CHAPTER 1

Zhuang Yan went into the mountains to look for herbal medicine and accidentally fell off a cliff. When he woke up again, he found himself on the edge of a big river, beside him was a young man with a face as black as a pot.

The boy was dressed in a strange way, and his thin white arms were still exposed. Remembering that it was the middle of winter, Zhuang Yan was ready to take off a piece of clothing and give it to the boy to wear, but as soon as he did so, the boy ran away like his life depended on it.

As soon as the young man ran away, Zhuang Yan naturally had to chase after him. After catching up with him, he had to make a lot of effort and energy to get the boy to put on his clothes, and only then did he realize that the boy was wary of him.

Zhuang Yan looked all around and really didn’t know where to go home. This place was really unfamiliar to him, so he used the candy he brought with him to bribe the black-faced boy to take him home.

After returning home with the boy, Zhuang Yan realized that the boy lived alone and that his house was ‘terribly poor’, he had never seen a house that fit the term ‘have nothing but the bare walls in one’s house’ so well.

Zhuang Yan had a low fever and after begging the teenager to boil hot water, he made a shakedown on the floor and slept. Afterwards, under the effect of the medicine, he soon fell asleep, but he did not sleep comfortably, and he had many strange and bizarre dreams.

The following day, Zhuang Yan was awakened by a loud noise. He was so frightened that he opened his eyes and saw many people standing in front of him, all of them with long hair and dressed in plain cotton clothing, like farmers in ancient times.

“Did you see it?! That ugly guy has really led a man home!” A young man with dangling eyes and the shape of a monkey jumped out at once and pointed at the two men in the room and spoke.

 “A Ger, pick up a man and take him home, really inappropriate (shameless)!”

Zhuang Yan rubbed his eyes and woke up, then got up from the floor, because he slept on the floor, his hands and feet were a bit cold, and now even his face looked a bit numb in signs.

Looking at the group of people who come with bad intentions in front of him, Zhuang Yan did not dare to make a sound as he like, he always felt that the situation in front of him was somewhat like his dream last night, and now he could not even tell if the scene in front of him was his dream or not.

Zhuang Yan rubbed his eyes. His eyes scanned the group of people and his surroundings. The clear field of view in front of him indeed did not look like a dream. An absurd thought suddenly grew in his heart …

The backward village, the young man with long hair, the old and dilapidated house, and the young man’s ignorant reaction to worldly matters….Fear immediately struck him as last night’s uneasiness and doubt seemed to become true. He then suddenly felt that perhaps this was not as simple as an ordinary backward mountain village.

“Who are you? What is your full name?” As Zhuang Yan was calculating the situation in his mind, a middle-aged man in his forties spoke up towards Zhuang Yan.

Just as Zhuang Yan was about to reply, the frightened teenager in bed finally got out of bed and rushed to the village head , gesturing at him for quite a long time. 

The teenager had not spoken at all since yesterday, and now that he had met the villager of his own village yet he was still in this state, only then Zhuang Yan was sure that this child was actually a mute. A few more sympathies arose in his heart, a young mute who had lost his family. Oh how difficult his life must be ah. 

The look on his face was even worse, Zhuang Yan himself had lost both parents since he was a child, but both his relatives and neighbors in the village had been very kind to him and had always taken care of him, and if it hadn’t been for their care, he might not even have been able to attend high school.

Immersed in the memories of the past, Zhuang Yan was lost in thought for a moment, and it was only when a deep and resounding voice rang out that he came back to his senses.

“Young man, why don’t you answer the question? Where exactly did you come from? And who is your full name?”

“Excuse me.” When Zhuang Yan saw the middle-aged man, who was quite respectable, frowning at him, he hurriedly apologized and then quickly analyzed in his head the situation in front of him, preparing to take the initiative in order to confirm his suspicions.

“Dare I ask this big brother, where is this place again?” Zhuang Yan had respect on his face towards the middle-aged man, but he was not afraid, and his tone of questioning was also very common, as if he was really just a man asking for directions.

“This is Shang He Village, I am the village headman here, I am asking you too, who are you?” It turned out that the middle-aged man was the chief of this village, and this place was Shang He Village.

