As if in a dream.

Where am I? Why am I not in the hospital?

Li Xi found himself lying on the side of a bustling street. The sky was heavy, the cold wind biting, and all he had to cover himself was a filthy burlap sack reeking of kitchen refuse. Under the sack, he was completely bare—no clothes, no shoes, not even his wallet.

Was I robbed? But I remember I was driving. Where’s my car?

Li Xi looked around in confusion. There was no car, no asphalt road, no billboards, no high-rises, and none of the noise of city life. There wasn’t a trace of modern civilization. All he could see was a dusty dirt road, dilapidated earthen and wooden houses, oddly dressed passersby, and squeaking oxcarts.

Are they filming a period drama, dressed so strangely? No, perhaps I’ve traveled through time.

Strangely enough, Li Xi accepted the fact of his transmigration in a split second. Maybe it was all the time travel novels he’d read in his previous life. He smiled wryly. Who says web novels are just mindless entertainment? For a transmigrator, they can at least help you get through those initial moments of panic and confusion—otherwise, the shock of shifting through time might just break your spirit and send you fleeing naked through the streets.

His clothes, he mused, might have dissolved in the wormhole or been stripped off him while he was unconscious. The shirt had been a gift from a wealthy friend returning from a shopping spree in Hong Kong; the belt was a birthday present from his wife. Oh well, every transmigrator faces awkward moments at first—stay calm.

Tang Dynasty, it must be the Tang Dynasty, he concluded after a brief study of the people's dress. He couldn't quite recall what Tang men wore, but the women's costumes left a deeper impression—thanks to his wife, who had once been obsessed with Tang fashions, often dressing at home in ruqun, painting her eyebrows in strange arcs, puffing out her chest, and pretending she too had the ample bosom so admired in that age. She even spent a whole day coiling her hair into an elaborate bun.

His wife, reluctant to diet or exercise, had started using the Tang Dynasty as her excuse for her post-marriage weight gain: "Only men with broad minds and lofty aspirations can appreciate the beauty of a full-figured woman," she would argue. "Our Tang Empire, peerless and magnificent, towers above the world—why? Because our men are open-hearted, and so they love peonies and plump women. By the Song, Ming, and Qing, the scholars favored stick-thin women and even bound their feet—why? Because they were oppressed by foreign powers, became narrow-minded, self-absorbed, and conservative!"

Finally, she would challenge him: "Well, are you a broad-minded, high-aspiring man, or a conservative, self-obsessed, petty one?"

Li Xi would reply, "I'm a broad-minded, high-aspiring man—with a preference for slim beauties. A synthesis of Tang, Song, and Ming virtues!"

He'd lost the debate in the end, but he never forgot those facts: the Tang Dynasty’s love for full-figured women, their penchant for high, elaborate hairdos, and their fondness for low-cut dresses. All this helped him quickly deduce his situation: this was a Tang transmigration, not Song, Ming, Qing, or any other period.

But was this really the famous Tang Empire of history? After observing a bit longer, Li Xi doubted. This Tang seemed nothing like the dynasty founded by Li Yuan—he saw none of the legendary splendor his wife used to rave about. Instead, this Tang was ruled by oppressive officials, its people were poor, social morals rotten—a mirror image of the worst of the late Qing.

And why, he wondered, couldn’t he understand a word people spoke? Language changes fast, sure, but shouldn’t he at least recognize a few characters, even if they were traditional, even if written without punctuation, vertically and right-to-left? But no—he didn’t recognize a single character. The script looked a bit like seal script, but clearly wasn’t; if it were, with his classical background, he’d at least pick out a few.

He couldn’t speak the language, couldn’t recognize the words, knew nothing of their customs. This Tang transmigration was proving tough—none of his prior knowledge was of any use.

Oh, how he regretted not reading fewer web novels and practicing more martial arts; at least then he could busk or peddle miracle cures, or even turn highwayman, and not starve to death on the streets like a beggar.

Recalling his fainting from hunger and being mistaken for a beggar, he wanted to rail at that famous novelist: “It’s not that I disrespect you, sir, but you’ve done me harm! True, you warned not all beggars are heroes, but you also said only the ambitious elite and corrupt bureaucrats are bad—the common folk are pure, kind, chivalrous. So why did the beggar gang target only street vagrants like me?”

Fainting from hunger and being mistaken for a beggar was tragedy enough. A kind soul gave him half a bowl of leftover wheat porridge—then a gang of beggars snatched it away, beat him up for sport.

“Old Master Jin, you misled me! If not for your stories, I wouldn't have tried to befriend those beggars, wouldn't have greeted them with a smile. I treated them as family; they treated me as an enemy. That beating was truly undeserved.”

Whenever Li Xi recalled being mobbed by beggars, he shuddered. If not for a kindly old lady speaking up for him, he’d never have survived, let alone been taken in as a junior member by Boss Kang. He couldn’t even remember that lady’s face—he’d been bleeding so much, his vision was a blur. But he remembered her pretty maid, who left a deep impression.

