That was May 6th, 2516. Please forgive me for still preferring this method of dating, because without it, I might forget my identity in this endless life, and thus forget where I came from and where I should go.

My surname is Liang. I’ve forgotten my specific given name, but from that day forward, I had a new name. I was called Huhai, Ying Zheng’s son, the child of Qin Shi Huang, the eternal emperor who unified China. That morning, I lay in swaddling clothes looking at my father, and I knew I had succeeded.

Jiaxi disagreed with my departure. The research institute’s report was forcibly withdrawn by her twelve times. When the director saw me for the last time, he had decided to cancel this project. Jiaxi’s father was the honorary legal representative of the United Nations Council, and their family wielded enormous power. The research institute was merely an anomalous phenomena research organization under the Intelligence Department, unable to compete with the upper echelons. Opening the space-time tunnel required vast funding, and once historical changes were triggered, unpredictable consequences would follow. Neither the military nor the State Council allowed such uncontrollable situations to occur, so the research had to be terminated midway.

Thus, I was transferred to the Archives Investigation Department as investigation chief, spending my days buried in strict surveillance of loyal agents and soldiers within the organization. Once any unusual activity was detected, I had to immediately report to Military Intelligence Division 3 for further internal monitoring. This so-called unusual activity even included suddenly wearing French designer brands or keeping English purebred dogs.

Soldiers must be absolutely loyal – even their preferences must completely conform to national standards.

For me, this was sordid and incomprehensible. For someone who had devoted half his life’s energy and passion to space-time theory, I was unemployed.

That morning of May 6th, Jiaxi came to discuss our wedding one month later. Looking at her drafted guest list, I suddenly felt an impulse to escape.

Jiaxi and I had met at university. She was the school’s golden girl, while I was an ordinary student promoted exceptionally by the dean for a space-time theory paper. The gap between us was too vast and deep. Unfortunately, I was too young then – impulsive passion and egotistical confidence made me blindly lose rational thinking. I thought if I just worked hard, I would surely have my day of success. Sadly, this enthusiasm was gradually worn away bit by bit in future work. My former naivety was gone, reality’s cruelty made me lose confidence, and I buried myself daily in four-dimensional space theoretical research. But now, I had lost even this sole pursuit.

I was extreme then, stubbornly believing she had used connections to freeze my research project because she wanted to tie me to her side. For the first time in my life, we had a huge fight, and Jiaxi ran out of the research institute gates crying.

With my mood depressed, I drank alcohol for the first time in my life, then used the liquid courage to enter the testing hall.

The moment I saw the space-time gate, I was so impulsive. Reality couldn’t provide me soil for growth, an environment for achievement, or even opportunities for research and exploration. So why couldn’t I escape?

Escape this sordid society, this dark country, this corrupt government – why not?

In that instant, my blood was hot. With a mind full of infinite longing and passion, I opened the space-time gate’s locks, then resolutely threw myself in.

At the last moment as light faded, I seemed to hear Jiaxi’s heart-rending sobs. But what could be done? I was about to leave, about to live my new life, about to stretch freely in history’s scroll. How could a mere woman block my steps?

I admit, I was still so young then. I never imagined that someday I would regret this, but the final result proved I truly regretted it and forever lost the chance to make amends.

So-called space-time travel is merely transmission of thought and brainwaves. Einstein’s theory of relativity proves that when speed exceeds light speed, space-time travel becomes possible. In this world, only thought can surpass light speed.

The historical Huhai was a short-lived emperor who lived only twenty-four years, spending his life in extravagance, greed, and stupidity. My arrival changed the fate of the Qin Empire that should have ended with the second generation, and simultaneously changed the entire course of Chinese history.

I exhausted all my mental strength, diligently studying governance, martial arts and swordsmanship, horsemanship and military strategy, researching court situations, maintaining good relations with brother princes, caring for common people’s suffering, and gently guiding the brutal Qin Shi Huang toward the right path. I gradually changed history’s trajectory. Many events that should have occurred no longer happened. I gathered some loyal and reliable subordinates under my wing, including even Li Si and Zhao Gao.

210 CE was historically when Qin Shi Huang died. Over these years, he had handed most power to me and never opposed me in court matters. I also intended to change history and save his life. However, a war against the Northern Di that I led with Meng Tian still made me see the importance of power. With him present, I wasn’t this country’s master or this land’s emperor. I couldn’t ignore my brothers’ covetousness of the throne and their watchful eyes on me. So that evening, Li Si and I arranged this scheme.

The morning he set out in his magnificent carriage, I deliberately rose early to respectfully see him off outside Xianyang. He was gradually aging – his spine no longer straight, his eyes no longer sharp, his figure somewhat portly and bloated, with gray hairs at his temples. But his voice remained hearty as he laughed and said to me: “Imperial son, when father returns, we’ll drink together atop Huaiqing Terrace.”

