Chapter Two: The Time Traveler on the Sickbed

"It hurts!" Pei Jingyuan felt as if his head were about to split open, and every inch of his skin and bone seemed torn and shattered, without a single spot left unscathed. His weakness was so profound that he couldn't even open his eyes, managing only feeble moans. Vaguely, he sensed someone tending to him with patience—sometimes he could hear the soft sounds of weeping. Whenever the pain became unbearable and he groaned, a gentle, kindly voice would whisper at his ear, carrying a warmth that inexplicably soothed him, making the pain much more bearable.

In this muddled state, he didn’t know how many days had slipped by. Gradually, Pei Jingyuan could feel his depleted body recovering bit by bit, and his consciousness slowly returning. He remembered: his name was Pei Jingyuan, an unremarkable senior in the Chinese Department at university. His grades were average, his looks ordinary, and his family was neither rich nor poor. His days were spent playing games, chatting with friends, and living a carefree life.

Until one day, while helping his uncle tidy up a warehouse behind the family’s general store, he came upon an ancient, battered sword—its style old-fashioned, the blade covered in rust. At the time, he’d been rereading Liang Yusheng’s martial arts novel “Tracks of the Gallant,” and was particularly drawn to the character Zhang Danfeng, a scholar and swordsman of remarkable skill. On a whim, Pei Jingyuan had swung the rusty sword about. But unexpectedly, the sword seemed to possess a will of its own, taking over his movements. Stroke after stroke, the sword danced fiercely, cold as frost, the force of it sharp and overwhelming. Soon, his consciousness faded away…

When he awoke, it was as if all the meridians in his body had been severed, as though he had suffered a terrible internal injury. Yet what puzzled him most was that the person tending him was not his uncle or aunt, nor was it any doctor or nurse. The place lacked the distinct medicinal smell of a hospital. Most bewildering of all, his caretaker regularly fed him bitter traditional medicine. In his experience, any illness was always treated with Western medicine first, traditional medicine only as a supplement. To be force-fed decoctions all day long was bizarre and utterly foreign.

While he was still full of questions, memories that shouldn’t have belonged to him began to surface. The owner of these memories was named Pei Min, and all recollections stemmed from the dreamlike era of the Tang Dynasty. It was not a mere coincidence of names—these were the memories of the famed Sword Saint Pei Min, celebrated as one of the Three Wonders of the Tang alongside Li Bai and Zhang Xu.

In these memories, Pei Min had led a life of hardship from childhood, raised solely by his mother. As a member of the Hedong Pei clan, he was tutored by family scholars and excelled in his studies, enduring more than a decade of rigorous reading. Besides scholarly pursuits, Pei Min’s greatest passion was swordsmanship. With no master to guide him, he developed his own style, never knowing the true depth of his abilities.

Pei Jingyuan was both frightened and bewildered. Why were Pei Min’s memories now in his mind? As a student of the humanities, he knew well the legends: Li Bai’s poetry, Pei Min’s sword dance, and Zhang Xu’s calligraphy were revered as the Three Wonders, with each man honored as the Immortal Poet, the Sword Saint, and the Sage of Cursive Script.

To possess the memories of such a figure left him utterly at a loss.

He dared not dwell on it, yet Pei Min’s memories played in his mind like a swiftly running film, racing forward until the age of eighteen—then halting at a vivid, unforgettable day. Every detail remained crystalline: On that day, the Yan Yun Academy was closed, and Pei Min returned home to visit his mother. Unexpectedly, he encountered a raid by the Xi people. Wherever the Xi passed, flames and slaughter followed, pillage and atrocity without restraint.

Seeing his hometown consumed by fire, his kin and villagers massacred, and his mother’s fate unknown, Pei Min, driven by rage, drew his sword and charged at the invaders…

This was his first time fighting with the sword and his first experience of killing. Even Pei Min himself had not realized how formidable his self-taught swordsmanship had become. No foe could withstand a single strike; he broke through the enemy lines, cleaving a path through a hundred men, and slew the enemy chieftain.

The memory of that bloody scene was vivid: blood and corpses everywhere, red soaking every inch of earth until it pooled in rivulets, spreading outward. The village’s threshing ground was the worst of it—a dark, nauseating mire, littered with severed limbs and shattered skulls, not a single intact body to be found.

Pei Jingyuan had only ever seen such carnage in movies and on television, but fiction paled before the reality burned into his mind. Though recalling, the memories felt almost real, making him feel as if he were living through it. His insides churned with nausea, but his stomach was empty; there was nothing to bring up, only dry retching.

“Min’er, Min’er…”

Hearing the anxious, gentle calls by his ear, Pei Jingyuan’s frantic, fearful heart suddenly calmed. That kindly voice seemed to possess a special magic, putting him at ease. Soon, he drifted into a deep sleep.

When next he awoke, it seemed to be deep into the night. The chorus of insects brought a touch of noise to the stillness.

Though still too weak to open his eyes, his anxiety had gradually subsided, and he began to reflect on everything that had happened. Slowly, a ridiculous, almost absurd thought took shape: he had transmigrated, and for some unknown reason, he now lived in the Tang Dynasty as one of the famed Three Wonders. Only this could explain why he wasn’t in a hospital, why there were no familiar faces around him, why he possessed Pei Min’s memories, and why that gentle voice called him “Min’er.”

Growing up in an era of popular time-travel novels, Pei Jingyuan had read more than a hundred such tales, yet he never imagined he’d become part of that army of transmigrators—let alone into someone of such fame.

Illness gave him time to accept reality. After two days of rest, his condition improved, the pain receded, and he could prop himself up and sit on his own. He confirmed the truth of his transmigration: from the moment he first opened his eyes, the sight of the dilapidated, old-fashioned house and the arrangement of the furniture had made it clear.

The curtain at the door lifted, and a fair-skinned, elegant woman in her forties entered softly. Though time had left its mark on her face, she still carried a grace that suggested exceptional beauty in her youth.

Seeing Pei Jingyuan staring dazedly at the rafters, the woman’s face lit up with joy. She hurried to his side. “Min’er, you’re awake! How do you feel today? Is your body any better?”

Pei Jingyuan opened his mouth, but in the end, could only offer a reassuring smile. He could actually speak now, and he knew that this woman was the mother of the original owner of this body, Lady Pei Wan. Yet the words “Mother” would not leave his lips. In his own memory, his mother was a great woman, and surely Pei Wan’s devotion to her son was equally deserving of the word. But in his heart, a faint resistance lingered. Unable to speak the word, he chose to remain silent.