“Brother, what’s wrong? Don’t scare Lily Thompson, okay?” Seeing James Thompson staring wide-eyed and not speaking, the dirty little girl next to him was also frightened into tears, with two streaks of tears running down her small, dirty face.

“Lily Thompson, don’t cry. Brother… brother is just a bit confused because he’s hurt!” At this moment, James Thompson finally raised his head and forced a smile at the little girl in front of him. According to the memories of the other James Thompson, the girl named Lily Thompson before him should be his younger sister. Although they had a father, he was a gambling addict who was rarely home, so the siblings usually depended on each other for survival.

Seeing her brother finally call her by name, Lily Thompson’s little face turned from sadness to joy. Then, acting like a little adult, she touched James Thompson’s forehead, and then happily exclaimed, “That’s great, brother, you don’t have a fever anymore. I’ll go make you something to eat!”

Watching Lily Thompson skip out of the room, James Thompson could only give a helpless, bitter smile. He then lowered his head to look at his own body—sure enough, it had shrunk dramatically. He had gone from being a man in his thirties to a twelve-year-old child, wrapped in dirty, tattered clothes that barely covered his thin, shriveled body. His right ankle throbbed with pain from time to time.

At once, James Thompson reached out to lift his clothes and found that his ankle was already swollen into a big lump. Strangely, although he had the previous James Thompson’s memories in his mind, he couldn’t remember how he got hurt. But now wasn’t the time to think about that. He first checked his ankle and found it was just a sprain causing soft tissue swelling. With some rest, it should be fine.

Only then did James Thompson take a look at his surroundings. He saw that he was in a very cramped little room, with the bed beneath him taking up most of the space. There was no other furniture. The walls were pitch black, and cobwebs filled the corners of the ceiling and walls. The bedding on the bed was so black it shone, giving off a musty, moldy smell—the same smell he’d noticed when he first woke up.

Looking at this messy, shabby little room, James Thompson couldn’t help but give another bitter smile. Then, supporting himself, he got out of bed. Since he couldn’t put weight on his right foot, he had to hop on one leg out of the room. Outside was a rather large courtyard, and in the yard was a thatched shed where Lily Thompson was making a fire to cook. The black smoke from the stove made her cough, and her little face became even dirtier.

Seeing how hard Lily Thompson was working, James Thompson couldn’t help but hop over to help her with the fire. Tending the fire looked simple, but actually required some skill. You couldn’t put too much wood in at once, or the fire would be smothered; too little, and it wouldn’t catch. You also had to watch the ash below—if it got blocked, the fire wouldn’t burn well.

Lily Thompson was very happy to see her brother helping her cook. When the water boiled, she grabbed a handful of millet from a small jar and tossed it into the pot. After hesitating a moment, she grabbed another half handful and threw it in, then carefully covered the jar. James Thompson could see from the side that there was only about two handfuls of millet left in the jar, not even enough to cover the bottom.

Millet needs to be simmered over a low flame, and a handful of wood could burn for quite a while. At this point, James Thompson finally asked, “Lily Thompson, how did I get hurt? I can’t remember anything after I woke up.”

“Brother, how could you forget? Yesterday you took me and Brother Douzi to the riverbank to pick elm seeds. You were up in the tree picking, and Brother Douzi and I were picking them up from the ground. Suddenly, there was a loud thunderclap from the sky, and then a huge divine bird appeared. Everyone was looking up at the sky. You couldn’t see clearly from the tree, so you tried to jump down, but your hand slipped and you fell. No matter how we called you, you wouldn’t wake up. Brother Douzi and I were both scared to death.” Lily Thompson answered, eyes wide, still too young to understand why James Thompson couldn’t remember what happened yesterday.

“Divine… divine bird? What was that?” James Thompson asked in disbelief after hearing Lily Thompson’s words, a very bad feeling rising in his heart.

“Divine bird…” Lily Thompson seemed unsure how to explain, paused, then continued, “A divine bird is just a divine bird. That’s what everyone in Kaifeng City said. Lots of people saw it. With a loud bang, a silver, shining divine bird appeared in the sky, its wings trailing black smoke, and it even made weird ‘woo woo’ noises. It was so scary!”

“Silver and shining, wings trailing black smoke, and making woo woo sounds?” James Thompson was stunned by Lily Thompson’s description, because he felt that what Lily Thompson described wasn’t a divine bird at all, but a crashed airplane. In fact, he had encountered a plane crash while flying before, and thought he was doomed, but unexpectedly, when he woke up again, he had traveled back to the Northern Song Dynasty.

“This doesn’t make sense. My situation should be soul transmigration, so how did the plane come over too?” James Thompson thought to himself. In his previous life, he had read some transmigration novels and knew there were two types: soul transmigration and physical transmigration. He was now a soul attached to James Thompson’s body, but how did the plane show up here?