Shang He Village? Zhuang Yan searched his mind for villages near his home and confirmed that there was no such place. His heart at this moment had turned from fear to confusion, a kind of confusion of being in a foreign place and not knowing what to do.

“Say ah! Who the hell are you?!”

“Is it an army deserter (fugitive soldier)? Or a corvée? I’ve heard that rank-and-file soldiers who go to war are dressed in imposing clothes, I’ve never seen this kind of cloth, maybe he’s really an army deserter.”

“Isn’t it exactly like that? He could really be an army deserter, not like a runaway corvée.”

When Zhuang Yan was at a loss what to do, the words he heard in his ears directly made him despair. 

A fugitive soldier? A corvée? It turned out that he was really not in his original world anymore, and this was not a backward rural village, but a mountain village in a different world.

“I don’t know.” Accepting reality was for later, living what in front of him was the most important thing.

Zhuang Yan didn’t know if the civil registration system here was perfect or not, if his random lies and fabricated identity would be discovered, and with his short hair and strange attire, would he be arrested as a spy of an enemy country? Therefore he could only play dumb now.

“I don’t know where I come from, I only know that I used to live in a place with charming scenery where rare treasures are everywhere. There were bright gems everywhere there, but the old man who adopted me a few days ago said that I could leave, so I fell asleep and when I woke up again, it was that little brother who was looking after me.”

Zhuang Yan was by the river when he woke up. He knew that the ancient people were most reverent towards ghosts and gods; spirits (supernatural beings), and the place he described was very similar to the legendary Palace of Dragon King at the bottom of the Eastern Sea. In ancient times, if there was a big flood or a big drought every year, then it means that probably some villagers would offer or use children to sacrifice to the river god.

As Zhuang Yan talked nonsense, he carefully observed the reactions of the village people around him. Zhuang Yan saw that those people’s faces were filled with suspicion, pleasantly surprised, greed and finally fear. Those expressions and changes in their faces were all in Zhuang Yan’s eyes.

“Wan Ge er, where exactly did you find this person yesterday?” After hearing Zhuang Yan’s words, the village chief looked at the black-faced boy in front of him with a dark face.

As soon as the village chief’s questioning words left his mouth, a steady stream of villagers spoke up too, asking where exactly the teenager had picked up this strange man yesterday and taken him home.

“Wan Tianning! You, why don’t you talk ah, are you going to keep pretending to be mute? You could talk when you were a child, right? Quickly talk to me!”

It turned out that the young man who saved Zhuang Yan was named Wan Tianning, as the villagers pressed him, he kept gesturing in a hurry, and even stood in front of Zhuang Yan, holding him so he could block them for him.

“Wan Ge er, get out of the way, I have something to ask him.” As the village chief spoke, he even began to move his hands, directly pulling away the skinny young man standing in front of Zhuang Yan. It was also at this time that Zhuang Yan realized that the village chief’s face, no, not only the village chief’s face, it seemed that those village people had some anxious looks on their faces.

“Young man, then do you know what your name is?”

“My surname is Zhuang, my name is Zhuang Yan.” In the unfamiliar place, he has chosen to pretend not to know. Zhuang Yan didn’t want to make up his name. After all, there are many people with the same name and same surname in this world, he would not need to hide it.

Zhuang Yan generously said his name, but found that the village chief quickly changed his face, and the faces of the villagers behind him also became complicated.

“Your surname is Zhuang? Called Zhuang Yan? Are you sure?” The village chief suddenly became excited, and surprisingly pulled Zhuang Yan to take a closer look,so after looking at Zhuang Yan back and front again, he actually seemed to whimper twice.

“Ai!” The chief village gave Zhuang Yan another look with a complicated expression, then waved his hand at the villager behind him and at those people who had just come in fiercely but quickly walked away with a guilty conscience.

Looking at those people who came and left in a hurry, Zhuang Yan didn’t know what he had said and why those people reacted that way. However, he hurriedly followed them out, and followed them for a while to make sure that they had really left before he secretly cursed in his heart as he looked at those people’s back figures.

These people were just like psychos, coming in the morning and breaking someone’s front door, and then running away!