged bewildered looks.
The priorities in this room had changed so suddenly that neither of them could quite keep up.
---
Deep within Ganlu Hall, Chang'an, several centuries later...
CRASH.
A go board flew out of the chamber and shattered across the stone floor.
The attendants outside trembled.
"Those thieving rebels!" Li Shimin's voice thundered through the hall. "How dare they revolt again!"