New Three Kingdoms Tales: Starting as the expressionless Liu Bei

Xiaopei was the northern shield of Xuzhou. Without Xiaopei, the seemingly impregnable city of Xuzhou was like a hole torn open, full of flaws.

There is also a saying among the people that whoever captures Xiaopei can be called the Duke of Pei.

Lü Bu once occupied Xiaopei, so he can be called the Duke of Pei; now that Liu Bei is stationed here, others can also call him the Duke of Pei.

At dawn, on the city tower of Xiaopei, Liu Bei stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the misty sky, lost in thought.

He was pondering an important matter: how to remove the corrupting influence of fate from the cricket in his hand.

As long as he can completely remove the will of heaven from the cricket, his combat power will increase even further.

Especially the cricket with footprints and the cricket with facial paralysis, these two are the most crucial.

The cricket that leaves footprints allows him to return to any place he has been at any time, while the cricket that causes facial paralysis ensures that he can maintain his facial paralysis state.

As long as you force yourself to remain calm and composed by mentally preparing yourself, you can avoid violating the ironclad rule that a victorious army is bound to be arrogant, and an arrogant army is bound to be defeated.

But he still has no clue how to proceed.

The first thing that came to his mind was wine.

Alcohol can shield one from the will of Heaven and suppress the erosion of the will of Heaven within the body; it is a rare and precious thing.

But unfortunately, crickets will die instantly if they come into contact with alcohol.

Liquor is like an old hero; the more you drink, the more courageous you become.

Liu Bei guessed that crickets were created by the will of Heaven, and even their appearance was wrapped in a layer of divine will, so they would turn to ashes as soon as they touched wine.

He also tried asking the cricket system, but the system was inanimate and didn't respond to his questions at all.

With the future uncertain and Liu Bei unlike Cao Cao who had read the script beforehand, and with fate unable to guide him at any time, he could only turn his attention elsewhere.

Zhang Ji, Zhang Zhongjing.

After Guan Yu swallowed the wine, Liu Bei summoned Mi Fang and others for a private conversation, and they recounted what had happened in Xuzhou.

To put it bluntly, the three rules he set for Zhang Fei were completely ineffective because Zhang Fei also had a second personality, Zhang Ji.

What business is it of mine, Zhang Ji, for you to set rules for Zhang Fei?

Later, Zhang Ji drunkenly beat Cao Bao, and Cao Bao colluded with Tao Ying to rebel.

Zhang Fei himself remained in a deep sleep throughout the entire ordeal, completely unaware of everything.

Others might not have heard of the name Zhang Ji, but Liu Bei vaguely felt that he had seen it somewhere before.

Long before he was betrayed by Gongsun Zan, he had read some historical books and seemed to have read about this man's deeds in one of the volumes.

He looked up historical records and found a record about Zhang Ji.

Zhang Ji was a figure from the Chu-Han Contention period, a top-notch physician, whose strength is unknown.

Some say he was lucid for half his life and insane for the other half. In the first half of his life, he traveled among the common people and quickly made his fortune by treating the dead; in the second half of his life, however, he was sealed away in some place because of his excessive kindness and did not have a good end.

Of course, all of this is written in historical records, and its authenticity remains to be verified.

After all, in this new Three Worlds, Heaven can manipulate historians at will to rewrite history and suppress countless truths into the long river of history.

Furthermore, with puppets of Heaven's Will scattered throughout the land and most of the common people being NPCs, outsiders have no way of knowing about those truly important historical events.

Thinking of this, Liu Bei recalled the incident where Sun Ce destroyed the information cricket.

According to Sun Ce, it was the will of Emperor Gaozu within the Imperial Seal that compelled him to do so.

As for why, Sun Ce didn't say, only that this matter couldn't be discussed.

Liu Bei speculated that perhaps the slips of paper spawned by the information crickets were tainted by divine will?

As soon as you receive a note from Heaven, you will be corrupted by Heaven.

But that doesn't make sense. If it could really erode him so easily, why didn't Heaven simply send out more notes to make the erosion even more intense?

Could the printer be broken? That's unlikely.

Liu Bei had always been very curious about his great-grandfather Liu Bang.

Legend has it that Emperor Gaozu left behind a demon-suppressing domain in Hanzhong, which could shield the will of Heaven and prevent it from being affected by the power of correction.

Driven by this curiosity, Liu Bei opened the history books to investigate the deeds of Emperor Gaozu.

I don’t know, I’m scared.

Historical records portray Liu Bang as a petty scoundrel who indulged in drinking, gambling, and whoring, while his subordinate Fan Kuai was depicted as the most notorious villain in the land, who not only slept with Lu Wan's wife but also jumped into Lu Wan's face to mock him.

After Fan Kuai slept with Lu Wan's wife, he carried a wooden stick to Lu Wan's house to apologize, asking Lu Wan to beat him up to vent his anger, saying that once the beating was over, the matter would be over.

As soon as Lu Wan made a few moves, Fan Kuai punched her backhand, knocking her to the ground, and said righteously, "You actually hit me, you son of a bitch."

The historian who wrote this history book believed that Liu Bang's victory over Xiang Yu was purely due to luck and divine will, and had nothing to do with strength.

Especially when writing about the Battle of Pengcheng, he wrote extensively:

I don't understand why Liu Bang's 500,000 men were routed by Xiang Yu's 30,000 troops, who fled in disarray.

Even if you had 500,000 steamed buns, it would take the tyrant ten days to fifteen months to eat them all. How could you possibly be defeated so easily?

In my opinion, Xiang Yu's attack on Liu Bang was like an old man toying with a child; Liu Bang had absolutely no chance of winning.

If Liu Bang hadn't been a bit lucky, and if Xiang Yu hadn't been so determined to die and so sensible as to commit suicide at Wujiang, Liu Bang simply wouldn't have been able to keep him.

When the Overlord returns to Jiangdong, he will regroup and surely annihilate Liu Bang, leaving him without a single survivor.

The signature at the end reads: Historian Gao Zhongzheng.

Liu Bei seemed to be deep in thought. Putting these points together, it seemed that fate favored Xiang Yu, the Hegemon-King, while belittling Liu Bang at every turn.

This is strange. The Imperial Seal of the State clearly contains Xiang Yu's will of reverence, indicating that Xiang Yu also wanted to defy the will of Heaven. So why did Heaven still elevate Xiang Yu in this way?

Could it be a divisive tactic, designed to completely rupture the relationship between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang?

Liu Bei couldn't come up with an answer. However, he also understood that daydreaming was useless; some things had to be tried personally.

He immediately set off, captured Zhang Fei alone, locked him in a dark secret room, and used both soft and hard tactics to force him to awaken his second personality, Zhang Ji.

No matter how much Liu Bei pressured him, even putting a sword to Zhang Fei's neck, Zhang Fei was so frightened that his pants got wet, but Zhang Ji still refused to show himself.

Liu Bei understood that Heaven knew he wouldn't dare to really kill Zhang Fei, so it deliberately hid Zhang Ji.

Fine, you've messed with me, you've only kicked a hornet's nest.

The more fate prevented Liu Bei from exploring the truth of the world, the more he wanted to figure out how to use this to his advantage and outmaneuver fate.

As he was deep in thought, a servant rushed in to report that a monster had suddenly appeared in the East District and was killing people indiscriminately.

When Liu Bei heard this, he didn't pay much attention at first, after all, Zhao Yun and Guan Yu were not to be trifled with. But after thinking about it again, he decided to go and see for himself.

Perhaps he can find some clues there.