What Did He Write?

After leaving home, Li Wei spent his last Copper Ring on half a piece of Siberian Labor Camp-style black bread.

He soaked it in a free public fountain until it softened, making do with it for dinner.

"You're very good to that child." While he was eating, Janna suddenly sighed.

"It was her brother's dying wish," Li Wei answered.

"I'm starting to believe you now, Mr. Summoner. You probably aren't some evil person."

Compared to before, Janna was far less hostile toward him.

Not only because of Li Wei's concern for his sister, but also because of the article he had written with her.

An evil person could not write something like that—

"Where Did Zaun Come From?"

It appeared to be nothing more than a historical article meant to spread knowledge.

And indeed, like an ordinary history textbook, it traced the timeline from top to bottom: the Tribal Civilization Era after the Great Human Migration seven thousand years ago, the Shuriman Empire Era that began six thousand years ago, the Warlord and Kingdom Era that began three thousand years ago, the Council City-State Era that began three hundred years ago, and the Twin Cities Split Era more than two hundred years ago—covering all the history that had unfolded on this land of Zaun from ancient times to the present.

Janna had never been interested in articles like this before.

She herself was a living history textbook thousands of years old. How could the history books mortals pieced together through hearsay and blind guesswork possibly know more than someone who had lived through history herself?

Yet Li Wei's article had deeply shaken Janna.

Not because Li Wei had uncovered any secret or novel historical records, but because he had offered an entirely new perspective.

Before Li Wei, Runeterra's historians—even Janna herself—had only known how to tell history from the "ruler's perspective," or rather, the "hero's perspective."

For example.

If Janna had been asked to describe the birth of the Shuriman Empire before this, she would certainly have said:

"Guided by the Celestial Titans, Ascended Empress Setaka was baptized by the Sun Disc and became the first Ascended in history. Relying on the overwhelming military might of the Ascended, she eradicated and annexed all of Shurima's tribes, establishing the first unified slave empire in human history."

But Li Wei treated that passage merely as background. What he emphasized was:

"With the development of productive forces, the increase in output created a surplus beyond the needs of survival. This transformed tribal captives from people to be slaughtered into slaves who were economically profitable. Tribal chiefs became slave owners, while everyone else gradually became slaves."

"Driven by economic interests, tribal slave owners, including Setaka, plundered, annexed, and allied with one another, continuously expanding themselves. Human civilization gradually moved from individual tribes to tribal alliances, and from tribal alliances to slave kingdoms."

"..."

These words had nearly overturned Janna's understanding of the world.

She had once firmly believed that humanity had risen from barbaric primitive tribes to establish the civilized Shuriman Empire through the great power bestowed by the Celestial Titans and the Sun Disc.

But Li Wei believed that even without the Celestial Titans and the Sun Disc, humanity would sooner or later have progressed from tribes to slave kingdoms.

The appearance of the Celestial Titans and the Ascended had merely given humanity a cheat code, greatly accelerating the process.

At its root, it was still the advancement of productive forces.

Yes, productive forces. Janna had learned many new terms from Li Wei and encountered an entirely new set of ideas and theories.

After coming into contact with that knowledge, many questions Janna had rarely considered in the past—and had never been able to understand—suddenly became clear.

Why had the slave system gradually begun to collapse during the late Shuriman Empire?

Why, after Shurima's fall, had it been replaced by one feudal kingdom after another?

Why had the Zaun Kingdom, once ruled by kings and nobles, gradually developed into a commercial city-state controlled by a council of plutocrats?

It seemed that all of it now had an answer.

But...

What use was knowing all that?

Could spreading history that few people cared about really make people follow her, make them believe in her?

As she thought about it, Janna could not help feeling confused again.

So she asked:

"Mr. Summoner, I still don't quite understand. What you're promoting seems more like a... scientific theory than a faith."

"Can merely teaching theories and knowledge truly attract followers?"

"Of course it can." Li Wei's tone was firm. "Only by mastering this knowledge can people understand the past. Only by understanding the past can they see the present clearly."

"What Zaunites lack most right now is thought—they need to seriously consider why Zaun has become what it is today."

"If they can figure that out..."

"Then they are already 'your' followers."

Meanwhile, in the rented room.

Lina read through the article like she was possessed, forgetting both food and sleep.

Now she truly believed that Li Wei had received the blessing of Goddess Janna and been enlightened with wisdom.

