In the eleventh year of Yonghui, spring's chill still bit to the bone.
After a night of wind and rain in the narrow alley, morning came, and only the tofu stall at the entrance could be heard setting up, a crisp voice calling out, "Tofu, two coins a pound! Dried tofu, one coin a piece! All of it fragrant!"
In the distance lay the morning market on South Market Street, porters coming and going while vendors haggled over prices.
"This is Unenviable Sheep, Bone Rot—how are ten taels of silver per head expensive?"
Chen Xu shot upright in bed, breaking out in a cold sweat.
Unenviable Sheep, Bone Rot—those were no good terms, but underworld code for people eating people!
He hurriedly got up and limped with difficulty to the window, pressing an ear close to listen to the sounds from the distant alley entrance.
Before the sounds arrived, all manner of food scents drifted over first.
The meaty aroma of steamed buns, the smoky scent of fried dough twists, the fresh sweetness of tofu pudding... as well as the fishy stench of the slaughterhouse market, the rotting odor accumulated in the ditches, and more.
All sorts of smells, all familiar.
And in the distance, that vendor was boasting about his sheep. "These are sheep raised on an estate near Black Dew Mountain! They drink dew and grow fat on polygonatum and ginseng. They were originally supplied exclusively to wealthy households. If you don't understand, don't talk nonsense and make a fool of yourself!"
Chen Xu heard every word clearly and secretly shook his head. That vendor really could spin a tale.
At the same time, he let out a breath of relief.
It seemed he had been muddle-headed from sleep and heard wrong.
Of course. This was the flourishing age of Yonghui, a rare era of peace under heaven. How could something like "Unenviable Sheep" possibly be sold openly at a morning market?
Standing by the window, Chen Xu clicked it shut, blocking out those complicated smells.
As he gently steadied his breathing, his thoughts slowly settled.
He had not originally belonged to this world. In his previous life, he had been an internet company drone who dropped dead at his desk from excessive overtime.
Poor him, a pure science student, yet he had transmigrated into an ancient world with neither technology nor the internet.
After sorting through reality, he discovered that for children of impoverished families in this world, there was basically no second path to success besides studying.
Chen Xu had been seven years old then, and his family had ranked fairly well-off in the village.
Yet they still could not escape the taxes, corvée labor, requisitions, and all the things born of class hierarchy. Every one of them was a mountain pressing on the common people's heads, leaving them gasping for breath.
Chen Xu resolved to take the Imperial Examination.
He expended tremendous effort persuading his family to support his studies. He entered school at seven and passed the Child Scholar examination at thirteen.
Thus he had studied by the cold window for ten years, reaching seventeen this year.
Unfortunately, from the year he passed as a Child Scholar onward, his exam luck had seemed to be forcibly dragged by some invisible tremendous force onto a rugged, winding path.
For three consecutive years afterward, he had taken the Xiucai Scholar examination, yet every time, some accident kept him outside the examination hall.
Sometimes he fell ill from not acclimating to the local conditions; sometimes an inn fire left him unconscious from smoke inhalation; sometimes, while walking along the road, a roof tile falling from the sky struck and injured him.
This year had been even more absurd. At the beginning of the year, he went to the County Academy to register his name, and while descending the mountain, he stepped on a stone and fell. That one fall had actually broken his right leg.
With such misfortune clinging to him, failing every time he took an exam, Chen Xu had once been thoroughly disheartened.
He reflected deeply and asked himself whether he ought to take another road. But if he changed paths, what road was there to take?
Besides, after so many years of persistence, it was ultimately hard to resign himself to giving up.
In the end, with the help of his classmates, Chen Xu rented a small courtyard in Ping'an Alley, not far from South Market Street, where he could stay temporarily while recovering and studying.
Ping'an Alley was called "Ping'an," or "Peace and Safety," but it was not truly a peaceful or pleasant place.
The population was dense and the surroundings noisy. Its sole advantage was that it was cheap.
Chen Xu had spent more than twenty days recuperating. Though he still limped when walking, he could at least handle the basics of daily life.
But last night, something strange had happened.
It had been roughly the fourth quarter of the Hour of the Pig, around midnight.
A cool mist had risen in the night. Chen Xu woke from the cold and could not get back to sleep, so he intended to get up and heat some porridge in the kitchen to warm himself.
He did not light a lamp, merely leaned on his crutch and slowly made his way toward the kitchen by the sparse moonlight outside the window.
Yet in the darkness, he heard the crackling of firewood burning inside the kitchen, a small cluster of orange-red flame casting light across the broken window lattice.
Chen Xu stopped in his tracks at once.
He had put out the stove fire before going to sleep. Why was the fire in the hearth burning again now?
"Squeak, squeak!"
Suddenly, he heard the low cries of rats—rustling, scratching, squeaking...
Within the bluish shadows of the dark night, the firelight swayed faintly. Chen Xu heard the rats' cries, yet somehow, the "squeaks" automatically transformed into human speech in his mind.
"Ah, this scholar is far too stingy when cooking porridge. Apart from plain rice, he adds nothing else at all."
