Data Three Kingdoms

Data Three Kingdoms was created by San Juan Tian Shu and serialized around 2014 on platforms such as Zongheng Chinese Network. It is an alternate-history web novel that grafts a "game data" premise onto the late Han Three Kingdoms era, running about 2.4–2.5 million characters. The story begins on the eve of the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the first year of Zhongping. Nanhua Lao Xian, who taught Zhang Jiao the Book of Great Peace, regrets having chosen his disciple poorly; he summons the immortals Zuo Ci and Yu Ji, and together they combine the power of three heavenly books to beg Heaven to send down a capable man to set the chaotic era right. A modern young man named Nan Ye, who has just finished the college entrance exam, is thus summoned to the late Han. His only resources are modern objects—a game controller, a phone, a USB drive, a wallet—transformed by the three heavenly books. These objects become his "supernatural props" for surviving the chaotic era, making the Three Kingdoms world appear to him in terms of attributes, stats, and skills. The book unfolds in four parts—"Yellow Turban Rebellion, Famous Scholars in the Wild," "Tiger Crouching in the Court, Nan Ye Raises Troops," "Warlords Contend, Stars Gather from All Sides," and "Generals Vie, the Realm United"—with the protagonist using his data-based abilities to become entangled in the Peach Garden Oath, the melee of warlords, the Battle of Red Cliffs, and other classic threads, gradually building his power through technological props and military strategy, and finally concluding with the pacification of the chaos and his ascension to heaven in broad daylight. The work splices modern technological imagination onto the skeleton of the classic romance, creating a distinctive "data-stream Three Kingdoms" style.