Chapter One: Wore

  Wang Kuang stared blankly at the scene in front of him: a dilapidated statue, somewhat resembling the simple temple built by the villagers back home, with peeling paint and dust covering its surface, making it hard to discern the color of the deity's clothes; a spider web riddled with holes stretched from the statue's maimed hand to the rotten beam above; sunlight filtered through the several holes in the roof, casting an eerie glow on the statue and the uneven ground; one ray of light happened to shine directly onto the left side of the statue's face, giving it a somewhat ferocious appearance.

  "Where is this?" Wang Kuang was still somewhat dazed and couldn't quite come to his senses.

  Wang Kuang is now lying on the ground in front of the statue, and from the slightly choking feeling from under his body and the slight rustling sound that comes when he moves his body, he can almost certainly determine that what's underneath him is a pile of straw.

  I wanted to turn my head and look around, but found that my neck was not very obedient. I wanted to sit up, but my limbs only moved slightly before falling back down weakly.

  Damn it, I'm done for!!

  It must have been a traverse, Wang Kuang thought with some resentment.

  Before waking up, I was on my way to a blind date. The green light at the pedestrian crossing had just turned on, and I had only lifted my leg when I suddenly arrived here. If there was an accident, I would definitely be lying in the hospital now. If I died...

  What if it's hung up?

  So he's done for. Wang suddenly remembered that just before lifting his leg, he clearly heard a sharp screeching sound of brakes.

  So this is true, but I don't know which era it has passed into?

  Right then, his stomach started to feel wave after wave of discomfort, as if someone was stirring his stomach with a stick, slowly and laboriously, like stirring sugar. Wang realized he was hungry.

  Damn it, looking at this situation, lying in a dilapidated temple, with a pile of grass underneath, and on top of being hungry, Wang Kuang didn't even need to think about it, he knew his current situation was very bad, and might even be a beggar.

  "Ah!"

  Wang Kuang let out a somewhat hysterical cry, but unfortunately his body, which had no idea how long it had been starving, was not very cooperative. His voice was hoarse and extremely low, as if someone had tightened their grip on his throat.

  "Dogzi ge, you xing le?"

  Translation: "Doggie brother, are you awake?"

  With a child's voice, a small face covered with dirt suddenly appeared above Wang Kuang. The disheveled hair still had a few dry straws stuck to it, and the bright, shining eyes were filled with surprise, sparkling like there were tears in them.

  Suddenly I felt a surge of emotion, how long has it been? In this modern society where material desires are rampant, even small children have become cynical, when was the last time I saw such innocent eyes?

  "Dogzi Ge, you're awake, that's great, I was really afraid that...". The child stuttered and suddenly said "Pffft! See what I said, pffft! Pffft! It's unlucky."

  After finishing, Tongzi handed over a broken ceramic bowl: "Dogzi brother, eat some, this is the mutton soup I just got from the small stall of the Huren people at the south gate. Look, there's still a piece of sheep oil floating inside. That Huren person only gave it to me after hearing that Dogzi brother had fainted from hunger."

  "Anything else?" Wang Kuang, who had no other hobbies besides food in his past life, knew that his body couldn't withstand greasiness after being hungry for so long. After struggling to finish this sentence, he felt unbearable and cold sweat rolled down from his forehead and armpits.

  "There's only this soup, and it was given to me after I begged for it. Dogzi Ge, eat quickly, you'll have energy after eating." Tongzi looked at the ceramic bowl in his hand and swallowed his saliva.

  After a short rest, feeling a bit better, Wang Kuang forced himself to be spirited: "Listen to me, go find some wild vegetables or leaves, put them in and cook them, then we'll eat together."

  "I'll go." Upon hearing that they would eat together, a glimmer of delight flashed in Tongzi's eyes, and he put down the ceramic bowl before running out.

  "It seems everyone is hungry!" Wang Kuang sighed in his heart, looking at the somewhat ferocious plastic statue for a while before dozing off to sleep.

  He didn't know how long he had slept, but Wang Kuang was awakened by the aroma of mutton. He opened his eyes to see the young boy blowing air into the broken ceramic bowl nonstop.

  "Come on, Dogzi Ge, I'll help you."

  The child exerted himself to prop Wang Kuang against the pedestal of the statue, and somehow produced two twigs from somewhere. With one hand holding a bowl and the other using the twigs as chopsticks, he picked up the only piece of meat in the bowl - a small piece of mutton fat - and handed it to Wang Kuang's mouth.

  King Huan's mouth moved slightly, and he nodded towards the few unknown leaves floating in the bowl.

  "This is mutton fat, Brother Dogzi, eating it will give you energy." Tongzi was somewhat puzzled, seeing the persistence in Wang Kuang's eyes, Tongzi could only scoop up some vegetable leaves to feed Wang Kuang.

  After eating a few pieces of vegetable leaves, the child tilted the bowl slightly and brought it to Wang Kuang's mouth. Wang Kuang blew away the thin layer of oil floating on top of the soup and drank a few mouthfuls, only then did his stomach feel slightly warm and comfortable.

