Chapter 1: The Fifteenth Year of Wanli
Open eyes, close eyes, open eyes, close eyes... the repetitive action made his eyelids sore. Su Luo had not woken up from the dream yet. It was a nightmare.
Who can imagine that when you close your eyes, you see the snow-white ceiling and the expensive crystal chandelier in your home, but when you open your eyes, it turns into a dark ceiling and a huge, thick and long beam.
Roof beams, this thing is almost extinct in the city where Su Luo lives.
She just got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, why did you play this on her?
Muttering to himself that this was just an illusion caused by excessive fatigue, Su Luo just stared at the beam, closing his eyes, opening his eyes, closing his eyes... he even forgot why he got up in the middle of the night.
What finally woke her up was the most impatient event in her life. She rushed out of bed with her stomach full, and accurately found the location of the door in the moonlight coming in from the window. Just as she was about to rush out, she tripped and seemed to have kicked something down, and it seemed that some liquid spilled on her bare feet.
The door was open, the moon was bright in the sky, the spinning barrel at his feet and the smell made Su Luo realize what he had kicked. He retched, grabbed a pile of cloth on the table by the window, wiped the liquid on his feet, and saw a well in the corner outside the door. He jumped out and washed his feet with half a bucket of water by the well. Halfway through the wash, he thought of the important things to do in his life. After looking around, Su Luo was sure that he couldn't find a place like a bathroom. He growled madly, then rushed to a shady corner and solved it on the spot.
After finishing the job, he came out with his pants lifted up. Just as he was struggling with the belt that he couldn't tie, the door of another room in the yard opened, and a thin figure leaned out, rubbing his eyes and shouting, "Sister, what are you doing?"
It was a boy, and his voice sounded very childish. He probably spoke a dialect from Henan or Hebei, but I could still understand him.
"I..." Su Luo couldn't make any sound when he said the word "I" twice. He coughed hard. Fortunately, he was just too nervous. "That..."
"Sister, what's wrong with you?" The small figure pushed the door open and came out, stopping when he was four or five steps away from Su Luo. He stared in a daze at the cloth that Su Luo had just used to wipe her feet and threw on the ground.
Su Luo was also in a daze. The child was just as tall as her chin. He was wearing a robe and had his hair tied up in a bun on top of his head. He looked to be about ten years old, very thin and pretty. He looked just like the child who had appeared on the Hope Project recruitment poster, the one with big eyes, holding a pencil and saying, "I want to go to school."
"Well...are the adults at home?" Su Luo advised himself to regard his current experience as a dream. Since he was in a dream, he had nothing to be afraid of and could do whatever he wanted.
"What?" The child came back to his senses, "Sister, you are confused because of your sleep. Our mother will not be back until the end of the month."
"Then...then...where's Dad?"
The child's face suddenly became serious, and he took two steps forward, "Sister, what's wrong with you?"
Su Luo stepped back, touched his chin and thought, maybe his father died, so it was strange to ask this question.
"It's okay. I'm just asking." Su Luo smiled as if he was relaxed. He wasn't sure whether he should continue sleepwalking like a lunatic or go back to the room and continue sleeping. Dreams are gone once you wake up. Why ask so many questions?
Better go to bed!
Just as I turned halfway, I heard the child shout excitedly , "Sister, I was wondering what's wrong with you. Why are you speaking Mandarin? It sounds so nice!"
"Official language?" Su Luo stopped and asked, "Which official?"
"Beijing." The child grabbed Su Luo's hand and asked, "Did you learn this from Brother Zhou?"
Su Luo ignored the so-called Brother Zhou and scratched his head, "Where are we now?"
"What?" The child blinked. "Of course we are in Baolai Village."
Village, Su Luo's geographical knowledge was not enough for her to know the distribution of the major towns in the motherland, "Is it far from Beijing?"
"Hmm..." The child thought for a long time, "It shouldn't be too far, sister. You should ask Brother Zhou about Beijing. I haven't even been to Kaifeng Prefecture. The farthest I've been is Zhuxian Town..."
"Stop!" Su Luo half-knelt down and looked directly into the child's eyes. "Where? Kaifeng?"
The child responded, "Sister, why do I feel like you're a little weird tonight?"
