Courtyard House: Time Traveler Not Yet a Ghost

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

In the dead of night in early April 1941, gunshots suddenly shattered the deathly silence of Nanluoguxiang.

On the kang (heated brick bed) in the east courtyard, He Damin didn't even lift his eyelids. For the world-class assassin known as "Thousand-Faced Yama" in previous generations, gunshots were nothing more than ordinary wind and rain, unable to cause the slightest ripple. As long as the bullets weren't aimed at his elder brother He Daqing's family, he wouldn't even bother to turn over.

The years of his past life had long since eroded his humanity. On Killer Island, friends were bargaining chips, comrades were stepping stones, and trust was a death warrant. He survived not because of emotions, but because of extreme ruthlessness and cold-bloodedness. Even now, that deep-seated indifference still haunts him.

But for the sake of his elder brother's family, he still set up the most basic defense—a wisp of soul floated on the roof of the front yard of the courtyard house, silently monitoring.

This clone possesses 80% of the original's strength, and is so solid it's indistinguishable from a real person. After months of cultivation, its nighttime endurance has become increasingly stronger, now able to last until 5 AM. On cloudy days, the original can even briefly leave the body to move around.

At this moment, the clone sent back without warning and did not share any footage, indicating that the commotion outside was not enough to threaten the He family. He Damin turned over, preparing to go back to sleep.

Just then, a very slight noise came from the back wall of the east courtyard—someone had climbed over the wall and entered.

Immediately afterwards, the wooden door to the woodshed, which was never locked, was quietly pushed open and then quickly closed again. After a rustling sound, an uninvited guest appeared in the woodpile.

He Damin remained lying flat, but his divine sense had already spread like mercury, with invisible tentacles reaching towards the woodshed.

Deep within the woodpile, a young woman huddled. She appeared to be a schoolgirl, dressed in a blue indigo cheongsam over a grey cardigan, her short, ear-length hair plastered messily to her sweat-dampened forehead. She was about twenty years old, with delicate features, but her face was deathly pale, her lips blue, and her breathing rapid.

She had a gunshot wound to her left arm and a bullet to her right leg, the bullets still embedded in her flesh. The hem and cuffs of her cheongsam were soaked with blood, dark red stains spreading across the firewood. She had lost too much blood and her consciousness was fading. She instinctively covered her wounds, biting her lower lip tightly, trying her best not to make a sound.

"To save or not to save?"

A thought flashed through He Damin's mind. In his past life, if he encountered this situation, he would have simply turned a blind eye—meddling in other people's business meant exposure, and exposure meant certain death. But in this life… He glanced towards the main house; his elder brother's family was fast asleep.

The sound of hurried footsteps and shouts came from outside. Two traitors from the detective squad, carrying pistols, chased after them to the alley entrance, their flashlight beams scattering wildly.

"Damn it, where did he run off to?" "He must be hiding in someone's yard! Search house to house!" "Search my ass! In the middle of the night, who can afford to take responsibility if we alert the Imperial Army? He can't go far injured, we'll come back first thing tomorrow morning!"

The two walked away, grumbling and cursing.

He Damin's soul clone silently descended and began cleaning up the traces left by the female student. His soul power transformed into countless fine threads, erasing the bloodstains on the woodpile, the handprints on the courtyard wall, and the footprints on the ground. A few minutes later, everything was restored to normal, as if no one had ever been there.

But he knew this was only a temporary measure. At daybreak, the detectives would return to search the house again. Leaving the female student in the courtyard was like leaving a ticking time bomb.

"Sigh..." He Damin sighed inwardly.

Save them.

It has nothing to do with any lofty sentiments; his past life as an assassin taught him to take life and death lightly.

He got up and dressed with the lightness of a cat. He took out a Japanese military blanket from his Tai Chi space—gray-green, thick and warm. He also took gauze, hemostatic medicine, and anti-inflammatory medicine, and put them all into a small cloth bag.

He pushed open the door, and the moonlight in the courtyard was like water. He Damin drifted like a wisp of smoke to the woodshed and pushed open the wooden door.

The female student was already unconscious, her breathing weak. He checked her pulse; she still had a chance of survival, but the bullet needed to be removed as soon as possible.

He Damin deftly wrapped her in a blanket and held her in his arms. She was very light, like a feather. He turned and left the woodshed, and with a light leap, he floated onto the roof.

He unleashed his "Lightness Skill: Swallow Three Drops of Water," leaping swiftly across the tiled rooftops, each time using only three steps of leverage on the tiles to travel over ten zhang (approximately 33 meters) in a single bound. The night wind whistled past his ears, but the woman in his arms remained oblivious.

Only now did He Damin belatedly realize a problem—while a soul could pass through walls, it couldn't carry a physical body. To move things, he still needed this physical body. No wonder in his previous life, ghost stories only told tales of ghosts appearing in dreams to scare people; to move gold and silver treasures, he still needed the help of living people.

"It seems that spirits and bodies each have their own strengths," he thought to himself.

Half an hour later, He Damin had left Beiping City and arrived at the foothills of the Yanshan Mountains in the west of the city.

The area was characterized by rolling hills and dense forests. He moved through the woods like an owl, his toes barely touching the treetops as he leaped away. Moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled shadows that illuminated his expressionless face.

We need to find a safe place to have the surgery.

In the darkest hour before dawn, he discovered a natural cave halfway up the mountain.