  After drinking half a bowl of soup, Wang Kuang pushed the bowl to Tongzi: "Little brother, you drink now."

  "Dogzi Ge, you drink up, if it's not enough I'll go beg for some more." Tongzi swallowed his saliva and pushed the bowl back to Wang Kuang.

  "No need, I'm too hungry, can't eat that much at once." Wang Kuang also wanted to finish the soup, but he knew that this child was probably starving too. From the way the child looked at him with concern and offered him the mutton fat, it seemed that the child had a deep relationship with the previous owner of this body. At least they were in a relationship where they would be full together or hungry together.

  "Oh, I've eaten." The child saw Wang Kuang say this and didn't persist anymore. After all, he was just a kid who couldn't resist the temptation of food. Although it was only a mutton soup with some floating vegetables, the child wolfed it down in three or two mouthfuls and then reluctantly added more to the bottom of the bowl. Only then did he slowly raise his head, looking puzzled and confused at Wang Kuang.

  "That's strange, Dogzi Ge, you've never called me 'little brother' before, it's always been 'second son'."

  It turned out that the child was called Erzi. With some embarrassment, he rubbed his forehead, and Wang Kuang didn't know what to say. After thinking for a while, he decided to use the killer trick of the Crossing Clan.

  "I'm a bit fuzzy on what happened before I passed out, maybe it was because I was hungry, but all I know is that you should be my closest person, yet I forgot your name, so I just call you little brother. Maybe I'll get better after some time."

  "Oh." Erzi was still confused, but soon smiled again: "Never mind, Dogzi brother, you can wake up is good, do you know? These days scared me to death, especially this morning, I saw you covered in ice, thought you..."

  "Alright, let's not talk about this anymore. I'm feeling a bit better now. Come, help me up and let's go get some sunlight. It's been ages since I've seen daylight, my body is aching all over." Seeing the two children on the verge of tears again, Wang Kuang hastily intervened.

  The two sons hurried over to support Wang Kuang. Wang Kuang's hand pushed against something, but it was a stick that he grabbed onto and used to prop himself up to stand. Only then did he have the chance to take in his surroundings.

  It appears to be a small temple, not very large, about 30 square meters in size, with only one broken and tattered deity image. The walls on all four sides are basically intact, with frescoes painted on the stone-gray washed walls, but most of them have already faded and can't be seen clearly. There are no windows, only a doorless doorway. On the side of the doorway, there are several stones with smoke-blackened marks and ashes in the stone pile, indicating that it was used as a "stove" for cooking. Next to the stove is a ceramic pot missing one handle and half of its mouth, which has been smoked black and looks like it's been used for a long time.

  Turning around, I can see that the statue is probably a certain deity from Taoism, but I don't know which one. As an atheist in my previous life, I never studied these things, so I naturally don't know. It seems that I am now inside a Taoist temple. However, I don't know what era it is or where I am. But judging from the fact that Erzi mentioned earlier that he got mutton soup from a foreigner, it's certain that I have traveled back in time to ancient times. The Tang Dynasty was the most common era for Han and Hu people to coexist, but other dynasties also had Han and Hu people living together, although not as widespread as the Tang Dynasty. Still, I need to find an opportunity to verify this.

  Looking at the stick in his hand, it was curved and twisted, and at a glance, it was just a tree branch. Only this section he held in his hand had been polished to a shine, apparently it was a "dog-beating stick". But dog-beating sticks are also better with bamboo, aren't they? However, now he didn't even know where he was, whether there were any bamboo or not was still an unknown number.

  He smiled wryly to himself, it seemed he had already accepted the fact that he had crossed over and also accepted this body. Well, what choice did he have? He just hoped that he wasn't a beggar. Others who crossed over weren't scholars or family servants or doctors, even the most useless ones could at least have a place to settle down, their own house.

  I no longer aspire to wealth and status, Heaven, please let this be just a temporary setback for me, please let me have another identity, even if it's just that of an ordinary citizen.

  After sorting out the threads, I suddenly found that I didn't have any crossing advantage:

  I'm not a history buff, all I know about history is Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing. And then there are some famous eras and historical figures, but that's just a rough idea, everything else is completely unknown to me.

  Not a chemistry student, although the middle school textbook has methods for making glass and cement soap, it was returned to the teacher long ago.

  Not studying agriculture, cotton, tea leaves and so on are all half-understood. The only thing that seems to be useful is when I was in junior high school, because the whole class went to pick tea leaves and ran far away, as a result, when we came back, our classmates and teachers had already returned to school, so we had no choice but to go back and stir-fry the tea leaves we picked and drink them ourselves. It seems that in some time-traveling novels, people drank boiled tea in ancient times, if I were living in a later dynasty now, then this would not be useful either.

  I studied hydraulics, but what use is this hydraulics in ancient times? It seems that the possibility of it being from the Tang Dynasty is still higher.

  Never mind, when the car reaches the mountain, there will be a road, and where there is a road... Oh, it's not about the car. Let's first figure out the current situation before talking about it. The top priority task is to solve the stomach problem first, just drinking those few mouthfuls of mutton soup and eating a few pieces of vegetable leaves didn't fill my belly at all.