Volume One

Chapter One: A Scholar Who Knows Martial Arts

Creak—he gently pushed open the door. The cold wind, carrying icy crystals from the eaves, fell onto his neck, making the young man shiver involuntarily. The sun could freeze a ghost to death with its breath—northern winters are no joke.

Bang!

Something happened to fall right on his head. Did a pie fall from the sky? The boy hurried to pick it up, only to find it was a sparrow, icy cold, its crop empty—apparently frozen to death.

"Not even enough for a single bite." He wanted to throw it away, but on second thought, he couldn't let it hit him for nothing. He'd roast it after fetching water—at least it was a mouthful of meat!

The boy tossed the dead sparrow beside the stove, grabbed two buckets, and ran toward the well. Stepping on the thick snow, crunching underfoot, he soon reached the well. The well platform was covered with more than half a foot of ice; a single misstep could send you tumbling in. Taking a cold bath in the dead of winter—if it didn't kill you, it would at least peel your skin off.

The boy carefully turned the well crank, and before long, both wooden buckets were filled with sweet well water. He scooped up a handful to drink—cold and sweet, it instantly refreshed him.

Not rushing home, the boy picked up the two buckets and began jogging slowly around the well.

The sun climbed higher, and soon some men, wrapped in tattered cotton-padded jackets, came to fetch water.

A few rough men, buckets in hand, watched the boy running laps and couldn't help but shake their heads.

"Third Brother, what's up with Eric Bolton? He runs circles every day, carrying buckets, and doesn't even get tired. I think the kid's really sick—maybe he's burned out his brain!"

"Yeah, such a good-looking kid. If his mind's gone, what a pity."

A small old man in his forties or fifties came up from behind and couldn't help saying, "What nonsense! Training in the cold of winter and the heat of summer—haven't you heard storytellers say that's how you practice martial arts?"

"Second Great-Uncle, the storytellers are talking about martial artists. Eric Bolton is one of the few scholars in our Daqing Fort. If you ask me, we should talk to Sister-in-law Bolton and get some Taoist priests to perform a ritual—maybe he's caught some evil spirit!"

Their words, carried by the wind, drifted to the boy's ears. He couldn't help but laugh to himself. Just a morning workout had startled these people, and now they wanted to exorcise evil spirits—how ridiculous!

Still, the boy kept reminding himself to be cautious, so as not to be seen as a freak. After all, he came from another era!

It had taken him two whole months to reluctantly accept this absurd reality.

He had transmigrated!

The boy was originally an orphan in the twenty-first century, growing up in an orphanage. Through relentless effort, he got into the National Defense University and was about to graduate. But during a long-distance training exercise, he was unfortunately bitten by a venomous snake. When he woke up again, he found himself in the body of a boy named Kevin Bolton. Even more terrifying, he had an extra set of memories.

As an orphan, it didn't matter where he lived, but when he discovered he had arrived in the forty-seventh year of the Wanli era, in a place called Daqing Fort, Yizhou Garrison, Liaodong, he was truly on the verge of tears!

Ordinary people might not understand, but as an outstanding defense student, he knew history inside out. The more he knew, the more afraid he became—he lost count of how many times he woke up in terror at night!

The forty-seventh year of Wanli was when the "wild boar skins" were at their most rampant, slaughtering and pillaging in Liaodong. The Ming army was utterly defeated. At the beginning of the year, the Battle of Sarhu saw over a hundred thousand troops wiped out. Soon after, Kaiyuan and the "big city" Tieling, hometown of Uncle Ben Shan, fell. The Ming army suffered defeat after defeat—gloom and misery everywhere.

But after a while, Kevin Bolton gradually realized that worrying about these things was pointless. If he had the energy, he might as well focus on his own little life!

Three months ago, Kevin Bolton entered the imperial exam for the first time. Brimming with confidence, he didn't even pass the county exam, let alone become a licentiate. Unable to accept the bitter taste of failure, he fell ill as soon as he got home. His mother, Mrs. Sullivan, took meticulous care of him by the kang, hired doctors, and spent a fortune on medicine, but nothing worked. In less than a month, he was at death's door, ready to report to the King of Hell.

"What's so great about the imperial exams? Lost my life and left the family destitute. In my previous life, I got into university—how could that compare to having a family!" Kevin Bolton thought to himself. Since he was an orphan anyway, it didn't matter where he lived. Kevin Bolton was already looking forward to the future.

But the body he had taken over was so frail it could die at any moment. Kevin Bolton didn't dare bet on whether he could transmigrate again! In the first two months, he devoted almost all his energy to recovering his health.

Starting with every finger, he moved them bit by bit—even spent entire afternoons just focusing on moving his big toe. Sweat soaked his body, dried, and soaked again.

During these days, his mother Mrs. Sullivan would get up before dawn to boil medicine, and stay up late into the night weaving and sewing soles, just so her son could have an extra bite of meat or another egg to help him recover faster.