Gu Linchen had a splitting headache. The sound of anguished crying echoed in his ears. He remembered that while he was on his way home from a pre-wedding gathering for a friend’s wedding, he had been in a car accident. A large truck had suddenly veered off course and rushed toward him. Who was crying so desperately for him? It wasn’t the voice of his parents, and these voices were unfamiliar to him. He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t respond.

“My son! How can I live without you? Wuu~ wuu~” A rough, hoarse woman’s voice wailed.

“Doctor Li, please, I beg you, take another look at my son! Please, take a look at him again. Wuu~ He can’t be gone, what will we do if he’s really gone?” A middle-aged man’s anxious voice pleaded.

“Sigh! Gu Dalan, get up quickly, get up! It’s not that I don’t want to help, but I’m powerless! This child, Chen, has a serious head injury, and he’s been running a high fever for three days straight. I think you should prepare for his passing.” The doctor’s voice faded, followed by the man’s as they grew distant.

“No~ no~ my son, you can’t leave me, wake up, wake up! If you wake up, I’ll give you all the silver in the house! Wuu wuu~”

Gu Linchen heard these sounds and felt confused. Who were they crying for? Their wails annoyed him. He tried to speak, to tell them to stop crying, but his mouth wouldn’t move, his hands wouldn’t lift, and his eyes wouldn’t open. The only thing that worked was his brain, and it felt awful.

After a long pause, using all his strength, Gu Linchen slowly opened his heavy eyes. He saw a dilapidated wooden floor, a straw roof, a dim room with several old stools. Where was this place? Was it some ancient, ruined town? He looked down and saw two people in tattered clothes, both gaunt and thin, with sunken eyes, staring at him with a hunger in their eyes, as if they might devour him.

His mother reacted first, “My son, you’re finally awake! Do you know how scared I was? Old man, old man, Chen’er is awake, my son is awake!” She couldn’t believe her eyes. Just moments ago, Dr. Li from the village had said her son wouldn’t make it. She thought her world had collapsed, but now, in a blink, her precious son was awake. Without thinking, she threw herself at the bed to hug him.

Gu Linchen was shocked by the sudden embrace, unable to react at first. Then, he saw an older man, probably in his fifties, stumble into the room. When he saw Gu Linchen awake, his face broke into a joyful smile, wiping away tears. “It’s good you’re awake, good you’re awake.” Turning to the young boy next to him, he said, “Feng, quickly go bring Chen’er’s medicine.”

The man rushed to the bedside, and looking at the scene, his heavy heart lightened.

Gu Linchen, struggling for breath in his mother’s tight embrace, weakly pushed her away. However, due to his injuries, he had little strength, and she sensed it, loosening her grip. Gu Linchen looked at the young man, Feng, who hurriedly ran out of the house, with a small child following him. He hadn’t noticed the child earlier—there was a two- or three-year-old in the room.

The young boy, named Xiao Feng, had no idea how he ran out of the room. He was in a panic after seeing his husband lying on the bed, nearly lifeless, wishing he would pass away so that he and the boy would no longer suffer from constant beatings. When Dr. Li said there was no hope for Gu Linchen, his heart was in turmoil. What would they do if Gu Linchen really passed away? But when he saw Gu Linchen’s eyes open, he didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

Xiao Feng’s son, Xige’er, clung to his mother’s clothes, and Xiao Feng quickly grabbed the medicine from the stove and took the boy’s hand to return to the room.

Gu Linchen’s father, seeing Feng entering with the medicine, immediately ordered, “Feng, quickly feed Chen’er the medicine. Old woman, step aside so Feng can get through.”

Gu Linchen’s mother hurriedly stood up and stepped aside. “Ah~ Feng, quickly come over, and Xige’er, come to Grandma.” The old woman said joyfully, her heart finally at ease now that her son was awake.

Gu Linchen felt awkward as Feng, the boy, sat by his bed, propping him up against himself, and brought the medicine bowl to his lips. Although Gu Linchen was the heir in A City, managing some industries, he had never been used to being served by others in this way.

Gu Linchen said, “I can do it myself.” He took the medicine bowl. He wondered if he could even drink this dark, bitter concoction. Would it poison him? He really didn’t want to drink it.

Gu Linchen’s mother, noticing that he was staring at the bowl without drinking, urged, “Chen’er, hurry up and drink it. This is good for your health. Dr. Li’s medicine is very effective. With such serious injuries, you’ve already started to improve after taking it.”

Although Gu Linchen didn’t understand what was going on, he sensed that they had no ill intentions. Quietly, he drank it in one gulp. It was truly bitter. He wondered what it had been made of.

After drinking, he handed the bowl back to Feng. “Thank you!” he said, but suddenly froze. His voice—this wasn’t his voice. Was that the sound he made just now? It sounded so young.

Feng was also stunned. When had Gu Linchen become so polite? Normally, he wouldn’t even spare a word and would have acted much worse.

Gu Linchen looked around at everything unfamiliar, including his own dark, long, rough hands. These weren’t his hands. Although he was thirty, living in a privileged environment had never left him with such rough, farmhand hands. No, they weren’t even as good as those of a farmer. He had seen much of the world, but this situation was still overwhelming.

