The Jianghua River wound from north-west to south-east like a serpent, coiling through lofty mountains and steep ridges.
At noon, sunlight draped itself across the river like gauze.
Dressed in thin clothing, Gu Yun stood shivering on the riverbank, wondering whether jumping in from here might let him return home.
After receiving the admission notice from his dream university, Gu Yun had enthusiastically dragged his friends off to a tourist attraction to go white-water rafting. At a sharp bend, the raft overturned.
He managed to save himself with a frantic doggy-paddle, swimming out of the river. The moment he looked up, he realised the surroundings had completely changed.
He had transmigrated.
He had transmigrated into a dynasty that did not exist in history: the Xuan Dynasty.
At first, he did not know he had transmigrated into the Xuan Dynasty. It was only later, after the local authorities arrested him as a member of the White Python Army and threw him into prison, that he learned where he was.
The thirty-first year of Anqing in the Xuan Dynasty was plagued with deep-rooted corruption and countless lingering problems.
The White Python Army had originally been a bandit gang occupying Fengyun Mountain, three hundred li from this region. One day, their leader dreamt of a great white python that could speak human language. The python told him:
“Heaven burns with wrath, the people seethe with resentment, and the dynasty has rotted beyond salvation. The Mandate of Heaven is clear. You have been chosen to destroy the old and establish the new, cleanse the realm, and restore peace beneath the heavens.”
Thus, he proclaimed himself King Zhao, named his forces the White Python Army, and began burning, killing, and looting everywhere to amass capital in preparation for rebellion.
The county magistrate arrested Gu Yun and demanded that he reveal the White Python Army’s stronghold so that the magistrate could claim the credit for himself.
How could Gu Yun possibly know where the White Python Army’s base was? At the time, he could not even understand the language spoken by the people of this era.
After enduring two days of beatings, he finally began to understand them.
He immediately nodded and claimed he would lead them to the stronghold. Then, while they were not paying attention on the road, he ran away.
He hid deep within the mountains. When hungry, he gnawed on wild fruit; when thirsty, he drank dew. Along the way, he even stole food and clothing left in temporary shelters by hunters. He remained hidden for over half a month and only dared emerge after hearing that the imperial court had completely annihilated the White Python Army.
He eventually made his way to another county town, hoping to find work. Having become both illiterate and half-mute in this world, he could not find any easy work at all. As for pure manual labour, his body was no longer capable of enduring it. Even if his health had been the same as before, he suspected he still would not have managed. After all, being a greenhouse-raised child of modern society was not an undeserved description.
Gu Yun wanted to sneak into a school and secretly learn, but he nearly earned himself another beating.
In this era, he had no household registration and counted as a wandering vagrant.
With nowhere left to turn, he went to the yamen* to register for a household record, hoping to receive a plot of land that he could lease out in exchange for a meagre income, even if it meant bearing heavy taxes.
(*TN: A yamen (衙门) was the traditional local government office in imperial China. It functioned as the administrative centre for officials such as magistrates. Inside a yamen, officials would handle local administration (taxes, land records, census), judge legal cases (it also served as a local court), manage policing and public order and receive petitions from common people.)
Only after the clerk finished registering him did the man casually inform him that there was no land left to distribute and tell him to move aside.
With every path to survival cut off, Gu Yun fell into utter despair.
Crossing mountains and ridges, he arrived at the riverbank and began contemplating the seemingly absurd idea of throwing himself into the river in the hope of returning home.
His stomach cramped painfully with hunger. Gu Yun no longer had the energy to think. Lowering his eyes, he leapt down.
At that instant, time seemed to stretch endlessly.
His body lost its support first, then it felt as though some invisible force had seized hold of him, dragging him swiftly down into the river.
Icy water surged in from every direction, pouring into his nose and mouth and scalding his throat with pain. Breathing became difficult. In the dim underwater world, apart from the dull roar of water, he could hear nothing else.
His heart pounded violently inside his chest, and at the same time, terror rose from the depths of his soul like an overwhelming tide.
He could not go home.
He was going to die.
Gu Yun desperately swam upwards, but his sense of direction had long since collapsed. Unable to distinguish up from down or left from right, he flailed frantically in panic, trying to seize hold of anything and break through the water’s surface.
The current slipped through his fingers. He grasped nothing and was swept southward by the river.
To the south lay a rocky shoal. Gu Yun was stopped there by a massive boulder. Clinging to the stone, he struggled towards the shore. His strength drained away rapidly during the struggle, and his consciousness began to blur. Panting heavily and exerting every last ounce of strength, he finally managed to lift his head above the water.
The instant air flooded back into his lungs felt like being reborn.
He gasped greedily for breath. Across the vast expanse of water, the damp river wind wailed as it pierced straight through his clothes, making him feel as though cold iron had been draped over his body, leaving his limbs stiff and numb. Grief welled up within him. Tasting salt on his lips, he wiped away tears while cursing this cannibalistic ancient world, shivering violently as he staggered towards the shore.
The bank was only two or three metres away, yet the distance felt impossibly far…
“Splash!”
The water suddenly churned, sending spray flying everywhere.
Gu Yun’s heavy feet, stumbling through the murky riverbed, caught against something soft. Startled and completely unprepared, he pitched forward into the water and swallowed a mouthful of filthy river water.
He nearly lacked the strength to climb back up again.
After immense effort, he finally managed to stand once more. When he saw clearly what had tripped him, he was so frightened he nearly collapsed back into the water.
The thing he had stumbled over was actually a person.