Yet he ultimately lost this opportunity. I watched his carriage gradually recede, gradually becoming a magnificent shadow, feeling only a mountain above my head suddenly collapse. I repeatedly told myself it wasn’t my fault – his time had come. Even if I hadn’t come, he would have died during this journey. But something pressed on my heart, gnawing at my lungs, reminding me in shrill tones: You did it, you did it!

A month later, news of the Qin Emperor’s death reached Xianyang. The entire city’s people were grief-stricken, while I, amid the city’s wailing, ascended that resplendent golden throne.

I finally possessed the most noble identity. My political views would be valued and adopted. Each of my nation-stabilizing policies would receive joint support from ministers and people. My talent, ambition, ideals, and vanity were all greatly satisfied. Dreams impossible to fulfill in modern society were gradually realized one by one on this ancient, unfamiliar land. Life held no regrets for me – everything was so fulfilling and incredible. I thought I would be happy, I thought I would be satisfied. But until I saw her, I knew all of it was so illusory. My heart had always been guilty and empty, only self-deceiving, never self-aware.

When I met Dianqiu, she was still pregnant, her belly large, face streaked with tears as she knelt before the imperial carriage. She held a two-year-old child, gazing at me fearfully but defiantly. Two war swords pressed against her white neck, already seeping traces of blood.

Her husband was a court official who had committed crimes and was imprisoned by the Ministry of Justice. She blocked the imperial carriage in the street, kneeling there to seek justice for her husband.

This was a simple and naive woman with innocent, clear eyes – stubborn and brave.

At first sight, I knew some things were destined to change, some things I could no longer control.

Against the entire royal family’s pressure and mockery, I finally married this widowed woman into Epang Palace two years later. Those days were the happiest of my entire life. Years of regret and guilt seemed instantly filled. I dismissed the vast harem, devoting my heart to loving only this one woman, giving her everything I could bestow, seeking that perverted peace in my heart.

Every fresh morning, seeing her quiet, beautiful sleeping face, I would momentarily feel confused, not knowing what day it was. I began missing some departed times and years – my deceased father emperor, opponents I had executed, brothers defeated in the struggle for the throne, my aging parents in modern times, my only sister, and that woman I had loved for many years.

The day Dianqiu became pregnant, I was playing chess with Li Si. Zhao Gao approached and whispered in my ear that the empress was with child. I nodded expressionlessly, then continued playing chess. At dusk, Li Si and several ministers withdrew. I dismissed Zhao Gao and other attendants, sitting alone in the vast great hall. I covered my face with my palms, burying my head in them as tears fell drop by drop through my fingers onto the floor. Dragon flame incense burned quietly in the censers, emitting pleasant fragrance. After so many years in Great Qin, I cried for the first time, crying through the entire night. In this space-time that didn’t belong to me, I finally had my own relative, no longer solitary and alone. In that moment, I was suddenly so satisfied – satisfaction I’d never felt before, so satisfied I could no longer control my emotions, letting myself cry freely.

I became even more careful with Dianqiu. Except for court sessions, I stayed by her side almost constantly. This reason led to a decision I’d regret for life – when the Xiongnu invaded the northern frontier, I actually brought her to the northern battlefield.

When Dianqiu was captured by the Xiongnu, I was receiving General Meng Tian in Shubei City. Her crying maidservant ran into the camp, telling me the empress had been captured by the Xiongnu.

It was unprecedented fear. Like a maddened lion, I led 800,000 troops from Hansha City, deploying through Yanmen Pass, pursuing over 4,000 li from grassland to desert, beginning mad slaughter in the northern lands. Half a month later, I finally saw Dianqiu, already tortured beyond recognition. She had been ravaged by the Xiongnu, not only losing her child but also losing the ability to conceive.

When Imperial Physician Tang told me this, Dianqiu was present. After hearing, she smiled miserably, pushed away my hand, and turned into the inner tent. The Xiongnu chieftain still awaited me in the interrogation room. I carried my horse saber and slowly walked in. He still tried to explain something to me. I savagely chopped at his neck – blood sprayed from his cavity, splashing my face. It tasted salty with a fishy smell.

I stood outside Dianqiu’s door all night, hearing her cry softly inside. Those inexpressible sorrows were like scalding water poured on my heart and lungs, hissing with pain. I raised my head to look at that bright round moon in the sky – it looked exactly like the one I would see over two thousand years later.

I rejected all ministers’ memorials about taking concubines, devoting myself to teaching Nianzhi. He was a very intelligent child whose father died when he was four. In his eyes, I was his father.

My health worsened. In the eleventh year of Jiawu, I began coughing blood. The physician said this was incurable. When Dianqiu heard this, she was embroidering. Her needle trembled, piercing deeply into her fingertip. Bright red blood seeped out, staining the white embroidery cloth. She smiled faintly, somewhat unnaturally saying: “His Majesty is the true dragon son of heaven, blessed by heaven above. He will surely be safe and sound.”

