Chapter 14

When it came to the issue of identity, Nian Qi was surprisingly more relaxed than Ruan Qing. He said, “If it turns out there’s no solution, there’s no need to worry. I’ll just stay cautious and avoid doing anything illegal that would attract the police.”

“It’s not that simple,” Ruan Qing replied. “So many things in modern society are linked to an ID card. You’ll soon realize how inconvenient it is to live without one.”

Ruan Qing had many plans for Nian Qi—she wanted to take him on a plane and a high-speed train! She couldn’t wait to see the look on the face of someone from ancient times when they experienced flying for the first time.

She put away Nian Qi’s pouch and glanced at her phone. Earlier, while she was in the bedroom, she had ordered food delivery, but it wouldn’t arrive for a while. In the meantime, she grabbed a few large bags and began packing up Zhao Hao’s shoes—there were quite a lot of them.

Nian Qi stood by, arms crossed, watching. Zhao Hao had mentioned his shoes several times before, but Nian Qi didn’t understand modern shoe obsessions. He couldn’t grasp why Zhao Hao was so fixated on them and only commented, “They look pretty new.”

“Throw them all out!” Ruan Qing huffed, her anger rekindled. She stuffed the shoes into the bags and told Nian Qi, “This afternoon, I’ll take you to buy new shoes and underwear.”

Nian Qi didn’t mind. In the past, for the sake of business, he had disguised himself in all sorts of ways—even as a night soil collector, carrying buckets of human waste and lying in wait along the paths of his targets, reeking from head to toe. Compared to that, wearing someone else’s old clothes or shoes was hardly an issue. But since Ruan Qing insisted on getting him new ones, he wasn’t about to refuse. He smiled and thanked her.

He had now pieced things together—Zhao Hao was Ruan Qing’s lover, or rather, ex-lover. There was only one bedroom in this apartment and a single large bed. Zhao Hao’s clothes, both underwear and outerwear, were in Ruan Qing’s closet, clearly indicating that they had lived together. But this was Ruan Qing’s personal matter, and Nian Qi wasn’t one to pry.

When Ruan Qing stood up, he bent down immediately to help her carry the bags—Zhao Hao had at least a dozen pairs of shoes, packed into several large bags, which would have been too much for Ruan Qing to handle alone in one trip.

The more Ruan Qing looked at Nian Qi, the more she liked him—tall, handsome, skilled in martial arts, and now showing good sense and attentiveness.

“Where should I throw these?” Nian Qi asked. He was curious about how waste was handled in such a high-rise building with so many residents. If all the garbage were left to pile up, wouldn’t the hallway stink? But clearly, the corridors were spotless, not at all as he had imagined. It seemed that adjusting to this new world would require learning every little detail step by step.

Ruan Qing took him to see the garbage room. “The trash goes here, and cleaners come to collect it every day.”

The garbage room was located near the stairwell. Nian Qi studied the stairwell closely.

“This is the stairwell,” Ruan Qing explained. “It connects all the floors. Normally, people use the elevator, but if the power goes out or there’s a fire, you take the stairs.”

Nian Qi nodded thoughtfully.

On their way back, they passed the elevator, and Ruan Qing took the opportunity to give him some fire safety advice. She explained that during a fire, elevators shouldn’t be used and pointed out the fire hydrant nearby. “That faucet works like the one at home—turn it, and water will come out.”

There was so much to teach Nian Qi, and all of it felt so trivial and tedious.

When they got back to the apartment, they changed their shoes. With the food delivery still en route, Ruan Qing pulled Nian Qi into the kitchen.

“Let me go over two important things you need to remember about the house,” she said.

The first thing was the natural gas. She hadn’t had time to explain it that morning, but now was the perfect chance to teach him.

Nian Qi learned how to operate the gas stove and nodded approvingly. “This is very convenient.” While lighting and turning off the stove was simple—something even a child could do—the real lesson was about safety. Ruan Qing explained that the two most dangerous things in the house were gas and electricity.

After teaching him how to safely light and turn off the stove, she took him around the apartment to show him all the power outlets and extension cords.

“You mentioned this morning that I shouldn’t touch these,” Nian Qi recalled.

“Right. Electricity is the same thing as lightning. If your body comes into contact with it, it’s like getting struck by lightning.” She held up a plug and explained, “The human body, metal, and water all conduct electricity. That’s why only the metal parts of the plug are exposed, while the wires inside are made of copper and covered with this outer layer. This coating is an insulator—it blocks electricity from escaping. So when you plug or unplug something, never touch the metal part. And don’t touch anything electrical with wet hands—if there’s a short, it could kill you instantly.”

Her explanations were long-winded, but Nian Qi didn’t mind at all. Finding himself a thousand years in the future was an extraordinary experience, and he knew he had to learn everything from scratch. As someone who had lived dangerously and often had to be meticulous to survive, he paid close attention to every detail, absorbing the lessons carefully. Ruan Qing was quite pleased with his eagerness to learn.

Just then, the food delivery arrived. Ruan Qing brought it inside and said, “Time to eat.”

She had ordered three dishes—men usually ate more, and she remembered how Zhao Hao would still be hungry if she ordered too little. To accommodate potential differences in taste, she kept the selection simple, with only one spicy dish. Pointing to it, she warned, “This one is spicy.” Then she asked, “Did you have spicy food in your time? Did you use dogwood berries to make things spicy?”

“We had ginger for heat, mustard for sharpness, and sometimes dogwood berries. But when I ate spicy food, it was usually spiced pig’s feet.”