Otherwise, with her brother's educational level—he had not even finished prenatal education—there was no way he could have written something like this.

"What exactly happened? Did my brother really meet Janna herself? I'll have to ask him properly when he comes back tomorrow."

Lina worried about Li Wei for quite a while before finally noticing the content of the article itself.

"So there were so many hidden truths in Zaun's past."

Unlike Janna.

Janna existed beyond worldly affairs, her vision encompassing everything. The moment she read the article, she realized that what Li Wei wanted to share was not history itself, but the intellectual tools used to analyze history.

But as a Zaunite struggling to survive in Piltover, Lina's first reaction upon reading it was:

"Those damned Piltovans—so they were rotten from the very beginning!"

What Lina cared about most were the various historical secrets mentioned in the article.

Especially Piltover's dark history.

According to Piltover's official textbooks, Piltover had been founded three hundred years ago by a group of merchants pursuing democracy.

They had worked together to overthrow the evil rule of the Old Zaun Kingdom, establishing Runeterra's first Parliamentary Independent City-State and bringing unprecedented freedom and prosperity to the people of this land.

As for those great merchants who pursued freedom.

How they had accumulated enough immense wealth to overthrow an entire kingdom was only briefly glossed over in the history books.

But with Janna's help, Li Wei wrote the process of their wealth accumulation in crystal-clear detail:

"Amid the rumbling of Steam Machinery, the Zaun Kingdom's limited resources, land, and population were swiftly swallowed by the gradually awakening beast. Naturally, the small and sparsely populated Zaun could not satisfy its endless desires."

"Zaunite merchants, who had made their living from maritime trade since ancient times, soon cast their eyes across the sea toward the Shuriman continent, which had already declined for a thousand years."

"Over the following centuries, Privateer Ships armed with guns and cannons gradually spread across the seas. Coastal Colonial Outposts, like pustules on a smallpox patient, nearly covered the skin of the Shuriman continent."

"Shurima became a place where slave labor was commercially harvested. The native inhabitants were exterminated, enslaved, and buried in mines, factories, ports, and every other place where profit could be squeezed from them."

"The virus gradually spread from Shurima to every corner of the world. Demacia, Noxus, Ionia, Bilgewater—so long as there was profit to be made, merchants dared risk execution to appear on any shore and prey upon any nation."

"..."

Those Ancient Merchant Families, the great fighters who had overthrown the kingdom more than three hundred years ago and still held power in Piltover's council today.

If one dug through their histories of making their fortunes, nearly every line reeked of blood and filth.

"And those Piltovans still have the nerve to call us barbaric? They're the descendants of bandits!"

After reading the article, Lina felt as though she had been deceived her entire life.

She had hated Piltover before, but she had only hated Piltovans for their arrogance and their discrimination against her.

Yet in her heart, Piltover had simply been naturally better than Zaun.

Piltover was so civilized, advanced, and prosperous. Piltovans were so gentle, kind, and elegant.

While Zaunites could kill one another until blood flowed like rivers over a few Silver Wheels, Piltovans could cut the city's main power to save a little bird tangled in electrical wires.

Zaun did not treat human lives as lives at all, while Piltover treated every life as precious.

Perhaps that was why Zaun could never compare to Piltover.

That was what Lina had thought before.

But now... why was Zaun backward? She seemed to have found a new answer to that question:

Piltover's Enforcers still tightly controlled Zaun, and all the capital behind Zaun's factories came from Piltover. Did that count as colonial exploitation?

Her brother had come to Piltover to work as an apprentice. Compared with the slaves plundered three hundred years ago, how much difference was there really?

"It's all the fault of those sanctimonious Piltovans!"

"If Zaun could become independent from Piltover's rule, perhaps we would also have a chance to live like Piltovans."

Lina could not help having that thought.

But after thinking a little further, she felt as though she had overlooked something.

Li Wei's article did not seem to be merely cursing Piltovans and exposing the ugly deeds of those old noble families.

It seemed that through dissecting that real and brutal history, he was teaching something even deeper.

"What is it, exactly..."

Lina still could not figure it out.

At that moment, the novel theories Li Wei had used to analyze history finally began to draw her attention.

She suddenly realized something:

"Ah! It's almost six o'clock."

"Professor Jayce's assessment interview is at six-thirty. If I don't leave now, I'll be late."

Lina suddenly snapped awake.

She had no time to keep thinking.

She hastily stuffed Li Wei's notebook into her schoolbag and hurried out of the house.