Chapter 1: CH 1

As the month of June looms ever closer, and graduation slowly approaching, the soon to be university graduates were all in a hurry. They jump from one recruitment fair to the next, tossing and turning in their beds with anxiety as they try to find a satisfactory job. During the day, the boys adorn themselves with various professional attires while bustling busily outside for an entire day. Once they returned to the dormitory, however, they immediately changed back into their unkempt sleeveless tank tops and shorts, all donning slippers as they squat in front of the window sill to snack on some watermelon.

When Cui Xie returned to the dormitory, he came home to see such a scene of three watermelon-eating people squatting near the windowsill. Sensing his presence, they all turned around to stare at him. The room was hot and stuffy, quite like the inside of a steamer basket and on his table, there was one triangular slice of watermelon remaining on the top of the plate. 

He was only wearing a thin t-shirt and jeans, and there was not a single droplet of sweat on his forehead. It was like he had not even walked under the huge, hot, baking sun outside. The dormitory’s eldest resident glared at him several times and said: “Your sweat-free physique during summer is really enviable and hateful, ah! If I knew you hadn’t suffered from the heat at all, we wouldn’t have left you a slice of watermelon!”

Cui Xue grinned, taking out a batch of popsicles from his bag, dangling it in front of his envious cohort of roommates who had gathered together. Facing them good-naturedly and enthusiastically, with his pure ivory teeth glinting, he asked: “On such a hot day, why haven’t you all turned on the air conditioner? Are you guys planning on entering the mountains as savages if you can’t find a job? Are you guys trying to familiarize yourselves to a life in a natural environment without electricity or air-conditioning in advance?”

“The electricity box downstairs is out of service, can’t you see that we don’t even dare to play video games right now? We were afraid that we would spend every last bit of the remaining electricity before the power comes back on.” The dormitory’s eldest flung the watermelon rind in his hand onto the ground and randomly picked up an ice-cold popsicle, tore off the packaging, took a bite, and gave a contented smile: “Also, what savages? If you really want to be a savage, it is better to transmigrate into ancient times. When the time comes, just find a place to open up and cultivate the land, you shouldn’t have to worry about finding a job.”

The second eldest resident, a student in the College of Chemistry, also gnawed on a popsicle, mumbling: “How great would it be to transmigrate! We could make frosted window panes, brew wine, steelmaking…in ancient times, they precisely had a shortage of professional talents like ours. Putting me in this era and making me run back and forth between job fairs is a waste of my useful knowledge!”

The third eldest and last roommate threw his popsicle’s plastic packaging to the ground, then lazily reclined on the back of his chair, laughing at his complaining roommate: “Based on how you cram read the textbook last night right before the final exam, I estimate that even if you transmigrated, you would forget all of the material you’ve learned within a few days. Might as well band together with us English majors to become a group of mountain bandits or something, at least that has better future prospects than whatever you do. Boss (referring to the eldest) is in the College of Economics, and if he transmigrated, he could just start a small business or something. But the most suitable for transmigration would have to be our little fourth-ah (Cui Xie)!”

The other two smiled, saying: “Yes, only little fourth is a literature student, in ancient times he would have been considered a scholar.”

The eldest nodded vigorously in agreement, slapping his dirty hands together, the ones covered in watermelon juice and melted popsicle and wiped them on Cui Xie’s shirt before sincerely and earnestly exclaiming: “Little fourth-ah, it’s time to transmigrate, you’ll have to pack up your writing brushes, as well as your ink and wash paintings. Ancient scholars must know a little bit of those. Once you do that, go buy a collection of good poems and then memorize them. Then in the future, you’ll be able to easily plagiarize them if you transmigrate.” 

The second eldest’s popsicle stick dangled languidly from his mouth as he walked to his bedside and found a book. He couldn’t help but shove it into Cui Xie’s hand: “This is a book that I bought from a second-hand website online with great difficulty, it’s called ‘A Fool’s Guide to Ancient Chemistry’, please take a good look. If you transmigrate in the future, don’t forget to make us chemistry majors proud!”

The third eldest fumbled around his desk for a while and saw that there wasn’t really anything to take. He simply unplugged his portable hard disk and carefully handed it over like it was extremely valuable: “All ancient Emperors liked fangzhongshu. If you can’t mingle along well, just learn a few tricks from here and who knows, maybe you can even become a State Preceptor later. “

fangzhongshu: a comprehensive name for a book on ancient Chinese eugenics, sexual medicine, and sexual health books; basically a sex manual

Cui Xie touched the wet stains on his t-shirt sleeves, feeling the sticky book and hard disk shoved in his hands with a slight frown. His slender phoenix eyes swept over his three roommates, his cold, yet righteous gaze making them bow their heads one after another in shame.

