Chapter One: The Boy from the Mire

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Dawn broke gently, the crowing of roosters echoing without pause. In the northwest corner of Muddy Village stood a small courtyard built from blue bricks and tiles, conspicuously different among the dilapidated homes of thatch and mud that made up the rest of the impoverished settlement. Within fifty paces of the blue-tiled courtyard, there was not another building in sight. Beyond that perimeter, however, the jumbled mass of thatched huts pressed in, their squalor and stench filling the air.

On the eastern side, a wooden fence enclosed part of the courtyard, and within lay a humble, squat brick house. It nestled inconspicuously into the corner, so unassuming that only upon close inspection could one discern it housed two families.

Inside the fenced courtyard, a slender young boy in a plain gray hemp robe stood before a rough marble table, brush in hand, composing characters with practiced grace. On the fine paper, his neat running script recorded the number: 1,275 days.

Finishing the inscription, his brush hovered above the paper. The youth stared at the words, lost in thought, a sigh long and drawn from deep within finally escaping his throat.

His name was Zhong Ming, a child born and raised in Muddy Village. Three years ago, though, a terrible illness had struck him down. With no one to care for him, the boy perished, leaving his body behind.

That was when Zhong Ming, who now inhabited this body, arrived—a soul from Earth, bewildered and unprepared, inheriting this life and all its burdens.

He had not been called Zhong Ming in his previous existence. Yet when he recalled those bitter days—an orphan, later adopted by a kindly man he called father, only to be left alone once more after that man’s passing—he had no desire to revisit the name or the hardships of that life.

Given a second chance, he chose to start anew, to cast off the past and embrace the identity of Zhong Ming, continuing his days here.

Since his arrival in this era, one where men tilled the fields and women wove cloth, Zhong Ming had marked each passing day. He began with stone carvings, then moved to paper records, now onto his second ledger. By his careful count, three and a half years had slipped by.

At first, this land was plagued by unending wars. As a strategic border outpost, Muddy Village was engulfed in chaos, and it was a miracle to survive the constant clashes of rival warlords.

He remembered scavenging for food among the dead, fighting wild dogs for scraps. A sour bitterness gripped his heart at the memory.

Life on Earth had been hard enough, but here, the struggle was relentless—if anything, even more desperate, survival a daily gamble.

Three years ago, this body had been no more than fourteen: thin, sallow, frail. To survive among desperate refugees and ruthless men was a testament to hardship and perseverance.

Fortune finally turned half a year ago, when the local administration announced that New Tang had signed a peace treaty with South Han and Later Chen, promising an end to the perpetual warfare. For the first time, Zhong Ming’s days grew a little easier.

No longer forced to scavenge among corpses for sustenance, the youth felt a quiet relief.

Twice reborn, Zhong Ming possessed no special skills, knew nothing of this dynasty’s history, nor had he any miraculous abilities from his past life’s stories. All he had learned was to cherish what he had.

To cherish life, to treasure feelings, to value every grain of rice, to rejoice in the morning sun, to look forward to the evening’s glow…

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As long as he was alive, nothing else mattered. This was the truth that the boy had grasped, having hovered on the threshold of death so many times.

Only one who has died once can truly appreciate the wonder of being alive.

Lost in reverie, the tip of his brush quivered and a drop of ink fell, spreading across the page and staining his most precious ledger.

Startled, the boy in the hemp robe hurried to blow on the ink and shake the page, but after much fuss, he realized the blot was permanent and nothing could be done.

He shook his head in regret, beating his chest and stamping his foot over the ruined book.

In Muddy Village, such a ledger was a treasure. Only Zhong Ming possessed two and a half volumes—prizes he had claimed after searching the bodies of three hundred armored soldiers.

The New Tang Armored Battalion had only come to Muddy Village once. Half a year ago, ordered to guard the border, they set up camp by the nearby river.

Over three hundred soldiers died that time, including three officers. Only military record officers carried such ledgers, and Zhong Ming had retrieved all three from their corpses.

