In the third year of the Tianbao era, Chang’an’s lanterns still glowed dimly, while a bolt of electricity from a thousand years in the future quietly illuminated the High Tang.
Chen Yan, an electrical grid engineer, is repairing a high-voltage line when he encounters ball lightning. When he wakes, he is in the Western Market of the Tang dynasty, with nothing but an old-fashioned multimeter and a tool kit by his side. With an electrician’s keen eye, he soon discovers that the copper instrument can absorb moonlight to recharge, and that its swaying needle holds the secret to the mysteries of time and space.
Starting with improvements to the oil lamps used in the neighborhood, Chen Yan’s modern knowledge flourishes in the hands of Tang artisans. They make enameled wire wrapped in bamboo paper, an ironworking hammer powered by a waterwheel, and a primitive motor with a magnet at its core. Every invention must be rebuilt using materials already available in the prosperous Tang. When he creates a “self-ringing dressing mirror” for Yang Guifei and designs a “moonbow lantern array” for Zhuque Avenue, a technological frenzy gradually sweeps through this city of a million people.
But technology is not the real challenge. The conservative faction sneers at his work as “tricks and trinkets,” foreign merchants covet his glassmaking formula, and the Crown Prince and Chancellor vie for power. Chen Yan comes to realize that lighting up Chang’an is easy, but lighting up an entire era is hard. With the founding of the Hall of Natural Studies and the compilation of Essentials of Natural Studies, he leaves behind more than a turning copper bird or copper wires that can carry messages. He leaves behind a spark of the belief that “understanding things lets us put them to use.”
As the storm clouds of the An Lushan Rebellion gather on the horizon, Chen Yan stands atop the bell tower, gazing at the sleepless city he helped shape. The multimeter in his tool kit has long since become a bronze stele. Its inscription glimmers faintly in the moonlight: “Technology will eventually grow old, but humanity’s pursuit of light will never cease.”