He hugged the book and the hard drive, glaring at his three roommates for a long while. The corners of his pursed mouth jumped up slightly, revealing a sly smirk: “I have already been hired as our university’s librarian, brothers, you should just go transmigrate by yourselves.” He was a student and scholar of modern and contemporary Chinese literature. If he transmigrated to a time period before the late Qing Dynasty’s New Culture Movement and the popularization of the new written vernacular Chinese, he would not be much better off than those English majors*.

*Modern Chinese Literature, which is what our protagonist learns, is called “白话文” or ‘baiwenhua’ and roughly translates to: ‘plain speech writing’. Before, roughly around the 1910s, people still used a really complicated form of written old Chinese that only scholars really understood. Thus, the common people created an easier form of writing based on their own dialects and their spoken Chinese, thus a written ‘vernacular’ Chinese became popularized.  During the Ming Dynasty, this form of writing was starting to become popular in novels and ‘lowbrow’ writing, but those of high-ranking or well-learned people still tended to use the old Chinese standard. As such, Cui Xie would have majored in the “Vernacular”, modern style, which is vastly different from former classic Chinese literature before that time period.  If you want more information, here is a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese ).

The other three in front of him raised their heads and stared at him in surprise: “You’ve been hired as a librarian? Joining the faculty of our alma mater right after graduation?”

“Well, well, little fourth, you came back and pretended to be so serious, why didn’t you tell us such happy news earlier! Go, go, go, let’s go have a drink, let boss treat you!”

His roommates swarmed and flocked around him, dragging him to the barbecue stall parked outside the university, feasting on meat skewers. They also ordered a few bottles of beer to celebrate his stable new job position and to commemorate their upcoming graduation as university seniors. The four of them drank and reminisced about their four years at university. They all clutched their respective beer bottles, crying disorderly and messily, and they did not return to the dormitory until it was almost closing time.

The electricity was still out when they returned back to their dormitory in the night, so the four of them had to sleep in the dark.

Cui Xie awoke in the middle of the night, his throat feeling unspeakably thirsty, so he felt around his bedside table to get some water. While he was gulping down water, he saw a dashboard light on his laptop blinking, as if the electricity had finally come back on. He set down his cup and went to unplug his laptop. Unexpectedly, the cup was accidentally overturned by the thick charging cord when the wire had been unplugged, and the water spilled across the keyboard. It was unknown which wire had been connected to an electricity source, but a gleaming blue arc flashed out of the keyboard. It streaked across the nearby chemistry book, the portable hard disk, nipping his fingers which were immersed in that water puddle.

Unspeakable pain and numbness struck Cui Xie’s brain. Before he could react, he lost consciousness.

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When he came to again, he only felt aching pain all over his body, his lower body was unbearably hot and anxious, his shoulders felt especially heavy, as if it was being pushed down or held in place by someone. And his cheeks, chest, and abdomen were ice-cold, apparently, it seemed that he was not lying on a bed in the dormitory or in a hospital, but lying on an ice-cold floor instead.

Perhaps he had only fainted a few minutes because no one had discovered his lack of consciousness yet.

When he had gotten out of bed to get that glass of water, it had still been dark outside. If he really relied on his roommates, who were still in a drunken stupor, his body would have long turned cold before they discovered him!

The pit of Cui Xie’s stomach ferociously thrashed at once, and his breath seemed to take along a cold and bloody fragrance. He did not dare to delay any longer, taking a deep breath. Resisting the dizziness and pain, he shouted ‘Help!’ with all of his remaining strength. 

However, the voice squeezed out of his throat was so faint and feeble, that even he could barely hear himself.

Suddenly, he felt someone lower themselves onto his body, heavily pressing down on his back. A voice asked in his ear, “What did da-ge say?” Before he could make a sound, the voice sounded again, “Ge, stop making trouble. Just nicely confess to Father, Mother, and er-ge, they are your flesh and blood. What grudges can you possibly hold against your dearest family members? Er-ge no longer blames you for the matter of you pushing him. Then, is it because you are still holding onto hatred and feeling wronged just because Master chided you with a few words?”

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da-ge: big brother

er-ge: second brother

As to why this person is called our main character, ‘ge’, it will be explained later on in the translator notes.

What Father, Mother, and Er-ge? He thought he had only caught a chill, hence his shoulder ached, but it turned out it was because someone was actually pressing down on it?

But he was an only child, and didn’t have a single younger brother! His parents had passed away when he was a junior high student. He had been taken in by his uncle for a year and then had haphazardly been passed through each of his relatives’ homes year after year until he grew up. How could his parents have sprouted out of nowhere to lecture him?   

Was he dreaming? Or had he been already electrocuted to death, and transmigrated?

