Peter Brooks tilted his head—wasn’t this the sleazy old man who had just taken his pulse? And beside him, the foul-mouthed uncle whom the old man had called Steward Meng was glaring at him like a tiger eyeing its prey. Next to him, the burly house servants who had just pinned him down were still poised to pounce at any moment, leaving Peter Brooks both amused and exasperated. Damn it, a wise man knows when to retreat—endure for a moment and the storm will pass, take a step back and the sea will be calm.

Peter Brooks could only comfort himself, staring blankly at the shaman master in front of him, who was performing some ritual. He pinched his own thigh, gasped in pain, and quickly rubbed the sore spot, sighing inwardly. It seemed he really had transmigrated—everything before his eyes was real, not an illusion.

The most tragic story in life is to toil for twenty years, only to return overnight to square one. But what’s even more tragic? Naturally, it’s being sent back to feudal society. Could it get any worse? Of course—it’s being sent back to a time of constant war in feudal society. And now, Peter Brooks had landed in just such an era. Not just any chaotic, war-torn time, but the Three Kingdoms period.

As Peter Brooks recalled, the opening of Romance of the Three Kingdoms said: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.” “Unite your ancestors, divide your ancestors, damn it! All I did was flirt with a girl online, nothing immoral, and now I’ve been thrown into the Three Kingdoms era? This is just too much…” The thirteen-year-old, with a white cloth wrapped around his head and dressed in coarse linen, sat on the bed fuming. The shaman master took a sip of water, wiped the sweat from his brow, and continued to dance in front of Peter Brooks, waving his bizarrely painted face.

Peter Brooks stared straight ahead, pupils dilated, his grief and anger so intense that even if he bit his fingers and wrote the word “hate” in blood over a square kilometer of paper, it still wouldn’t be enough to vent his resentment.

※※※

He was born into a family of traditional Chinese medicine, raised under the red flag. To escape the torment of his grandfather and father—two old diehards who never stopped quoting the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases and the Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold—he got into the Second Military Medical University after high school, becoming an outstanding young revolutionary and medical worker of the new socialist era. After graduation, he worked at the university’s affiliated hospital, and in his spare time, hung out online, playing games. Who would have thought that just to meet a pretty online gamer girl he’d seen on video, hoping to develop their relationship in real life and fulfill his dream of passing on his genes, things would go so wrong?

So, right after finishing a surgery, Peter Brooks was running late for his date because of the operation. Worried that he’d be too late and the pretty gamer girl might just fly away on the wings of freedom, he rushed out of work and hailed a taxi. To make sure the driver got him there on time, Peter Brooks even waved a fifty-yuan bill in front of the driver, promising, “Get me there on time and it’s all yours.”

Maybe the taxi driver was having financial troubles, or maybe he’d lost all his money playing mahjong the night before. Seeing the extra fare, he got so excited it was like he’d just had a shot of adrenaline. He floored the gas, spun the steering wheel like a windmill, and kept saying, “Don’t worry, riding with me is all about the thrill.”

But halfway there, a half-bald, scruffy dog got spooked by the screeching taxi as it shot out of a side street and froze in the middle of the road. The driver, apparently an animal rights activist, slammed on the brakes without regard for his or his passenger’s safety. Under the astonished gazes of bystanders, and with plastic bags and cigarette butts flying in the wind kicked up by the speeding taxi, the car crashed headlong into a utility pole plastered with ads for STD cures, fake certificates, and high-paying jobs for “PR gentlemen and ladies.” And so, this innocent young talent, with his plans to woo a pretty gamer girl dashed, died just like that…

Chapter Two Damn it, online games can kill!

Peter Brooks felt a mix of sorrow and joy. Sorrow, because he’d died—thanks to a lousy taxi driver and that stupid dog, he’d lost his life. But what he hadn’t expected was that, instead of closing his eyes and knowing nothing more of the world, he’d actually come back to life.

But he had transmigrated—to another world, a time of war and chaos. The Chinese people were suffering from the ravages of war, political factions were fighting for power, the economy and society were in crisis, class conflicts were severe, and epidemics, parasitic diseases, and malnutrition were rampant among the population. There was no public health system, and the era was powerless to solve the massive health problems facing the people.