The cave entrance was about six or seven meters above the ground, hidden behind vines, making it extremely concealed. He leaped into the cave, grabbing a protrusion on the rock wall with one hand and holding the woman with the other, and nimbly flipped into the cave.

The cave wasn't deep, about three zhang square, but it was dry and well-ventilated, without the stench of wild animal droppings, clearly indicating that few creatures ventured there. The cave floor was covered with a layer of fine sand and was fairly flat.

He Damin placed the woman on a blanket and took out a flashlight from the Taiji Space—an American-made military supply that he had "borrowed" from the Japanese warehouse; it provided a bright light. He then took out surgical instruments: hemostats, scalpels, tweezers, sutures, as well as alcohol, iodine, gauze, and bandages.

He checked the wounds first. The bullet in his left arm had grazed the bone, not too deep. The one in his right leg was more troublesome; it was embedded next to the fibula, and any more off-center and it would have broken the bone.

"You're lucky to be alive," He Damin whispered.

He first disinfected his hands and instruments with alcohol, his movements so practiced it seemed he had done it a thousand times. In his past life as an assassin, treating gunshot wounds was a required course—either treating his own or "treating" his targets.

"laugh--"

The scalpel precisely cut through the flesh, and blood gushed out. He Damin reacted swiftly, instantly clamping the blood vessel with hemostats, inserting tweezers into the wound, firmly grasping the bullet, and gently pulling it out.

With a soft "ding," the blood-stained bullet fell into the iron pan.

The bullet in his right leg took a bit more effort. He needed to avoid nerves and blood vessels without damaging the bone. He concentrated his inner energy at his fingertips, amplifying his perception, allowing him to "see" every pore of the tissue around the bullet. The tweezers, as if they had eyes, navigated around the obstacles, grasped the bullet's tail, and slowly pulled it out.

The whole process was smooth and efficient; both bullets were removed in less than fifteen minutes.

He cleaned the wound, disinfected it, sutured it, and bandaged it. He Damin's technique was so professional that it was unbelievable for a chef. Every stitch was even and fine, effectively stopping the bleeding without leaving any unsightly scars.

After the treatment, the female student's breathing stabilized slightly, but she remained unconscious. She had lost too much blood and urgently needed a transfusion, but there were no such facilities available. He Damin could only give her an IV drip of saline solution—something he had smuggled from a Japanese warehouse, which unexpectedly proved useful.

He then took out several boxes of penicillin and anti-inflammatory drugs from the Taiji Space, wrapped them in paper, and placed them beside her. After thinking for a moment, he added a military blanket, a military water bottle, several cans of beef, and a pack of compressed biscuits.

"Whether you live or not depends on your own fate." He Damin stood up and dusted off his hands.

He gave the cave one last check. The vines at the entrance were dense enough to make it extremely difficult to spot from the outside. The interior had been thoroughly cleaned, and all surgical waste had been stored in his Taiji spatial storage. The woman's supplies were enough to sustain her for three to five days. If she still hadn't woken up by then, or if her condition worsened…

That was beyond his control.

He Damin jumped out of the cave and disappeared into the darkness before dawn with a few leaps.

He had to get back to the courtyard house before dawn, thoroughly clean the woodshed, and then go to work at Fengzeyuan as if nothing had happened.

When I returned to Nanluoguxiang, the sky was just beginning to lighten.

He didn't go straight back to the east courtyard. Instead, he first circled the courtyard, carefully searching with his divine sense to make sure there were no more bloodstains or traces left behind, before climbing over the wall to enter.

Inside the woodshed, he dealt with the last remaining hazard—the pile of blood-stained firewood. With a thought, the entire pile of firewood vanished, stored in a corner of the Yang side of the Taiji space. He then took out some clean firewood from the space to replace it, piling it up exactly the same as before.

By the time all this was done, dawn was breaking. Roosters crowed in the alley, followed by the sounds of people getting up from their homes.

He Damin returned to the east courtyard, changed out of his night clothes, and put on his usual coarse cloth clothes. He washed his face in front of the water vat and looked at the reflection in the water—the face of a fourteen-year-old boy, whose eyes were as deep as an ancient well.

"Just pretend nothing happened," he told himself.

Inside the main house, He Daqing was already up, fetching water in the courtyard. Seeing his younger brother come out from the east wing, he greeted him with a smile, "Damin, up so early?"

"Can't sleep? Get up and move around a bit," He Damin said, stepping forward to help carry water.

Lü Bingxin started a fire in the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Little Yuzhu, rubbing his eyes, came out of the house and called out in his childish voice, "Good morning, Uncle!"

"Good morning, Yuzhu." He Damin patted his nephew's head.

Everything was as usual, as if the terrifying events of last night had never happened.

However, this calm lasted only until after breakfast.

"Knock knock knock!"

A violent banging on the door rang out, accompanied by gruff shouts: "Open the door! Search!"

He Daqing's expression changed, and he quickly went to open the door. Standing outside were four traitors from the detective team. The one leading them was the short Japanese soldier's subordinate whom He Damin had dealt with on New Year's Eve—surnamed Wang, known as Wang Ergou.

"Captain Wang, what brings you here so early?" He Daqing asked with a fawning smile.

Wang Ergou, his belly protruding, glanced sideways at the courtyard: "Some Communists fled last night, wounded, and are probably hiding in this area. We need to search every house!"

"Communists?" He Daqing's heart skipped a beat, but he dared not show it on his face. "Captain Wang is joking. Everyone in our compound is an honest and law-abiding citizen..."

"Enough talk! Search!"