His mind stirring slightly, Huang Tian tried using his intention to touch the sound line coming from the late Han world.
In a daze, a sliver of his consciousness seemed to fly from his body, poised to cross the boundaries of space-time and descend into the late Han world along the sound line.
Yet in the next instant, Huang Tian felt himself blocked by a crystalline "barrier." That sliver of consciousness slammed into the barrier, opening several fissures across the crystal layer, but it also made him slightly dizzy as a wave of disorientation washed over him.
He could not help raising a hand to his forehead, gently massaging his temples. Only after a moment did he manage to recover.
"It seems I really can cross over to another world, but I still can't pass through that space-time barrier right now..."
Huang Tian pondered. "No, that's not quite right either. If I threw caution to the wind and rammed the barrier with all my consciousness, there's a chance of breaking through—after all, I already cracked open several sizable fissures just now.
"Still, there's no rush.
"The strength of my consciousness must be tied to my cultivation. If the first layer of Qi Refinement can't shatter it at once, the second or third layer might well do the trick. There's no need to take unnecessary risks to force my way through the boundary.
"Better to cultivate more and let it come naturally when the time is ripe."
Huang Tian set aside the thought of crossing into the late Han world for now, turning his attention instead to examining the battlefield scenes.
On the battlefield, the Yellow Turban Army numbered over ten thousand, holding the advantage in numbers. However, their weapons and gear were incomplete, and many among them were elderly or weak.
The Han army was far smaller, with only around a thousand men. Though fully equipped with dagger-axes, spears, swords, crossbows, and armor, they did not appear to be regular imperial troops; facing the Yellow Turbans who fought with no fear of death, they showed clear signs of timidity.
Huang Tian frowned slightly. As his gaze shifted, the battlefield scene moved accordingly.
On a dirt ridge, over a hundred Yellow Turban soldiers heavily guarded an old man clad in an apricot-yellow Daoist robe. He held a nine-section staff, his complexion dark and weathered, his eyes slightly clouded. Behind him stood a grand standard emblazoned with the words "General of Heaven" alongside a secondary banner declaring, "The Azure Heaven is dead; the Yellow Heaven shall rise."
"General of Heaven... Is this Zhang Jiao?"
Huang Tian knew a little about the history of the late Han era. At the very least, he knew that Zhang Jiao had taken the title General of Heaven, while his two younger brothers, Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang, were styled General of Earth and General of Humanity.
With that in mind, he pulled out his phone to search for the full course of the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
"The seventh year of Guanghe... thirty-six divisions of Yellow Turbans rising simultaneously... unrest across seven provinces... Emperor Ling of Han lifting the ban on partisans... Lu Zhi and other commanders marching out on campaign to quell the Yellow Turbans... Zhang Jiao besieged by Lu Zhi in Guangzong until dying of illness... Zhang Liang and Zhang Bao both executed..."
After quickly skimming through the trajectory of history, Huang Tian turned his gaze back to the late Han world.
"Right now, Zhang Jiao seems to have only just raised his army. He doesn't have that many Yellow Turban soldiers under his command yet, and the Han imperial court hasn't had time to mobilize regular troops. So the ones fighting the Yellow Turban Army should be local commandery forces."
Huang Tian soon reached this conclusion.
"In other words, the late Han world across the gap is roughly in late February or early March, or May at the latest, since Lu Zhi had already defeated Zhang Jiao and besieged him in Guangzong by June."
Huang Tian calculated the timeline in his head, then watched intently as the Yellow Turbans and the Han army clashed.
In the late Han world, the sun dipped toward dusk, and the sky grew dim. Both the Yellow Turbans and the Han soldiers were utterly exhausted after their long struggle.
Just then, the grand banner behind Zhang Jiao waved. Shouts rang out one after another, followed immediately by the rumbling thud of hooves as a troop of over a hundred Yellow Turban cavalry charged into the battlefield from the flank.
*Twang, twang—*
Over a hundred arrows were lobbed from the bows of the Yellow Turban cavalry. Though they killed only a handful of men at the very front of the Han army's left flank, the sight of a hundred horses galloping at full tilt terrified the exhausted Han soldiers, chilling their hands and feet.