Nian Qi studied the dish in front of him, curious. “What makes this one spicy? What’s that red stuff?”

He took a bite, and his expression immediately shifted, becoming difficult to describe. Ruan Qing struggled to suppress her laughter and quickly fetched two cans of cold cola from the fridge, handing him one. “Here, drink this—it’ll help with the heat.”

After a sip, Nian Qi clicked his tongue and exclaimed, “This spice is something else!”

Ruan Qing explained, “This kind of chili only arrived in China about six or seven hundred years after your time.”

She continued, “It’s not just technology that has advanced, many foods, ingredients, and spices we use today were introduced in the past few centuries. Don’t worry, you’ll have time to try them all.”

Nian Qi smiled. “Alright.”

Though the spice had caught him off guard the first time, he couldn’t resist going back for another bite of the dish. This time, prepared for the heat, he handled it much better—especially with the cold cola on hand to cool things down. Ruan Qing watched in amazement as the spicy dish disappeared faster than the other two.

“Not bad,” she thought. “At least we won’t have any problems eating together in the future.”

After they finished eating, Ruan Qing gathered up the food containers.

“Where’s the tablecloth?” Nian Qi asked, offering to help clean the table.

Ruan Qing handed him a disposable cleaning cloth. “This is disposable, use it once, then throw it away.”

Nian Qi asked curiously, “So many things are thrown away after a single use. Do most people live like this?”

“Pretty much,” Ruan Qing replied. “Not everyone uses disposable cleaning cloths, though. Some people still prefer regular cloths, or they use old towels or clothes as rags.”

“I just find it convenient,” Ruan Qing said. “It saves time to use something once and throw it away. But many disposable items like tissues or paper cups are pretty standard in most urban households.”

Nian Qi added, “And things like cola cans and snack wrappers,none of those can be reused either.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Doesn’t that mean the entire building produces a huge amount of trash every day? And with multiple buildings like this in a single complex, and a whole city full of them, the amount of garbage must be…” His voice trailed off as he imagined the scale, gasping slightly in disbelief.

Ruan Qing laughed. “You’re absolutely right. But don’t stress, managing the city’s waste disposal and treatment is the government’s responsibility. On a smaller scale, like in this complex, the property management company handles it. Residents pay maintenance fees, and the property management takes care of cleaning, repairs, and security. We don’t need to worry about it.”

Nian Qi sighed softly, “Everyone has their role to play.”

Ruan Qing teased, “It’s more complicated than your old self-sustaining way of life, isn’t it?”

“It sounds vast and complex,” Nian Qi admitted, “but it seems to run smoothly.”

“Exactly,” Ruan Qing agreed. “For individuals, as long as you have money, there’s a solution for everything. For example, since I don’t cook, I can just order takeout and have food delivered. And as long as residents pay their fees, the property management company keeps the community clean, ensures security, and even manages residents’ vehicles.”

With both of them working together, the dining table was cleared in no time. When Ruan Qing got up to take out the trash, Nian Qi offered, “Let me do it.”

This—this was much better than living with Zhao Hao! The pleasant sense of ease made her feel entirely at peace.

For the first time in his life, Nian Qi independently took out the trash. When he returned, he heard a strange sound coming from the study. It was hard to describe, metallic but not exactly like a weapon. The unfamiliar sound had an unsettling chill to it. Alarmed, he silently moved from the entryway to the study door in a heartbeat.

Inside, Ruan Qing was watching something on the computer screen. Sensing movement from the corner of her eye, she looked up, startled. “How do you move so quietly?”

Seeing that she was safe, Nian Qi paused and asked, “What’s that sound?”

“Oh, that?” Ruan Qing pointed to the machine in the corner. “That’s a printer, it prints text onto paper.”

Then she asked curiously, “You probably had movable type printing back in your time, right?”

Nian Qi frowned. “What’s that?”

Ruan Qing looked surprised. “So you were still using woodblock printing?”

“Books were always printed with woodblocks,” Nian Qi replied, perplexed.

“Well,” Ruan Qing shrugged, “in parallel timelines, some things might develop differently. Or maybe movable type existed in your time, but it hadn’t become widespread yet. When it was first invented, it was probably only used by scholars and the printing industry—it wouldn’t have affected ordinary people much.”

“In short, woodblock printing evolved over a thousand years into what we have now.” She grinned. “It’s like how horse-drawn carts developed into cars over time.”

Nian Qi nodded thoughtfully. “The form changes, but the essence stays the same.”

By now, he had walked over to the desk, his gaze naturally drawn to the sheet of paper slowly emerging from the printer. “Do you need to print things at home, too?”

After spending the morning watching television, Nian Qi had already learned that modern text is written horizontally, from left to right. Although he was unfamiliar with simplified characters and only skimmed the paper briefly, his sharp eyes quickly grasped some of its contents.

“Miss Ruan?” he asked, turning toward her. “Is this for me?”

Ruan Qing awkwardly held up the document—a grandly titled “Ancient People’s Modernization Learning Plan” feeling her toes curl in embarrassment inside her slippers. “Uh, yes, sort of,” she stammered. “There’s just so much you need to learn. I was worried I might miss something, and if you went out and interacted with people without knowing certain things, it could get… awkward. So I thought I’d make a detailed plan.”

Nian Qi gazed at her intently for a long moment.

“Last night, I asked why you’re helping me like this,” he said softly. “But you didn’t give me a clear answer.”

“Miss Ruan,” he continued, his voice steady, “can you tell me now?”