Chapter Two: Where Am I

A chubby hand reached for Su Yuan’s collar. Instinctively, Su Yuan clasped the wrist with both hands. Whose hands were these—so small and adorable? Before he could examine them, the plump hand deftly slipped free, then smacked the back of one of Su Yuan’s little hands.

The woman, her face streaked with tears just moments before, now looked fierce. “You don’t wash wet clothes, huh? All you ever do is cause trouble!” Still stunned from the slap, Su Yuan was bewildered—was this really not a dream? The pain was real.

Standing in the courtyard, stripped of his clothes, Su Yuan crossed his hands to cover himself. He glanced around: a wooden gate stood ahead, yellow earth walls rose on either side—not tall, an adult could easily peer over into a neighbor’s yard, yet Su Yuan couldn’t see anything beyond.

He looked down at his own feet—small, cute, just like his hands—slender legs, and the thing he’d noticed while changing clothes, now palpable in his hands. He was small. Everything about him was small.

The fat woman sat nearby, washing clothes. She glanced at the little boy standing in the yard. “You still know how to be shy! You dirtied a whole vat of water—let’s see if you dare climb into it again! Next time, I’ll break your legs and toss you in the mountains for the wolves!”

So he hadn’t fallen into a river, but into a vat! How disgraceful. Su Yuan scoffed—wasn’t this like Sima Guang breaking the vat?

The cold on his skin was unmistakable. Su Yuan was now convinced this was no dream. Had he traveled through time? Stories like “Startling By Each Step,” “Joy of Life,” and “Myth” flickered through his mind. Which era had he landed in?

Su Yuan had always been ordinary. His parents constantly compared him to the neighbor’s child. At school, his grades and physical fitness lingered in the middle or lower tiers. He scraped through college with a mediocre degree, found an average job after graduation. If nothing unexpected happened, he’d probably marry an ordinary woman, have ordinary children, and quietly meet his end.

In this age, ninety-nine percent of people lived just like that. Su Yuan sometimes dreamed of borrowing moonlight, wearing dragon-embroidered sleeves, wielding a light sword, riding a swift horse, roaming the world with a companion. But after a few years of work, life had worn down his edges. He had parents to support, a family line to continue—such “important” matters! How hard it was for an ordinary person to find a wife!

Now, his life was about to restart. He might, like the heroes of those novels, defy fate. Naked, Su Yuan burst into laughter—a sly, suppressed laugh, but coming from a five-year-old, it sounded oddly cute and comical.

The fat woman paused her laundry, eyeing the boy who laughed ceaselessly. “Must’ve got water in his brain,” she muttered.

After dressing, Su Yuan was sent by the fat woman to shell beans. Sitting at the doorway, he thought: this woman must be his stepmother. Why else would she be so fierce and bossy, always ordering him about? But where was his father? Later, Su Yuan learned from the fat woman herself—he had no father.

History was essential; with knowledge of the era, he could predict events. Not only were Su Yuan’s language, math, and foreign language grades mediocre, but history, politics, geography, and biology were poor as well. Fortunately, he enjoyed stories and could sometimes recall historical events.

After shelling beans and eating dinner, Su Yuan lay tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep. The sun had barely set—how could a modern person sleep so early? No phone, no short videos of influencers posing and pouting. He could only close his eyes and let his thoughts run wild: Tomorrow’s priority—find out which dynasty this is. Then, where should he go? Go back? How laughable!

Beside him, the fat woman was already snoring. For Su Yuan, it was the first time since adulthood he’d shared a bed with a woman—alas, it was a nearly two-hundred-pound woman who treated him with nothing but severity.