Seeing this date, Ethan Cooper was stunned. He took down the perpetual calendar and looked at it again and again, calculated and recalculated, but after all that, he still couldn’t figure out what the lunar calendar meant. What year was this AD 2010, anyway? Comparing the date on the perpetual calendar with all the unfamiliar things in this room, even his usually sharp mind couldn’t make sense of it.

Megan Brooks had just enjoyed a comfortable bath. When she walked out of the bathroom in a loose bathrobe, she saw Ethan Cooper sitting there dazed, his expression confused and his eyes vacant—just like when she first saw him on Shennan Avenue.

“You, what’s wrong?” Megan Brooks asked cautiously, as if afraid of startling him.

“Sister, I want to ask you, am I still within the territory of the Great Liao?” Ethan Cooper asked carefully.

“The Great Liao? I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” Megan Brooks was completely baffled.

“Then who is the emperor now?” Ethan Cooper asked again.

“Emperor? There’s no emperor nowadays!” Megan Brooks couldn’t help but give a wry smile. His mind was muddled again—could he have a fever? She reached out and touched his forehead.

His temperature was normal, so it must be something inside his head. That collision really did a number on him, Megan Brooks felt deeply guilty. But it wasn’t until she took her hand away from his forehead that she suddenly realized how natural that gesture had felt. Her face flushed—this man might be confused, but he was still a man! To cover her embarrassment, she said, “The feudal era ended long ago. Now it’s an age of equality for everyone.”

“Then what about the Great Liao? Where did it go?”

“Oh, you mean the ancient Liao dynasty? That ended a long time ago. Let me think!” Megan Brooks counted on her fingers and then said, “It must have ended over a thousand years ago!”

Ethan Cooper gasped in shock. “Sister, I haven’t read much, so don’t lie to me!”

“Oh, please, would I get a free meal if I lied to you?” Megan Brooks rolled her eyes.

“I—I don’t have any silver!”

“Haha, silver? You’re really funny. By the way, what’s your name? I still don’t know.”

“My name is Ethan Cooper! And you, sister?”

“Megan Brooks!” After giving her name, Megan Brooks couldn’t help but ask, “Ethan Cooper, why do you keep your hair so long? And why are you wearing such strange clothes?”

“I…” Ethan Cooper was at a loss for words. Should he tell her he came from the Great Liao? She wouldn’t believe it—he could hardly believe it himself. But it was the truth.

“You’re not a kid anymore, you can’t just chase after these non-mainstream trends. Those things are impractical and unrealistic. It’s better to be down-to-earth and proper. Don’t always talk about fighting and killing…” Megan Brooks lectured Ethan Cooper earnestly, thinking he was just obsessed with being non-mainstream.

Ethan Cooper didn’t know what “non-mainstream” meant, but he understood that her well-intentioned words were for his own good, so he nodded repeatedly, half-understanding.

Megan Brooks talked for quite a while, and when she finally stopped, she couldn’t help but think: wasn’t he supposed to be dazed from the accident? Could he even understand what she was saying? But then again, back at the food stall, he’d acted more normal than most people. So she tried asking, “Since you understand, then cut your hair, and stop wearing such old-fashioned clothes, okay?”

“Cut my hair?” Ethan Cooper immediately widened his eyes and shook his head like a rattle-drum. “My body, hair, and skin are given by my parents—how could I dare to harm them? I can’t cut my hair, I mustn’t!”

Megan Brooks was speechless. This guy’s craziness was acting up again.

“Just cut it!” Megan Brooks tried to persuade him patiently and gently.

“No!” Ethan Cooper replied stubbornly.

“Really not going to cut it?” Megan Brooks was instantly annoyed and scolded, “Look at you—neither man nor woman, what do you look like? Go out on the street and see if anyone else looks like you! Do you think this is artistic? It’s just embarrassing—don’t you get that?”

Ethan Cooper was speechless. He clutched his long braid, looking at Megan Brooks in fear, as if afraid she’d snatch it away.

Looking at Ethan Cooper, Megan Brooks couldn’t help but feel both amused and exasperated, but also a sense of accomplishment. The man who had just faced down a gang of thugs so fearlessly was now cowering like a child in front of her! But in the next moment, that sense of accomplishment vanished, because this man wasn’t entirely normal—but not entirely abnormal either… Sometimes he was normal, sometimes not, and all of it was her doing.

“Just cut it, at least make it a bit shorter!” Megan Brooks’s tone softened a lot. “If you go out like this, people will laugh at you every day.”

Cut it? Or not? Ethan Cooper was extremely hesitant. The woman’s words made sense—insisting on Great Liao customs in modern society would definitely make him a freak. The environment won’t adapt to you; you have to adapt to the environment. That’s the truth. In this situation, he’d have to do as the locals do to get by.

“Then I’ll cut it—just a little shorter!” It had to be said, Ethan Cooper’s adaptability was impressive. Otherwise, how could he have survived so many years of war?