The Tang Dynasty in the Sand Table: Starting by Feeding a Small Rhinoceros

Empress Zhangsun stood before the table, motionless.

The first four words had already rolled out of her mouth, yet they felt as heavy as if they were cast from cast iron.

She could actually guess the general meaning of the last four words.

But she dared not read it.

This is not an imperial edict from a human emperor; misreading it is at most a offense of disrespect in front of the emperor.

This is a divine decree from heaven. If one presumptuously speculates and misinterprets the true intention of that being in heaven, the immense sin would be unbearable even if the entire Changsun clan were dragged down with them.

"Shangyi."

Empress Zhangsun lowered her eyelids slightly, her voice radiating extreme coldness.

"Let's take a look. What exactly is the structure behind these last four characters?"

The female official's knees buckled, and she practically crawled to the table on her hands and feet.

She dared not look up and gaze directly at Empress Zhangsun's face, and could only shift her gaze to the dark, steady ink marks on the white paper.

The moment she saw it, she felt a tightness in her chest.

"Reporting to...Reporting to Your Majesty..." The female official swallowed hard. "The first four characters are indeed 'I am the Supreme Emperor.' But this fifth character..."

She shrank back, cold sweat dripping from her forehead and splattering onto the gold bricks.

"This character '庇' (bì), I have seen a similar old form in rubbings of ancient steles from the Han and Wei dynasties. But this character that descended from the sky is perfectly straight, as if it were carved directly into the road with a sharp blade. I... I dare not make a definitive judgment!"

Empress Zhangsun's brow twitched suddenly, and she turned to look at the Imperial Physician Wang, who was lying paralyzed on the ground.

"You usually know the most characters when writing prescriptions, so come and take a look."

Doctor Wang shuddered and scrambled over to get closer.

He stretched out his hand tremblingly, pointing to the sixth and eighth words.

"Your Majesty, this...this character, the right side is 'right' and the left side is 'person', it should be the character '佑' (yòu). And the last one is the character '子' (zǐ)."

The sweat on Physician Wang's forehead soaked through the edge of his official hat.

"As for the seventh character, it looks like the character '兕', but it seems to be missing some complex strokes. Your humble servant... Your humble servant really can't see it clearly."

It seems plausible but is actually wrong.

I dare not say for sure.

No one was willing or dared to bear the guilt of having their entire family wiped out for misinterpreting the divine oracle.

Empress Zhangsun's face darkened completely.

"What a seemingly plausible but ultimately flawed argument."

She looked down at the two kneeling at her feet, her tone as cold as an ice blade in the dead of winter.

"If you recognize it, say you recognize it; if you don't, say you don't. Before this gift from the Celestial Venerable, if you dare utter even a single word of deception, I will have your tongues ripped out right now!"

The moment those words were spoken, the air pressure in the side hall instantly plummeted to freezing.

The lady-in-waiting and the imperial physician kowtowed heavily to the ground, their backs taut like a fully drawn bow. They couldn't even utter a word of pleading.

Understanding these eight words becomes a life-or-death gamble.

……

At the same time, outside the sand table.

In a rented room in Jiangcheng.

Li Mo braced his hands on the edge of the corrugated cardboard box, his ear close to the opening.

The sounds coming from inside were extremely faint, but in the quiet room, he could still hear the conversation clearly.

He was stunned.

"No way..."

Li Mo straightened up and looked down at the thick black marker in his hand.

He originally thought that although there were differences between simplified and traditional Chinese characters, the ancients would definitely be able to recognize them by guessing.

But he completely overlooked a fatal problem—the sense of awe that arises from the difference in perception.

In his eyes, this was just a draft written on two cents' worth of printing paper and one dollar's worth of marker.

But in the eyes of Empress Zhangsun and those ancient people, this was a divine decree that had fallen from the heavens!

The words written by the gods have no strokes? That means the way of Heaven is just and impartial, and doesn't need the fancy twists and turns of the human world!

The characters written by the gods are missing strokes? That means they are celestial scriptures, secret texts that mortals would never dare to readily interpret!

Under such extreme reverence, even if they recognized the word, they would never dare to nod easily. Because if they nodded incorrectly, it would not just be a misrecognition of the word, but a blasphemy against the gods.

"I was careless."

Li Mo rubbed his chin, turned around and picked up his phone from the corner of the table.

He opened the notes app and quickly typed two lines:

There are visual and psychological barriers between ancient and modern fonts, and a marker without a sharp point can cause panic.

When you need diagrams for urgent matters, plain text can easily cause you to get stuck while reading.

After noting down these two points, Li Mo placed his phone face down on the table.

His original plan was to simply throw down a sheet of paper filled with modern pharmacological explanations when he discovered that Si Zi was sick.

It now appears that this approach is not working.

Words are too easily sanctified. In a real emergency, the ancients would hold the medicine box and instructions and try to decipher each word, which would only delay the time needed to save lives.

"If I need to deliver medicine in the future, I'll have to accompany it with the most straightforward illustrations. I'll draw a few pills and a funnel for a few hours," Li Mo silently planned in his mind.

He turned his gaze back to the Rissei-den (Hall of State Affairs) through the screen.

The stalemate has not yet been broken.

……

Inside the side hall.

Empress Zhangsun clenched her fists tightly behind her back.

She dared not push them too hard, fearing they might actually become disturbed. But if they didn't recognize all these characters, this divinely granted opportunity would be nothing more than a worthless piece of paper.

Just when everyone was at a loss and even breathing felt suffocating.

A small, chubby, white hand suddenly reached out from the side of the long table.

Si Zi climbed onto the armrest of the soft couch next to the long table at some point.

The little guy stood on tiptoe, with most of his body pressed against the edge of the rosewood table, his two big, dark eyes staring intently at the ink marks on the white paper.

She was completely unaffected by the terrifying atmosphere inside the hall.

To her, this was something given to her by a fairy brother, so there was nothing to be afraid of.

"Mother."

Sizi extended a short, chubby index finger and, without hesitation, pointed precisely at the last two words.

Empress Zhangsun's pupils contracted sharply, and she was about to reprimand her daughter for being disrespectful to the celestial creature.

But when she looked in the direction the ox was pointing...

He slowly sat up straight at the table.

The key to breaking the deadlock doesn't seem to lie in the scriptures of the Imperial Medical Academy or the ancient steles of the Shanggong Bureau.

Instead, it was this little girl who was favored and protected by miracles from the very beginning.