I smiled and turned to leave Weiyang Hall. The black and gold dragon imperial robe swept across the green wooden floor, flowing with wordless silence.

I thought perhaps everything should return to a starting point. Departure would be like arrival.

This journey south faced opposition from the entire court. My health had worsened, long losing the capital for long journeys. When I went to bid farewell to Dianqiu, she sat as usual on the waterside pavilion, trimming a pot of orchids, looking very focused.

I told her I was about to depart.

Her expression momentarily seemed stunned, her gaze floating lightly over the lake’s misty waters before finally focusing on my face, asking how long I would be gone.

I said it was uncertain – if the southern scenery was good, I’d stay longer. Xianyang’s winter was coming, and the weather was too cold.

She nodded, then said go ahead – the south’s climate nourished people, and I should have lived there long ago.

I stood up. My sleeve brushed against an iris leaf, and I pulled hard, breaking it. Dianqiu’s gaze was serene. She looked at me, then at the orchid pot, then picked up scissors, placed them at the orchid’s roots, and resolutely cut through the entire plant.

I said only a small leaf was broken – it could still live. Why cut the whole plant?

Dianqiu didn’t look up, her voice flat: “Since it’s already damaged, why keep it?”

I could say nothing more. Perhaps she had always been such a person – if not everything, she’d rather have nothing.

The day I left Xianyang, sunlight was very harsh. I stood on the ancient road outside Xianyang City. Behind me was the imperial procession with fluttering banners. Dianqiu wore black imperial robes, leading the full court in seeing me off. Her eyes were bright, her smile dignified and serene, full of the nobility and elegance befitting the mother of a nation. But somehow, I suddenly missed that stubborn woman from seven years ago on Xianyang’s streets – barely eighteen or nineteen, pregnant, yet trying hard to appear mature.

Time passed so rapidly. Was I wrong, or was fate wrong?

Dianqiu stood before the vast assembly of officials, smiling at me respectfully and courteously: “Respectfully seeing off Your Majesty.”

Drums and horns sounded loudly. Step by step, I left Xianyang, left this ancient city where I had lived for thirty-four years. The carriage gradually moved. I left my country, my subjects, and my beloved.

At the end of 196 CE, I died on the road to Huanchao Yi in the south. The entire nation mourned for three months. Finally, I was buried in the Great Qin Imperial Mausoleum at Dragon Ridge Mountain.

In 195 CE, Qin Dianqiu ascended the throne, becoming the Great Qin Empire’s only empress. Her son Qin Nianzhi was crowned crown prince, residing in the Eastern Palace.

In 193 CE, Qin Nianzhi succeeded to the throne, still using Great Qin as the dynastic name, honoring Qin Dianqiu as Qin Mother and Huhai as Sacred Ancestor Great Emperor.

Years were hollow, time rapid. I dwelt peacefully in the Great Qin Imperial Mausoleum, sleeping for centuries.

During this century, I slept very uneasily. I always dreamed of a night many years ago when Dianqiu brought a bowl of ginseng soup to the great hall. Just as I was about to drink, she suddenly stopped me, then asked as if dreaming: “Is the person truly in Your Majesty’s heart really this concubine?”

Then, I only smiled and said softly: “You are my empress.”

Then Dianqiu laughed lightly, her smile serene, saying softly: “Drink it. This concubine cooked it personally. Your Majesty labors for state affairs – health is important.”

This dream always entangled me, causing me to wake prematurely from slumber. The Shangqiu clan moved methodically in the great hall, maintaining generations of reverence.

Shang Zheng was very old. When I slept, he was only seven. Now he was a centenarian. He came tremblingly before me, hunched over, kneeling on the ground, saying in an aged voice: “The Qingmu Hall has housed someone for a hundred years.”

When the great doors opened, there was choking dust everywhere. Shoe soles trod on thick dust. Fine wind came from the main hall’s direction, stirring pear blossom petals scattered everywhere. Green bamboo swayed quietly with rustling sounds. The lake surface sparkled. Everything was quiet, peaceful, and serene – exactly as when I left.

Except for that bamboo cottage and the orchid garden before it.

Opening the door, everywhere were traces of her life – blue gauze curtains, clean clothes, bamboo chairs, dense books, and within those books, the disguised little jokes I had told her.

Time was both incredibly slow and incredibly fast. While I unknowingly fell into slumber, she sat in this blue bamboo cottage, carefully recalling our bitter yet boundless life.

She had no grave, not even a stone tablet. Sitting by that deep hot spring with rustling bamboo groves on both sides, I suddenly understood.

I knew she was below, transformed into water, into wind, into one leaf among these myriad bamboo leaves, waiting for me to give her an answer.