With grim expressions, the Yellow Turban cavalry leveled their spears and lances. Like a steamroller, they crashed directly into the Han army's already loose formation. Charged with surging force, the lances thrust violently into the chests of the Han soldiers, lifting men into the air or sending them flying.
In the blink of an eye, the Yellow Turban cavalry tore straight through the Han vanguard. Hundreds of Han soldiers fled in panic, and seeing this, the cavalry herded them toward the other ranks in an effort to throw the entire Han formation into utter chaos.
Only then did the Han commander manage to issue orders, dispatching a reserve unit of a hundred-plus fresh troops that had been held back. His response came too late, however. Overwhelmed by the crush of their own fleeing soldiers, the Han army broke down entirely. Across the flat plains, terror-stricken soldiers scattered in all directions.
"Beat the drums! All forces advance!" Zhang Jiao's grip on the nine-section staff tightened as he barked the order.
*Boom! Boom! Boom!—*
Resounding drumbeats rolled in unison. Over ten thousand Yellow Turban soldiers roared together, "The Azure Heaven is dead; the Yellow Heaven shall rise! In the Jiazi year, great fortune across the world!" With fanatical expressions, they surged forward in pursuit of the routed Han army.
Seeing that the situation was beyond salvage, the Han commander let out a heavy sigh, then decisively fled into the deepening dusk with dozens of his personal guards.
Just as Huang Tian was watching with rapt attention, his vision blurred, and his sight returned to the apartment.
"Battlefields truly are brutal. Every blade draws flesh and blood."
Calming his emotions a bit, Huang Tian sighed softly and glanced at the time. It was two in the morning.
Ordinarily, he would have been sound asleep by now, but at the moment he was in high spirits, completely devoid of sleepiness.
"Then let's pull an all-nighter cultivating! I'll aim for a breakthrough as soon as possible to see what that other world is really like, how it differs from Blue Star, and what I can gain from it..."
***
Five days passed in the blink of an eye.
During those five days, Huang Tian steadily received the late Han world's "signals" every single day.
This was entirely different from the Thick Earth Sect's world. To date, he had heard a voice from the Thick Earth Sect only once, whereas the late Han world could be heard daily.
Notably, Huang Tian discovered that time flowed very differently in the late Han world compared to Blue Star—roughly thirty days in the late Han for every one day on Blue Star.
Over the course of five days, Zhang Jiao had gone from newly raising his banners and sweeping across the realm like a tidal wave to being repeatedly defeated by Lu Zhi, driven from Yecheng to Guangzong, spirit broken and bedridden with sickness.
Such a stark contrast inevitably brought to mind the old adage: *When fortune arrives, heaven and earth lend their strength; when luck departs, even heroes are stripped of freedom.*
In the end, the time had not yet come for the Great Han to fall.
The mighty Yellow Turban Rebellion had merely delivered a savage kick against an old, dilapidated house. The structure of the Great Han teetered on the brink, yet it was still only teetering.
Huang Tian shook his head and resumed his cultivation for the day.
His progress over the past five days had been astonishingly rapid. He had already touched the threshold of the second layer of Qi Refinement, needing only a minor opportunity to break through.
Lost in a state where self and external world faded away, time flew until it was seven in the evening. Huang Tian returned to his senses from his meditation. Just as he was about to head downstairs to Shihui Restaurant for dinner, the long-absent, weathered voice of Mo Qiu suddenly sounded in his ears:
"...Today is once again a day for expounding the Dharma. During our last lecture, I explained the key knacks of the early stages of Qi Refinement in the *Huang Tian Mountain-Suppressing Spirit Scripture* in detail. Today, I shall explain the cultivation knacks for the fourth through sixth layers of Qi Refinement. Focus your minds and listen carefully."
"Yes!" A chorus of voices answered in unison.
Huang Tian's spirits lifted. He quickly pulled pen and paper from the drawer, then tried to "look" along Mo Qiu's sound line.
*Whoosh—*
A scene unfolded before his eyes:
Clad in a blue Daoist robe, a sallow-faced middle-aged cultivator sat cross-legged upon a prayer mat, looking solemn.
Facing him sat dozens of excited youths dressed in grey Daoist robes. Every one of them had pulled out a blank jade slip, ready to record the contents of the middle-aged cultivator's lecture.
This scene was hardly any different from a class back in a Blue Star school.
Chapter 7