In my dream of returning to the Tang Dynasty, I snatched Wu Zetian from my lap.

On the other side of the island, on an inconspicuous sloping surface, animal droppings are everywhere, and the hillside is covered with various vines and thorns.

At this moment, a large number of vines had been cut down by Huang Tu and others with their swords, and a large group of people surrounded the area, looking inside.

Inside, it turned out to be a cave!

"Your Highness has arrived!"

"Your Highness has arrived!"

Li Yuanchang arrived quickly, and the crowd made way for him.

"Your Highness, the brothers were just about to urinate when they accidentally saw a snake slither in. Following that direction, they discovered this cave!"

"Is this the immortal His Majesty is looking for?"

Most people looked on with skepticism. After searching for a whole day, they finally found a cave, but it was far from the celestial abode they had imagined.

The ground was covered with vines and moss, as if no one had entered or left for hundreds of years. There were no ritual objects or furnishings, only the smell of dampness and decay.

"Light more torches and go in to take a look," Li Yuanchang said.

"yes!"

Soon, dozens of torches were lit, and Li Yuanchang led his team into the cave.

Everyone was cautious, watching their step carefully, for that could be a venomous snake.

The firelight illuminated the cave, and the sound of dripping water could be clearly heard.

Li Yuanchang's eyes scanned the stone wall. It seemed to be naturally formed, with no trace of human excavation.

In ancient times, when there was no ink or brush, people liked to use blunt tools to carve words on the walls to record everything, but there is not a single word or pattern here.

After walking about a hundred meters, the cave became dark and long, and it was unclear where it led.

Li Yuanchang had basically given up hope; the cave was probably just a coincidence.

Click!

Suddenly, a crisp sound came from under Li Yuanchang's feet.

The person next to him subconsciously looked down.

Guo Chao exclaimed in shock: "Human bones!!"

The sound echoed through the cave, instantly pushing the atmosphere to the brink of tension, and everyone gripped their long knives tightly.

Li Yuanchang squatted down, reached out and parted the moss and rotting weeds, revealing a section of human bone underneath. With a flick of his knife, he slowly pulled the bone out of the radish, bringing out the mud with it.

It was a complete human skeleton!

The guards were all shocked; it was unbelievable that someone had actually been to such a secluded place.

"It's actually a woman's skeleton." Li Yuanchang frowned.

Men's and women's skeletons are different; women's pelvises are wider and shallower, which is a natural evolution resulting from reproductive function.

Moreover, women's bones are generally thinner than men's.

"Could this be a deity?" Ji'an clasped his hands together in prayer.

"Are you stupid? Can a fairy die?" one of the guards said.

"That's right, immortals can't die."

Li Yuanchang put down the bones: "Let's go, let's continue to explore inside."

"yes!"

The group ventured deeper into the area, creating an atmosphere akin to exploring a mystery.

During their journey, the group encountered a snake nest, but fortunately, there weren't too many snakes, and torches were enough to disperse them.

After passing through the snake pit, the skeleton reappeared!

"Your Highness, it's here!"

"There's more here!"

In the empty cave, seven skeletons, both male and female, were found lying haphazardly!

Moreover, some human artifacts also began to appear. Although they had been weathered and faded by the passage of time, they were still identifiable.

"Your Highness, it's celadon!"

"This, isn't this porcelain from the Central Plains Han people?" Suddenly, a guard exclaimed, pointing to a piece of broken porcelain.

Li Yuanchang was also surprised. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed true!

Celadon is the earliest type of porcelain to appear in Chinese civilization and has been passed down through various dynasties.

Are the immortals Han Chinese?

How did you get through it?

Li Yuanchang was filled with a hundred questions. He stood up, raised his torch, and began searching around.

As the torches spread and illuminated the space, it became clear that the area was vast, covered in moss, and contained a considerable number of decayed and broken porcelain pieces.

Suddenly, a skeleton caught his attention.

The skeleton was sitting, and the stone wall behind it was densely covered with Chinese characters, which appeared vividly when illuminated by the firelight!

The crowd naturally moved closer.

"In 219 AD, entrusted by the First Emperor..."

The opening few words sent a jolt through Li Yuanchang, stirring up a storm of emotions within him.

"This, this is Xu Fu??" he exclaimed in surprise.

"Xu Fu?"

Who is Xu Fu?

People from hundreds of years ago were somewhat unfamiliar to the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty.

But for Li Yuanchang, it was a very familiar name, a name full of legends, and later generations even said that the ancestor of the Japanese was Xu Fu.

However, from an anthropological and genetic perspective, this claim is clearly impossible.

Based on the timeline, Xu Fu could be considered at most one of the earlier migrants.

The stone wall contains Xu Fu's autobiography, in which he clearly wrote down his life story, especially his two voyages to the sea.

Several years after his first voyage, he returned empty-handed. Fearing punishment from the First Emperor, he fabricated a lie, claiming that he had seen a fairy mountain, but the sea god disliked the meager gifts, finding only some young boys and girls, and refused to give him any elixirs.

Upon returning to Xianyang, the First Emperor believed him and not only added three thousand boys and girls to the list, but also allocated seeds of the five grains and various craftsmen, allowing Xu Fu to set off again, and ordering him to bring back the elixir of immortality.

Thus, Xu Fu was forced to embark on his second voyage, but unfortunately, there were no immortals in the world, let alone any elixir of immortality.

This time, he still found nothing. Xu Fu dared not return to Xianyang, but wrote a letter back saying that he had encountered a giant dragon blocking his way in the sea.

Immediately afterwards, Qin Shi Huang personally led his crossbowmen to hunt down a large fish along the coast.

Qin Shi Huang felt that the dragon blocking his way was dead, so he ordered Xu Fu to continue his mission. Xu Fu was extremely obsessed with immortality and refused to accept the natural law of birth, aging, sickness and death. He even made a military pledge to Xu Fu: if he failed to bring back the dragon, he would die.

Xu Fu had no choice but to set off.

Faced with the First Emperor's obsession, he carved a lament on the wall: "Life and death are determined by Heaven, what can man do? Obsession with greed is like a mirage."

He recorded all the hardships he encountered at sea, a process that was extremely desperate and painful, unimaginable to ordinary people.

At the end of his autobiography, Xu Fu also wrote the last words of his life.

He spent years searching for the so-called fairy island, only to find it was all for naught. His team of thousands of people exhausted their resources, contracted a strange disease, and died one after another.

He eventually released a group of people, while he himself suffered from illness, his body ulcerated, and he died here.

A desire for immortality born from the power of those in power has directly led to the deaths of thousands in a foreign land, which can only be described as a tragedy.

In the very end, Xu Fu left behind two more messages.

A passage serves as a warning to future generations: "Birth, aging, sickness, and death are like the passing of spring and autumn, a natural part of life. The desire for immortality is illusory and harmful to both oneself and others, ultimately amounting to nothing."

He pleaded that if any descendants were to discover his remains, they should bring them back to the Central Plains, as he wished to return to his roots.

This legendary figure from hundreds of years ago even left behind a gold seal, saying it was a reward for taking him back.