Kaifeng? Henan? Su Luo was distracted for a long time. He tried his best to control himself, but he still couldn't stop himself from asking the next question, "What year is it now?"
Too stupid!
Su Luo regretted it the moment he asked this question. Isn't this insane?
"Year?" The child frowned and counted on his fingers. "I am thirteen this year. Add two years, it should be the fifteenth year of the Wanli reign."
Su Luo looked at the child's face that easily made people feel sympathetic. She wanted to say, "How do you look like a thirteen-year-old child? Are you malnourished?" But after squeezing for a long time, her throat was tight, and she struggled to squeeze out two words, "Year?"
"The fifteenth year of Wanli." The child was certain, and puffed out his chest with pride, knowing how to do arithmetic.
Su Luo turned around, patted her head, and staggered towards the room she came out of, ignoring the child's calling. She wanted to sleep, just wanted to sleep.
At dusk the next day, Su Luo woke up from a nightmare. In the dream, she went to a dark little room, kicked over the toilet , and a child from the Hope Project appeared and told her that it was the fifteenth year of the Wanli period.
Fortunately, she woke up, but unfortunately, the dream continued after the person woke up. The only difference was that the small dark room sprinkled with moonlight was now shrouded by the setting sun, and the warm tones seemed particularly peaceful.
For two days, Su Luo refused to get up. She lay straight on the bed, staring at the beam, and kept repeating "go back, go back". The child who called her "sister" thought she was sick and was very nervous. He brought porridge to her bed several times, and his eyes turned red after just a few words. He always interrupted Su Luo's meditation and self-hypnosis. Although Su Luo was not a good person, she was definitely not willing to see "Project Hope" crying in front of her, as if blaming her for not donating. She had to give up her principles and comfort him instead.
After a few days, the comforting work did not produce any results, but Su Luo did have some insights. Her rumbling stomach every day let her know what reality was, and the same millet and sweet potato porridge every day made her understand her situation. Although she cursed why other travelers opened their eyes to live in luxury, while she opened her eyes to live in a shabby room with a toilet, she would still reflect on it and constantly persuade herself to accept reality, because she firmly believed that it was wrong for her to be in a dream and that she would indeed be hungry.
After basically recognizing the current situation, she began to regret why she didn't cherish the family's financial resources, why she didn't squander them before traveling through time, and had to hold on to that face and pretend to be cool and say that she had to be self-reliant. What a joke, in fact, she still eats and drinks at home every day, in fact, she has a meager salary but still wears branded clothes, in fact, her confidence in some aspects all comes from the strength of the person behind her, that person... In fact, she is very similar to that person, but she is unwilling to admit that in fact, after leaving this family, she is nothing.
Is this a warning from God to her? Because she didn't know how to cherish, she was left with nothing.
Looking at her own hands, they were covered with calluses of varying sizes, proving the hard work of these hands. This was not her hand, and by the same token, this body was no longer the same. Was her body still at home? The child's sister... should be in her body at this moment, enjoying the snow-white ceiling and crystal chandelier, right?
Su Luo took a long breath, sat up, and waited for the "Project Hope" to come in with porridge again, and said, "Your sister... am I a filial person?"
The child put down the porridge, sat down beside the bed and nodded very seriously, "There is no one in the village who is more filial than me."
Just be filial. Su Luo smiled, her eyes a little wet. She found an acceptable answer for herself and refused to think of other possibilities. She insisted that in the original world, there was no mother who lost her daughter. She came here, just two people from different time and space exchanged souls. The filial daughter went into her body and lived on in her place. She didn't pretend to be rebellious or deliberately get angry. She wouldn't make that person sad again. This was good.
As for herself... In the 15th year of Wanli, there was a book called "The 15th Year of Wanli" on her bedside table before she came. It was said to be a famous book, and she bought it to show off her knowledge. Unfortunately, after reading it for several days, she only read the first paragraph of the first page. Every time she started reading from the first line, that line of text was clearly imprinted in her mind and could not be erased.
The year 1587 was the 15th year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty in China, which was Ding Hai in terms of the Chinese zodiac, and the year of the pig.
Forget it, forget it, people should be more straightforward, things have already happened, if I don't face it, will I die? But...
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Damn it! Even if she traveled through time, she couldn't go to a more familiar time, 1587 AD... Guojiao 1573 was more familiar to her!