Cui Xie’s sore and numb brain became active again as he struggled to keep his eyes open, lifting his head slightly to look around his surroundings. It’s just that this person who was laying on top of his back pressed down even harder. As such, he could only lift his chin up, catching a glimpse of a blue-bricked floor and solid wooden furniture legs, as well as a pair of black silk cloth boots that hovered close by. 

The owner of the boots paced back and forth in front of him. Seeing these movements, Cui Xie felt dizzy and his head throbbed as the world in front of him spun. Sweat trickled down from his forehead, trailing into his eye sockets, stinging painfully. He had to blink his eyes a couple of times to force the unpleasant feeling out.

The person who was pacing in front of him suddenly halted and yelled towards the top of his head: “Your mother passed away early, so I pitied you for losing your mother at such a young age. These years, I have always favored you, but I never thought I would spoil you into a bully who oppresses his younger brother and a brute who disrespects your stepmother! Even until now, you still refuse to admit to your mistake! Do you think it is just because I cannot dare to make a move against you, an ungrateful little beast?”

Cui Xie was at a loss.

He had just transmigrated over, didn’t inherit any of the previous owner’s memories, thus, he didn’t know how to cooperate with this performance.

Fortunately, he was not originally the leading role of this scene. Before he could utter a sound, a beautiful image of a woman threw herself towards the owner of the black boots and a pampered voice cried out, “Master, do you want Xie-ge’s life? Those two brothers were just playing in the garden, someone accidentally pushed him by mistake and such Heng-ge only suffered a bump to the head and fainted. Then do you plan on beating Xie-ge to death as compensation? Even if you are willing, I am not willing. Xie-ge is a scholarly seedling, in the future, he will become a jinshi and bring honor and glory to the family name. If you hurt him, those who call him gege,  just who will they rely on in the future?!”

gege: older brother

Furen: official madam of the lord master/madam of the household

Jinshi: highest rank a scholar can get and is attained after passing the imperial exam, when scholars attain this rank they usually become court officials. It should be noted that the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) had a very large number of jinshi graduates reaching up to around 24, 536 in total.

Note: Here, when the woman is using -ge, -ge is used as an affectionate endearment referring to children in the family, not to be confused with older brother. I know it’s weird, but it’s just a term used to refer to children in an official household during that time period.

Master stomped fiercely, coldly retorting: “I dare to let Heng-ge rely on him for the future? After studying for a few years, this evil creature’s wicked heart had grown even larger. Right now, it is only bullying one’s brother, if he is to become a jinshi in the future, I am afraid he will eat this old one whole!”

He took a few heavy breaths, directing his next words to his furen: “Heng-ge is no worse than this demon. He is clever and intelligent, so why rely on this one for the future! Tomorrow, I will banish him and send him back to the ancestral home in Qian’an (a county in Tangshan, Hebei). If he wants to cause trouble then he can just start a ruckus there. I will just treat it like I never had this son! Once Heng-ge is of age, I will let him enter and attend the Imperial Academy (highest educational body in Imperial China) and wait until he is old enough to be appointed as an official. You mother-son pair do not have to rely on others. As long as I live for another day, I will make these arrangements for you!”

The Furen sobbed a few more times and the Master angrily flicked his sleeves and ordered, “What are you looking at? If you don’t drag this little beast out immediately, then all of you will be sent back to the ancestral home!”

Cui Xie, who was still in his painful, half-comatose state, was dragged out of the hall and placed into an empty room. The room was slightly damp, but the rays of sunshine peeking in from the outside made him feel comfortable, alleviating the room’s chilling and damp coolness. There was also a bed and bedding provided for him, which was vastly superior to the cold-stone slab he had been pressed against just now.

He sighed contentedly, closing his throbbing eyes to recollect the big play just now, confirming two things—

He had transmigrated.

The current body he resided in was also called Cui Xie, so there was no need to change the name.

As for the disputes between the brothers in this household, and what the relationship between the stepmother and stepson was like, at the moment, he couldn’t care less.

During his state of dizziness and befuddlement, he felt someone tear off his pants and smear ice-cold ointment onto his buttocks. He also faintly heard someone bitterly wailing into his ears, saying that he had suffered greatly, and this person blamed themselves for not protecting him well enough. This crying voice had a wonderfully reassuring effect. Ever since he transmigrated, he had felt like his entire soul and state of mind had been stretched tensely into a tightly wound string, but now that tense string was slowly relaxing. The pain aching from his body was becoming blurred. Accompanied by the sound of crying, he fell into a deep sleep.

Announcement: New novel! I’m really loving it and I hope you guys will too! It’s a bit historically heavy, but otherwise interesting, thanks for giving it a shot! I’ll be learning of the plot as I go along with ya’ll! I know there is a lot of historical terms and I will be working on a glossary soon. I don’t have a set translation schedule for this one, but it will most likely be on Wednesdays. I am currently packing for my move that is coming up in a couple of days so I thought I would release a chapter. Enjoy!

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