Chief Armaments Master of the Ming Dynasty

In the winter of the first year of the Chongzhen reign, in Yan'an Prefecture, Shaanxi Province.

The historical records state, "There was a severe drought and famine, and people resorted to cannibalism," which is just eight characters.

Lin Fan had read it. He had casually flipped through it while waiting for the data to refresh in the lab.

Now those eight words are churning out of his stomach—empty, nothing comes up, just acidic water.

Having eaten the clay and gnawed on the tree bark, the original owner of this body finally stuffed soil into his mouth—soil from the Loess Plateau, as dry as bone ash. It got stuck in his throat; he couldn't swallow it, couldn't spit it out, and suffocated to death with his mouth agape.

He came back to life for this person. Or rather, he continued to die for this person.

Trees with their bark stripped off stood on both sides of the official road, their white, bone-like bark stark against the gray-yellow sky.

Many people lay dead by the roadside. Some were still alive, their eyes darting around. A crow landed on their face, pecked at them, and their eyes stopped moving.

Lin Fan lay on the ground, digging his fingers into the frozen soil, trying to crawl out.

My mind was churning with useless thoughts—the construction of blast furnaces, phase transformation diagrams of alloys, the optimal ratio of gunpowder…

Those were his memories from before he traveled through time, memories belonging to him as a master's student in materials science and engineering.

Every memory was so clear it seemed etched into his memory, yet none of them could save him.

What could save him was a bite to eat. Anything at all. Tree bark, grass roots, sawdust.

It's okay to eat Guanyin clay again.

There seemed to be a sound coming from the wind, but it wasn't the sound of the wind itself.

It was the sound of horses' hooves and the dull thud of wheels rolling over frozen ground, interspersed with a few rough shouts.

Lin Fan strained to open his eyes a little wider, and through his blurry vision, he saw several swaying figures moving closer along the official road.

Are they refugees? Or...?

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His heart skipped a beat, and the instinct for survival overwhelmed all vain thoughts.

He had to move, he had to get something to eat, even if it was just a bite.

He braced himself against the cold ground and tried to stand up.

His legs were already numb and unresponsive. As soon as he exerted any force, everything went black before his eyes, and he fell forward, his forehead hitting a protruding rock hard.

Warm liquid flowed down my brow bone, bringing a slight stinging sensation and a sweet, metallic taste.

He lay on the ground, breathing heavily, the cold, earthy smell filling his mouth and nose.

can't stop.

He gritted his teeth and used the last bit of strength to crawl forward using both his hands and feet.

The direction of the official road.

Even though we were only a dozen steps apart, it felt like there was an insurmountable chasm between us.

Dust covered his face, mixed with blood, forming a dirty, hard crust.

As he crawled, the tattered rags on his body got caught on gravel and dead branches, tearing open even wider and revealing his frighteningly thin, bluish-purple skin underneath.

Finally, he crawled to the edge of the official road, collapsed there, and barely had the strength to lift his head.

The sound of horses' hooves grew closer, almost right beside my ear.

He barely managed to lift his eyes.

Several horses, with messy coats and poor condition, their ribs clearly visible.

A man sat on horseback, dressed in a faded, patched courier's uniform, his face covered in a layer of yellow dust, looking gloomy and tired.

They were pulling two dilapidated stagecoaches, their canopies askew and their axles creaking under the weight of the load.

The convoy slowly passed by him, and it seemed that no one noticed the pile of "things" on the roadside that was almost the same color as the dust.

Just as Lin Fan was about to close his eyes in despair, a man riding a thin black horse in the middle of the caravan pulled on the reins.

The horse snorted and exhaled a puff of white vapor.

The man dismounted swiftly and gracefully.

He was very tall with broad shoulders, wearing a slightly neater postman's uniform than the others. He had a square face and dark skin, the marks of years of exposure to wind and sun.

A pair of eyes looked over; they weren't large, but they exuded a quiet strength, like the loess plateau of northern Shaanxi, usually silent, yet hiding ravines beneath.

He walked up to Lin Fan and squatted down.

A smell mixed with horse sweat and dust wafted towards us.

"Still breathing?" The man's voice was low and somewhat hoarse, and he spoke Mandarin with a strong Shaanxi accent.

Lin Fan opened his mouth, but only a hoarse sound came out of his throat.

The man stared at him for a few seconds, then glanced at the wretched shack behind him and the crawling marks on the ground.

His brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

Without asking any further questions, he untied a gray cloth bag hanging from his waist and pulled out half a dark, hard, rock-hard mixed flour bun.

I broke off a small piece, and carefully put the rest back.

He held the small piece of bread to Lin Fan's mouth.

"Chew it thoroughly and swallow it slowly," he said, his tone flat, as if he were giving an ordinary instruction.

Almost relying on his biological instincts, Lin Fan used the last bit of strength to bite down on the hard object.

The rough bran scraped against my mouth, with almost no taste, only a faint, subtle sweetness of grain and an indescribable sourness.

He painstakingly moistened it with saliva, ground it with his teeth, and swallowed it little by little with difficulty.

With each bite, my burning stomach seemed to receive a tiny bit of solace.

The man squatted beside him, watching. Once he finally finished the small piece of bread and his breathing seemed to have calmed down a little, he spoke again: "Where did you come from? Is no one home?"

Lin Fan's mind was still blank, but the will to survive drove him to utter a few words indistinctly: "The...famine...is all gone..."

This is the deepest fear and truth remaining in the body's memory, trembling with genuine emotion.

The man paused for a moment, his gaze lingering on the pile of tattered rags on his body and the wound on his forehead.

A companion called out from not far away, "Zicheng! What are you dawdling for! It's getting dark!"

Li Zicheng! Lin Fan's teeth paused for a moment.

According to historical records, this poor postman, who was so stingy that he had nothing left but his backbone, and who had saved a tenth of his life from his own mouth, would one day storm into Beijing, force Emperor Chongzhen to commit suicide, sit on the throne, and then be driven out by Wu Sangui and Dorgon, dying in Jiugong Mountain or Jiashan Temple, his body rotting into a pile of mud that no one would know whose.

But now he just squats by the roadside, watching a dying refugee eat a steamed bun.

The man, Li Zicheng, replied, "Coming!" He glanced at Lin Fan again, seemingly weighing his options for a moment.

The wind whipped up the dust from the ground, creating a rapid swirling motion.

"Can you still move?" Li Zicheng asked. "If you can, then come along. The post station needs someone to help out. Feed the horses, clean up manure. It won't be a full meal, but you won't starve."

There are no more options.

Lin Fan didn't even have the energy to think about anything else, or what the extent of "not starving to death" really meant.

He nodded with all his might when he heard the word "follow".

Li Zicheng said nothing more, got up, walked back to his black horse, and mounted it.

He yelled at the convoy, "Make room for this kid!"

There was some miscellaneous stuff piled up behind the stagecoach, barely enough space to make room for it.

Someone reached out and pulled the limp Lin Fan up.

The carriage was filled with a complex stench—a mixture of mold, sweat, and the smell of some kind of animal excrement.

Lin Fan huddled in the pile of debris, his consciousness bobbing between the cold reality and chaotic fragments of memory as the vehicle jolted and swayed.

The car creaked and groaned as it rolled along the long dirt road toward the unknown post station ahead.