Shawn Irwin turned her head and immediately understood Isaac Hall's intention. She calmly waved at those few people, signaling them to take care of the wounded, then turned back around, persistently prodding the man lying on the beach with the tip of her gun, insisting on an answer.

It was precisely this calmness that made Isaac Hall resentful. After all, these people had fought desperately for this young woman, yet now she so coldly disregarded their wounds and lives, not even sparing them an extra glance.

However, those men who had lost too much blood didn’t seem to have as many thoughts as Isaac Hall. At Shawn Irwin's command, they immediately showed expressions of heartfelt gratitude. That genuine thankfulness, seen through Isaac Hall's eyes, made him both pity their misfortune and feel angry at their lack of resistance.

The severely wounded men respectfully kowtowed, then silently collapsed to the ground. The remaining three or four men hurried to help them, while the burliest among them stepped forward, knife in hand, standing guard behind Shawn Irwin, glaring fiercely at Isaac Hall.

A burly man?

This counts as burly?

Isaac Hall glanced incredulously at the man with a face full of flesh, whose body was broader than it was tall, then looked at the Xianbei guards busy tending to their companions, and immediately understood why Shawn Irwin kept asking questions.

These Xianbei men were all robust, every movement revealing the experience of countless battles. For them to have protected Shawn Irwin and broken through the siege, they must be the finest warriors of the Yuwen Xianbei tribe. Yet now, the strongest among them stood before Isaac Hall, putting on a fierce display, but failed to give Isaac Hall any real sense of intimidation.

Because they were too short! Even the tallest among them, standing behind Shawn Irwin, was still half a head shorter than Isaac Hall, who was just over 1.8 meters tall. This gave Isaac Hall a sense of looking down on them.

Previously, in order to participate in sailing competitions, Isaac Hall had undergone years of physical training. To endure a month-long solo voyage at sea, he couldn’t afford to carry an ounce of extra fat. In terms of agility and strength, these Xianbei men likely had no advantage over him.

Suddenly, Isaac Hall recalled a recent (was it really that recent?) news report he had seen. The report stated: According to statistics, the average height of high school students in Beijing is now over seven centimeters taller than those from twenty years ago, reaching about 1.73 meters. The report analyzed that this was the result of adequate nutrition. High schoolers from twenty years ago were born in an era of material scarcity and most were malnourished, while today’s students grew up in times of abundance. This alone accounted for the seven-centimeter difference in height. The report also cited several archaeological examples, saying: In the Han Dynasty, our ancestors’ average height was around 1.6 meters, and even at the beginning of the Liberation, the average height of Chinese people was just over 1.6 meters.

The northern nomads were tall, but this was only relative. They might be half a head or even a head taller than the Jin people, but compared to modern people, there was still a clear gap.

With Isaac Hall's current height, he appeared as a terrifying giant in the eyes of the Yuwen Xianbei. Coupled with his clothing and appearance, so different from those of this era, he became a symbol of another ethnicity altogether. Thus, the desperate Shawn Irwin insisted on questioning his origins, regardless of her subordinates’ injuries or deaths, in order to determine whether he was friend or foe.

“No wonder these Xianbei pointed at me and threatened the Murong Xianbei cavalry to dismount,” Isaac Hall thought, and suddenly understood how this group had managed to intimidate the superior Murong cavalry.

These people were truly adept at seizing opportunities. His sudden appearance had been interpreted by them as the arrival of Yuwen Xianbei reinforcements. Combined with his intimidating height, his seemingly miraculous “archery” skills, and the strange little sailboat, all of this shrouded him in an air of mystery in the eyes of the Murong cavalry, forcing them to submit.

Truly, though I did not kill Boren, Boren died because of me...

After a moment’s thought, Isaac Hall used his spear to write on the sand the name of a people that would later spread across the world: “I am a Han.”

Isaac Hall had decided that from now on, he would use this resounding title as his own origin.

Though Han had fallen, in the eyes of the nomads, the Jin people had become synonymous with cowardice and timidity. Only the great Han had once struck fear into the grasslands. Not long ago, Liu Yuan of the Xiongnu had founded a nation and chosen “Han” as its name, allowing the Xiongnu to call themselves “Han.” So why shouldn’t Isaac Hall be entitled to call himself “Han”?

Shawn Irwin could never have imagined that, in later generations, there would be a people who identified themselves as “Han.” At this time, their official designation was “Jin people.” Later, they would be called Tang people, Song people, Ming people. Occasionally, when Han and non-Han regimes coexisted, they would be called “southerners.”

She looked down at the characters written in the sand, unable to recall any “Han” that had appeared since the fall of the Xiongnu Han state. Judging by Isaac Hall’s appearance and dress, he didn’t look like a Xiongnu. As for the former Eastern Han dynasty—it had fallen over a hundred years ago, and the man before her could not possibly be over a hundred years old.

She could only try to recall the names of the countries from that time.