Boss Kang was no saint—he took Li Xi in only because the old lady paid him. She was a devout Buddhist, believing that saving a life was worth more than building seven pagodas. Her lovely maid even gave up a bracelet to ensure Li Xi’s acceptance. Boss Kang was a scoundrel, but under his wing, Li Xi at least had food, shelter, and some protection.

Being a beggar wasn’t all bad. The greatest advantage was a carefree mind—once you’d eaten twice a day, you could squat in a corner, pick lice, bask in the sun, and chat idly. What worries could you have?

It was while picking lice in a sunny corner that Li Xi learned the local language from his fellow beggars. At first, it was the basics—“Kind soul, have pity, spare me a bite to eat,” which he mastered quickly. The second phrase: “Buddha bless you, you’re my savior,” used less often, only after the first line worked. The third: “Curse your mother! May you meet disaster on your way home and not even the devils want you in hell!”—useful when begging failed.

With these three phrases, he established himself in the beggar gang. After two weeks, Boss Kang decided to make him an official member of the Beggar Guild’s Western Branch, giving him the nickname “Meathead Gourd.”

This new status brought more opportunities to use another key phrase: “Brothers, scatter!”—invaluable when their chivalric redistribution of wealth didn’t go as planned.

But it was this very line that led to his leaving the gang for good.

One fine day, Boss Kang decided to take a crew to the Chang family estate to perform a righteous deed—redistributing some ill-gotten gains from the local tyrant, Lord Chang, to the poor. Boss Kang had Li Xi use his height and strength to help carry out the loot. They broke into the Chang estate while the family was at the ancestral hall, with only a novice lookout left outside.

Everyone was working hard—prying, carrying, passing goods through the wall—when suddenly the lookout shouted in alarm. The group scattered: over walls, through holes, up trees. Li Xi, caught holding a bolt of brocade, was too slow, and the “Five Dragons” and “Four Tigers” of the Chang family soon had him pinned.

When confronted, Boss Kang disowned him: “Who’s this? I don’t know the guy. I was just passing by.” He even asked Li Xi, “Do you know me? Look carefully, don’t mistake me for someone else.”

Old hand that he was, Boss Kang knew that without stolen goods in hand or being caught inside the house, he was untouchable.

His coolness gave Li Xi confidence, and he too denied any connection.

Lord Chang, furious, had Li Xi tied up in a wicker cage in front of the estate for all to see. For a day and a night he sat there, but at least he wasn’t starved, beaten, or left exposed—his fellow beggars even guarded him against stone-throwing kids.

To rescue Li Xi, Boss Kang devised a plan: he had a mud idol carried round the Chang estate, banging gongs and drums, in a ritual meant to bring luck. But instead of one circuit, they kept at it day and night, driving the family mad until Lord Chang paid them off.

Boss Kang made a show of counting Li Xi among his own when receiving the reward. Afterward, he and his men celebrated with drink, and Li Xi seized the chance to slip away in the night, fleeing the city at dawn in a light rain, vowing to start anew.

He washed dishes for three months to earn official refugee status, then threw himself into mastering the local dialect, practicing ten hours a day until he spoke with a perfect Longxi accent. Only then did he begin learning the strange script—discovering it was distantly related to Chinese, and not so hard once he got the hang of it. Within six months, he knew two thousand characters and could read simple texts.

Promoted to server at the tavern, he spent his savings to apprentice himself to the bookkeeper, who, though no scholar, was moved by Li Xi’s diligence and taught him all he knew. Before long, the bookkeeper began to feel threatened by his bright pupil and, one autumn, arranged for him to be conscripted into the army.

The city’s officials, desperate for soldiers, began drafting anyone, registered or not, unless they could pay a fee. The tavern keeper, nudged by the bookkeeper, sent Li Xi’s name in. That night, soldiers burst into the dormitory, chained him by the neck, and dragged him off.

On his second day as a conscript, he was herded off to battle, led by a mounted officer, surrounded by unarmed recruits. Li Xi realized he needed a weapon. During a break, he slipped into the supply camp, but found chaos and no hope of finding arms.

There, he met a grizzled veteran who told him not to bother—there were no weapons, the armory was empty, and they’d be sent into battle unarmed. Li Xi protested, “How can we fight like this?” The old soldier explained: “Without weapons, you’re more likely to survive—armed men are killed as enemies; empty-handed, you’re just taken as slaves.”

The veteran explained that the invaders, the Tibetans, needed slaves—sometimes for breeding, sometimes for other purposes, but that pretty boys like Li Xi would likely end up as monks, not studs. He handed Li Xi a firewood stick, explaining its usefulness: not threatening enough to mark him as a fighter, not so helpless as to be picked for the monastery. “You’ll end up a slave,” he said.

Li Xi, despairing, considered fighting to the death, but the old soldier urged him, “Better to live and wait for your chance.” He said Tibet would soon fall into chaos, and the slaves would regain their freedom—though Li Xi doubted that would come anytime soon.

Before he could decide his fate, the call to march sounded, and he was whipped forward with the rest.

As fate would have it, Li Xi became a Tibetan slave, branded and put to work shearing sheep. When winter came and there was no more wool to shear, he was sent to the forest to chop wood, given a bronze axe only marginally better than a stone one, and soon his hands were a mass of blisters and blood. He wanted to rest, but the overseers encouraged those who couldn’t work to dig their own graves. So he endured, hands swollen and raw, eating wild greens and stale bread.

