Volume One: A Night of Dancing Fish and Dragons

Chapter 0001: Could This Be Fate

At dusk, the sun had set, and the sky, dyed red by the evening glow, was already darkening. The distant, undulating mountains had turned into a stretch of black, and the forest grew ever quieter. Some unknown night insects began to chirp excitedly.

On a narrow mountain path, a man approached from afar. His stride was vigorous and powerful; with a light leap, he jumped over a tree trunk blocking the path, so thick that it would take three people to encircle it.

He was a young man, at least 1.9 meters tall, looking just over twenty. His upper body was bare, revealing strong, bronze muscles. He wore camouflage military pants and a pair of marching leather boots. A Type 92 pistol was tucked into his back waist, and a military dagger was sheathed in his boot.

The reason the young man was shirtless was that his shirt had been fashioned into a bundle. The two sleeves were knotted in front of his chest, and the bundle was slung diagonally across his body, seemingly containing quite a few things—in fact, it held his food.

The man had a crew cut and a sharply contoured rectangular face, with a high nose bridge and a pair of deep, piercing eyes beneath thick black eyebrows. His gaze was like an arrow, aiming at some unseen target in the distant woods, yet able to instantly shift to a nearby rock.

Though his eyes were resolute and sharp, there was a faint trace of confusion in them. He would occasionally stop and look around, as if trying to figure out where he was.

His name was Eric Bolton. Two years ago, he had been admitted from the army into the Army Academy to study military strategy history. Five days ago, Eric Bolton and thirty other cadets participated in a field survival training. While searching for a water source, he had inadvertently entered a bottomless cave.

When he emerged from the other side of the cave and looked back, the entrance had vanished, along with his backpack, lost in the vast mountains.

Eric Bolton had been walking through the endless Qinling Mountains for five days without encountering a single person. He already sensed something was wrong, but couldn’t quite say what it was.

Turning a corner, he suddenly spotted a thatched hut about a hundred meters ahead—finally, a sign of human presence. He cheered and strode toward the hut.

It was a simple shelter made of mud and branches, with cobwebs filling the gaps. Half of the mud wall had collapsed, and dim starlight shone through a hole in the wall. On the ground was a broken animal trap, and beside it, a rusty hatchet was stuck into a half-rotten, moldy wooden stake.

Its owner seemed to be a hunter who hadn’t been here for a long time.

Just as Eric Bolton was about to pick up the hatchet, he suddenly turned, lightning-quick, drawing the pistol from his waist. His sharp gaze locked onto a mud wall.

“Who’s there? Come out!” he called in a low voice.

“Don’t… don’t hurt us.”

Eric Bolton heard a trembling voice. From behind the mud wall, two people slowly stood up—an elderly man with white hair and a boy with double topknots.

Eric Bolton stared at them without blinking, deeply shocked. The old man and the boy were dressed in ancient clothing.

“Come out. I won’t hurt you!”

After confirming there was no fourth person around, he put the pistol back at his waist and instead drew the military dagger from his boot.

Both of them seemed terrified. The boy clung tightly to the old man’s arm, and the two of them walked out from behind the mud wall, trembling.

“We have no… food, and not much money, only… this.”

The old man placed a small bundle and a short string of copper coins on the ground, then pulled the child back two steps.

Eric Bolton looked at the string of copper coins, the kind only seen in movies, and it was as if a gust of wind mixed with sand blew into his face, making his eyes sting. He suddenly felt agitated. “What year is it now?”

“What?” The old man didn’t understand.

“I’m asking, what year is it? Who is the emperor? Do you understand?” Eric Bolton shouted in despair.

The old man grew even more frightened. He dropped to his knees and stammered, “Great lord, we did not join… Samuel Young’s rebellion. We are just commoners fleeing disaster.”

‘Samuel Young’s rebellion!’

Eric Bolton slumped helplessly against the wall. The extreme exhaustion of five days’ trek instantly overwhelmed him. He finally knew who the emperor was—he had actually arrived at the end of the Sui Dynasty.

……

“Young man, in troubled times, being able to stay alive is the greatest fortune. Forgetting your hometown is really not such a big deal.”

Realizing that the young man before him was not a murderous bandit, the old man felt much more at ease. He affectionately stroked his grandson, who was gnawing on a yam, but his smile turned bitter again.

“Look at us—we have a hometown but can’t go back. How is that any different from you?”

Eric Bolton had already calmed down from his initial shock and confusion, silently accepting the reality of being in the late Sui Dynasty. He sighed, stopped thinking about the things that troubled him, and asked the old man, “Where are we now?”