Qin Feng’s death was not my intention. He committed treason, selling War Department intelligence to the Xiongnu chanyu, causing countless border soldiers’ deaths. If I didn’t execute him, it wouldn’t appease popular anger or do justice to the million soldiers who died for Great Qin.

You hated me for coveting you, framing and killing your husband, making you a widow and your child an orphan. I once explained this to you, but unfortunately you didn’t believe me. Now, with dust returned to ruins and all things finished, I finally have courage to stand before your spirit and repeat these words.

You refused to bear my child, escaping Hansha City to soak in icy lakes in the snow, falling from horses, even enduring Xiongnu ravagement. Actually, if you didn’t want to, you only needed to tell me, and that would have sufficed. You wanted me gone, wanted me dead, wanted to possess Great Qin’s vast realm – I gave you everything.

Dianqiu, you truly resembled a woman I once loved, but after so many years together, you were no longer her. You were Qin Dianqiu, my empress, the woman I deeply loved, the woman who weathered half a life’s storms with me. Only, between us were too many suspicions, too much hatred, too much doubt. These things were like a hopeless chasm stretching between us – I on this side, you on that side, neither willing to step forward, finally diverging and growing ever more distant.

Yet you had already obtained everything you wanted. Why abandon everything to follow me to this sunless underground, living lonely and isolated?

Could it be that when you personally brought those bowls of poison, there were also threads of reluctance and sorrow?

Dianqiu, we missed each other for a lifetime. In this life, I’m powerless to change heaven’s will, but I absolutely won’t surrender to fate. I will wait a thousand years, using my hands to return history’s track to its original position, then once more on that evening of May 6th, 2516, return to find you.

This time, I won’t want the throne, and you won’t marry anyone. Let time retreat to the starting point – would that be good?

Please wait for me.

Thus, the single Qingpeng Division became the seven Qingpeng Divisions. I exhausted all methods to preserve youth and achieve longevity, studying tortoise hibernation methods lasting millennia, delving into bacteriology, commerce, and controlling China’s economic lifelines, quietly awaiting that opportunity to reverse heaven and earth.

However, I still overestimated my own power. Countless efforts repeatedly came to naught. Liu Bang and Xiang Yu had long passed away, Tang and Song founders were already buried. Where were the Han and Tang golden ages? Where were the Ming and Qing declines? Where was the Republican democracy?

My obsessions could ultimately only become a joke. Great winds howled, blowing all dreams scattered in eternal years. History rushed toward an uncontrollable direction. I could do nothing.

The day I left the imperial mausoleum, Qin Zhiyan also awakened to see me off. In him, I could always see Dianqiu’s shadow. Many times when awakening from slumber, seeing him sitting alone in Qingmu Hall’s bamboo grove, I would feel momentarily confused.

I had seen that woman amid Loulan’s flying war fires – that armor-clad woman like a brilliant meteor, sharply and fiercely burning with ferocious hostility. She was a stubborn and proud child with strength and independence rare among future world’s women. Such character was a blade – when harming others, the first injured was always oneself.

I didn’t know how long Zhiyan would sleep so lonely. That was his fate. I couldn’t interfere much because my own had already failed.

I traveled every corner of China, indifferent to destinations, just slowly walking, seeing different people and scenery, freely squandering my time.

This life was too long. What worldly people saw as tempting so-called longevity was such loneliness and solitude.

That day, I followed English sailors to India, encountering storms at sea and losing direction. In the storm, a beam of light suddenly pierced the darkness. The sailors cheered and headed toward the lighthouse.

After landing, we learned we had deviated from course, arriving at the Persian Gulf. The white tower Empress Darong had built a thousand years ago saved our lives. Local people told me this white tower was called Changsheng (Eternal Life).

I never left afterward, becoming a lighthouse keeper, always living atop the Changsheng Tower, lighting fires for passing ships.

Day after day, life was simple.

Sixteen years later, I aged. That morning, Luma ran to the tower top, pulling my hand and loudly calling me to eat at her home. Luma was Indian with large eyes and healthy wheat-colored skin. Just fourteen this year, she always pestered me to tell Eastern stories.

Constantly blown by sea winds, my hearing had deteriorated. I loudly asked what she said.

But my voice came out mosquito-small. Luma was frightened, constantly shaking my arm, then ran out crying.

I thought I might be dying. Whether hallucination or not, at life’s final moment, I seemed to see Dianqiu. She remained as she was then – bright eyes and white teeth, fine braids, face streaked with tears as she blocked my carriage, loudly shouting: “I cannot be without a husband! My child cannot be without a father!”

Dianqiu, I wanted to be your husband, I wanted to be your child’s father, but the timing was wrong. I ultimately couldn’t replace him.

Sea wind blew into my eyes. For the second time in my life, tears slowly fell. Not from sadness – I was just tired.

This boundless life had finally reached its end.