One day, a new arrival smeared something sticky on his hands. Li Xi thought he was being bullied, but the next day, his wounds healed. He wanted to thank his benefactor and share the old soldier’s prophecy, but the man was gone—rumor had it he’d been devoured by wild beasts or buried alive for not obeying the overseers.

When Li Xi’s hands were callused and tough, fortune seemed to glance his way—though with a cold eye. In late summer, Tang border troops attacked, slaughtered the scattered Tibetan clans, seized their women, and reclaimed their own enslaved people. Li Xi and his fellow slaves managed to capture their cruel overseer and debated how to deal with him—some wanted him dead, others wanted revenge. In the end, one clever youth smashed his knees, so he’d live his days in misery.

As they made their way down the mountain to the Tang camp, arrows rained down—Tibetan remnants had captured the camp in a night raid, slaughtering the soldiers. Li Xi and his group ran for their lives, barely escaping death, and he ended up wandering the steppe for half a month before stumbling into a Uyghur camp.

The Uyghurs welcomed him, made him a master shearer, and even provided women. But before long, the “Hyenas” of the steppe, the Shato, raided, enslaving Li Xi and many others. The Shato erased his Tibetan brand with a knife, then made him their cook. To avoid the fate of the previous chef, Li Xi dazzled them with every dish he could remember, never repeating a meal for two months. But the Shato, though they loved his cooking, considered him too greasy to sleep with their women, so he spent his nights in the sheep pen, along with a few young boys—one of whom, a wolfish youth in a sheepskin coat, Li Xi nicknamed “Wolf Cub.”

One day, after “Wolf Cub” was whipped, he took his anger out on a pregnant ewe, beating it until it miscarried. Li Xi later learned the boy’s name was Zhuye Chixin.

Ironically, the Shato’s abuse saved Li Xi again. The Uyghurs, seeking to rescue their kin, surrounded the Shato stronghold one night, set it ablaze, and roasted everyone inside. By some miracle, Li Xi survived in the sheep pen, but his troubles weren’t over. The Uyghurs sold him as a slave at the border market, where he was displayed with a stick in his hair, alongside the livestock.

Li Xi, “Wolf Cub,” and three other Shato boys were bought by a shepherd, who treated them with relative kindness. They survived longer than most, who were usually dead within ten days from hunger, beating, or disease. People said they were lucky, but Li Xi knew it was survival instinct, not their master’s mercy. Zhuye Chixin agreed.

With so many slaves dying, unrest grew. Li Xi wanted to join a planned revolt, but the Shato didn’t trust him, thinking Tang people were traitors. One night, they dragged him out, stripped and bound him, and left him for the mosquitoes to drain his blood. After a night of storm and rain, Li Xi was rescued by the shepherd, but the rebels’ heads were soon hanging from the camp gate, all but one—Zhuye Chixin—who escaped.

With his master dead and no heir, Li Xi was assigned as a communal shepherd for the tribe’s elderly. This public post was less strictly managed, and Li Xi enjoyed the happiest days since his transmigration, herding sheep across the vast steppe, singing to the sky.

But this peace was short-lived. One day, he and his flock were captured by the savage Shiwei, who branded every slave. As a Tang man, Li Xi received two brands—front and back. Before his wounds healed, the Shiwei were themselves attacked by the rising Khitans, and their brander became a slave as well.

The Khitans dressed their fat slaves in women’s clothes, made them dance atop pyres, and then handed them torches to set their own funeral pyres alight. While the Khitans laughed and drank, the Shiwei slaves gained eternal life in the flames.

Li Xi, along with camels and horses, was taken to the border market with Tang. With his sturdy build and many skills, he fetched a high price. Yet he remained unsold, his Shiwei brand resembling the character for “death”—an ill omen no one wanted to buy.

The Khitans kindly offered to remove the cursed mark—by skinning, burning, or branding over it. The family quarreled, and the knife advocate was killed by his brother, who favored fire. The widow, now marrying her brother-in-law, declared Li Xi a jinx, unfit even for slavery.

She gave him a shovel and a leather sack, telling him to dig his own grave and bury himself as he pleased. As he hesitated, she drew a bow to force him in—just then, the Tang cavalry arrived.

The fierce Shuo Fang troops beat her husband, ordered her to behead her new spouse, and bury the body. She complied, then begged for mercy—so they rewarded her with two ropes, one to tie her dead husband’s head to their horse, the other to bind her own hands as they took her away as a trophy.

Li Xi tried to prove his Tang citizenship, but the Khitan woman accused him of being a Hexi mongrel. The soldiers agreed: “Hexi is no longer under Tang rule. You’d best accept your fate as a slave. In Tang, even slaves are well fed and clothed—just serve us well.”

It was then that Li Xi’s mental malaise began, just as the old soldier had predicted—he might return home, but his country would still treat him as a slave. Was it really still his home? He could never make sense of it, and from then on would mutter strange songs and rhymes—until one late autumn afternoon...