One of the books had contained half a volume of marching records. After secretly reading it, Zhong Ming tore it out and burned it, knowing that to covet a military log was a capital offense.

Once he removed the pages bearing official seals, the ledgers were just ledgers, no longer connected to the army.

Yet the fate of that battalion haunted him. To this day, Zhong Ming could not fathom how, in a single night, the entire force was wiped out without a sound of battle, neither refugees nor defenders hearing a thing.

Three hundred and more men, each killed by a single sword thrust to the throat, lay scattered through the camp. When Zhong Ming crept in, the campfire in the captain’s tent still smoldered; the meat soup in the iron pot had boiled dry, leaving only the scent of burnt flesh.

Hungry and desperate, he had entered the camp seeking food. Emboldened by starvation, he feasted on charred meat, then searched the corpses for anything useful.

A man, after three days without food and on the verge of death, is capable of madness. He knew stealing from the military was punishable by beheading, but hunger made him reckless enough to risk it.

Dying of starvation or dying by execution—at least in the latter case, there was a chance of survival, and perhaps a few biscuits to keep him going another day.

As the saying goes: the bold die with a full belly; the timid starve to death.

The audacious youth not only survived the chaos and famine but, by a twist of fate, lived through to the signing of the Three Kingdoms treaty.

He had always been daring, even in his past life—venturing alone three hundred miles into the uninhabited wilds of Kekexili in search of treasure, only to meet his end through his own recklessness.

His death had been a frustrating one: more than twenty years of life, all for a broken folding knife.

It was a Tibetan knife, a folding blade—not the kind adorned with gold and silver, inlaid with gems, as was customary, but a simple one of red sandalwood, handle and sheath both of the same red wood, the blade etched with strange, hollowed-out characters.

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Zhong Ming guessed the script might be Tibetan—twisting and wriggling like worms, impossible for him to decipher. He couldn’t be sure of their origin.

The knife itself was unremarkable, except to Zhong Ming. It was because of the knife that he met his end in Kekexili, and it was because of the knife that he found himself in this era of primitive farming and war.

He remembered vividly the dazzling red glow that night. He was certain it was the red light from the knife that brought him here. Nothing else had been the least bit unusual.

Over the past three years, Zhong Ming had tried countless times to make the knife emit that strange red light again, hoping it might return him to Earth.

Every attempt ended in failure. Whether smearing his own blood on the blade, chanting mantras over it in the moonlight, or using it to cut the throats of others as a sacrifice, the knife remained inert.

No matter what he tried, the folding knife was just a folding knife. He remained the same youth living through hardship in this era.

Eventually, Zhong Ming gave up hope, accepting his new identity and willingly embracing life in this time.

Sometimes, it was more practical to think about how to scrounge up something to eat than to ponder how to make the knife glow again. In an age where people ate people, to be weak from hunger was to risk becoming someone else’s meal.

Ever since Emperor Wu of the former Chen Dynasty was defeated within the inner walls of the imperial city, his body torn to pieces and distributed among the people as a gesture of vengeance, cannibalism had become almost an honor.

Those who committed atrocities did so under the guise of war, while the starving found new ways to fill their bellies.

But that was all in the past. Thanks to a single treaty, the days of endless war and parents eating children had truly passed.

The youth in the hemp robe had crawled through that hell to see the light after dawn, to witness the rainbow after the storm.

He no longer dwelled on those unspeakable memories—whether he had slit someone’s throat with the folding knife, or whether the boy next door had bitten through another’s neck with his teeth. Such things became the unspoken secrets of war.

Now, in Muddy Village, only Mr. Zhong was known as a learned man—one who could write couplets for the peachwood doors and inscribe the character for “fortune.”

Once more, roosters crowed next door. A large rooster leapt from the opposite roof onto the stone table, pecking incessantly at the ledger. Zhong Ming hastily shooed the bothersome bird away and gathered up his precious book.

With that, he headed inside, but pausing at the threshold, he turned to the rising sun and called out in a clear voice, “A new day has come, and I, Zhong Ming, am alive again!”