Gu Linchen’s father said, “Chen’er has just woken up and his body isn’t fully recovered. Let him rest. We’ll leave for now.”

Gu Linchen’s father, noticing his son’s confused gaze, moving between them and his pale, bloodless face, thought to himself, ‘Has he been knocked senseless?’

Once everyone had left the room, Gu Linchen stared blankly at the ceiling. ‘Where is this? What’s going on?‘ Because of the wound on his head, he soon closed his eyes and fell asleep.

It felt like a long dream. In the dream, Gu Linchen saw someone with the same name as himself. This person had been born in a poor family and, when he was just a baby, an itinerant monk had predicted that he would become a great general, with an unlimited future. His parents believed the monk’s words and treated him with great care. However, the family was poor; his father worked from dawn to dusk in the fields and, in his spare time, would carry heavy bundles into town to earn a few copper coins for his schooling.

Because of the excessive pampering, Gu Linchen had never learned to be good. He started stealing and being mischievous, hanging out with troublemakers in town. At sixteen, he was expelled from school by his teacher and never learned anything useful at home either. When his father came to his senses, he realized the monk’s words were lies—his son would never achieve greatness and was on his way to prison.

In order to correct his son’s behavior, Gu Linchen’s parents thought it was time for him to settle down and get married. They believed that once he had a family, he would calm down. However, they were poor. All the money they had was spent on his education, so they could not afford a proper dowry for a girl. Thus, they decided to find a suitable boy to marry. Unfortunately, boys were harder to marry off due to their lower status, which is why boys had it harder than girls.

After much difficulty, they spent six hundred wen to find a suitable boy from a distant village, Qiu Jia Village. The reason they didn’t look for a match closer to home was because of Gu Linchen’s notorious reputation. No one in the neighboring villages would agree to marry their daughter to him. Feng’s family was also poor, with two older brothers, a younger brother, and a sister, and there was not enough food for everyone. When it came time for marriage, the family had to marry him off, using the bride price to marry off the older brothers.

The man who married a wife didn’t treat him well, often beating him with fists and kicks. Later, after having a child, whenever things didn’t go well or he was in a bad mood, he would even hit the child. His parents couldn’t control him, and when he went out to hang out with bad friends, he would disappear for ten days or half a month. This time, after causing trouble, he suffered a head injury and a persistent high fever, and he died. When he woke up, he found himself in this body.

Gu Linchen woke up, realizing that he had really crossed over into a cliché story. He, the president of a multinational corporation, had ended up in the body of a thug. Gu Linchen thought to himself, ‘What did I do in my past life to deserve this? Why is this happening to me?’

The answer came in silence. He had crossed over to a time period that wasn’t in history, called the Xia Dynasty. In this world, besides men and women, there was also a gender called “Ger.”^[1]Males that can get pregnant The difference between Ger and a man was that Ger’s had a red mole behind their ears, were smaller and weaker than men, but could still bear children. Aside from that, they were no different from men.

Gu Linchen had married a Ger and had a child with him. In the blink of an eye, the once unattached, wealthy bachelor became a man with a wife and a child. In his past life, Gu Linchen had been single for thirty years, busy with his family business, never experiencing love, and now he was suddenly a father. How was he supposed to get along with them? Even with his expertise in business, this was no easy situation. However, since fate had brought him here, he had to accept it! If the heavens had allowed him to live, he should cherish life.

Gu Linchen sighed, “Ugh, my head hurts.” He shook his head, lay back down, and tried to sleep again. The hard wooden plank was uncomfortable, and he decided to find something softer tomorrow.

As dawn broke, he heard some movement outside. Was there a thief? With this shabby house, there was hardly anything to steal.

He heard his mother’s voice, “Be careful on the road, I packed some flatbreads for you. The midday bread is in the bag.”

It was the old man’s voice responding. It seemed that the father had woken up early to go to the town to work. Since it wasn’t the busy season for farming, there wasn’t much to do at home, so the old man went to the town to find some work. He wasn’t skilled, so he could only carry bags at the docks to earn a bit of money for the household.

This was Dongling Village, under the jurisdiction of Lin’an Town, in the Nanjun Prefecture. It took about half an hour to travel to the town by ox cart, but Gu Linchen’s father couldn’t bear to spend a copper coin, so he must have walked.

Gu Linchen looked at all this and thought to himself that he needed to get better quickly. He had to change the situation of this family. Actually, the original father was only around forty, but the hardships of life had made him look like he was in his fifties. The mother was even younger, but looked almost fifty. Since he had come to this family, he was now part of it. He would make up for the mistakes of his predecessor and support this family.

Gu Linchen stared out of the window, lost in thought when the door suddenly creaked open, and a small head peeked in.

Gu Linchen said, “Little one, you’re up so early?”

Seeing that he was awake, the child quickly turned and ran off.

Lhaozi’s Note: hello, Thankyou for reading this one, Only read all my translation in Shanghai Fantasy Website only. Again thankyou! Support me by buying me a Ko-fi, click the buy me a ko-fi in my profile. Thankyou!