The voice was shrill and ancient. It clearly sounded beside his ears, yet also seemed to come from some distant crack in the world.
"Squeak!" The response was still rat speech, likewise automatically turning into human language in Chen Xu's mind. "Tasty. Plain porridge is tasty too. Fragrant, sweet!"
"Foolish child. You simply have never eaten anything good, to think even a bowl of plain porridge tastes good." The elderly voice paused, then finally sighed. "But having reached such a state, being able to eat a bowl of plain porridge... plain porridge is good too."
[Rat Demon liked this +1] [+1]
Chen Xu froze on the spot. For a moment, he suspected he was hearing things; the next, his mind roared as though something strange had exploded within it into a sky full of starlight.
Chen Xu's head buzzed, his worldview suffering a violent blow.
And the rats' words in the middle of the night continued. "Ninth Master, the plain porridge is delicious. It would be even better if we could eat it every night."
[Rat Demon liked this +1]
Chen Xu closed his eyes, then opened them again.
His vision before him was exceptionally clear, and he himself was entirely awake.
Yet the strange prompt text continued to pop up in the empty air before his eyes, while the rats' chatter continued by his ears.
"If you think it tastes good, then so be it. We cannot easily move about at present, so we can only share food with this scholar. Still, this scholar's bad luck is abnormal. His aura is murky and gloomy. I fear he does not have long to live."
"Squeak!" The little rat grew anxious. "He cannot live much longer? Ninth Master, then how much longer can we eat his porridge?"
The old voice fell silent for a moment, then said helplessly, "How can one say for certain? The misfortune on him is so thick it is nearly dripping with water. I fear someone has stolen his luck. In any case, he will not live long."
"Squeak squeak squeak!" The little rat immediately sounded dejected. "His porridge is sweeter than other people's. It is such a pity that he is going to die so soon."
[Rat Demon liked this +1]
The old voice said softly, "The human heart is a labyrinth of ghosts and demons, forever holding countless unfathomable things. That is what makes humans different. Enough. Though we are mere rats, we must not eat another's provisions for nothing. A Shi, place these Worry-Free Clothes on the stove as payment for our meals these past days."
After that came another bout of rustling.
Perhaps this was the Rat Demon delivering those so-called "Worry-Free Clothes"!
Waves crashed through Chen Xu's heart. He felt an urge to rush into the kitchen at once, see with his own eyes whether Rat Demons truly existed, and carefully ask whether their claim that he did not have long to live was true. Yet he also feared that, with his mortal flesh and ordinary bones, he would be no match for the dangers of demons.
Although these two Rat Demons sounded more sensible and principled than some humans, and did not seem like evil demons.
But if they truly were demons, who knew how much of demon speech could be trusted?
Chen Xu clenched his teeth and ultimately stood rooted in the moonlit shadows.
His mind was turned upside down, his worldview collapsing and rebuilding. He nearly lost all sense of what day or year it was.
Only when the kitchen fire had gone out again at some unknown time, all the rustling sounds had faded away, and his injured leg sent up piercing pain did Chen Xu awaken as though from a dream.
He did not dare make a sound. He only quietly shifted his feet and slowly retreated to his room.
Returning to bed, he lay down and wrapped himself tightly in the blanket, but could not dispel the chill throughout his body.
Chen Xu tossed and turned, unable to sleep, thinking of many, many things.
After ten years studying by the cold window, he had thought all he would face was the arduous Imperial Examination road of a farmer's son. Who could have expected that demons existed in this world?
If demons had appeared, then what had his ten years of study amounted to?
Ever since passing the Child Scholar examination, he had been Cursed by Misfortune. He had assumed he was simply unlucky, but now that he thought about it, bad luck to such an extent had already strayed beyond reason. Could it truly be that some petty person had secretly used an evil art against him?
Luck Stealing—just hearing the words made his scalp prickle.
Chen Xu recalled his past experiences.
In his previous life, he had been a science student. After transmigrating, his preconceptions had led him to deny the existence of supernatural beings and strange forces outright. Moreover, he had been born into a farming family in the countryside, and throughout the nearby villages, he had never heard of any cultivation.
There were, however, some rural tales of the strange and uncanny. A spirit medium lived in the neighboring village, supposedly able to scatter rice and question spirits, calling back the souls of children. Chen Xu had heard a little of it, but had only considered it superstition born from villagers' ignorance. He had never connected it to anything or thought this world abnormal.
But what if this world truly was not normal?
Lying in bed, Chen Xu felt the cold penetrate to his bones.
Many questions seemed vaguely answered, yet even more became increasingly impossible to understand.
In the end, what he understood least was this: just what was the information that had kept floating through his mind—those so-called [Rat Demon liked this] prompts?
A new book was being released. It had gone through several twists and turns before, with the subject matter changed many times. This final time, inspiration happened to strike, and as soon as the images formed in my heart, the opening and a ten-thousand-word outline flowed forth in one breath. I hope to bring everyone an interesting story. Please follow along, please vote monthly, please comment and interact. My sincere thanks!
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