Chapter 1: First Arrival

Yang Dachuan is 48 years old this year. He lives in the countryside, a lonely middle-aged elderly man with no wife or children, a small bungalow and a few acres of land. When he was 16 years old, his family was in trouble, so he joined the army. Perhaps it was his bad luck. When he was about to be discharged from the army, he almost lost his life in an accident during a training exercise. Although he survived, his leg was lame.

Therefore, after retiring from the army and returning home, Yang Dachuan's marriage was greatly affected. In the countryside, everyone has little education and relies on farming for a living, so a healthy body is very important. Yang Dachuan didn't get married until he was 28 years old. His wife was 30, two years older than him.

The girl's family was poor and she had many brothers. Her family thought that she could earn more money by working outside than by marrying someone else to help the family, so they let her work outside all the time. Gradually, her time was delayed. Until she got older and the villagers were talking about it, her family could no longer bear it and started to help her find a husband.

One year after the marriage, Yang Dachuan's wife had a difficult birth and the child was not born, and both of them died. The villagers were a bit superstitious and thought that Yang Dachuan had a tough life, so there were fewer people who arranged marriages for him, and those who did were not in good condition. As time went by, Yang Dachuan gradually gave up the idea of having a wife and children.

Fortunately, apart from his leg problems, he has no other health problems. In addition, he has a veterans' allowance and some government policy subsidies. He occasionally goes up the mountain to put cages and catch some wild animals to sell. People often come to buy some common herbs. The village also raises funds to plant an orchard, and he gets dividends every year. He has always lived a good life. He also has a savings, and plans to find a nursing home with a good reputation in the city to live in when he can no longer work.

As for the nephews and nieces in the family, he doesn't count on them. It doesn't matter if they help you occasionally, but if you need them to take care of you when you are old, your own parents will get tired of it after a long time, not to mention that you are just an uncle or a relative.

On this day, Yang Dachuan went up the mountain to collect the cages as usual. He had put the cages there a week ago. In recent years, the state has been tightening its control. Logically, he could not go up the mountain to catch wild animals at will, but the officials would not investigate unless the people reported it. He put some small cages there and caught some small wild animals such as mountain mice, rabbits, and pheasants. The villagers have little education and do not think that this is destroying the environment or anything. It has been their living habit for many years. If you tell the villagers that it is illegal, they will get so angry that they will punch you.

It was about four or five in the afternoon. Yang Dachuan was walking alone on a winding mountain road. The sun was shining brightly just now, but suddenly the sky darkened. The mountain was dark, and the shadows of the trees were rustling in the gloom. The mountain path became narrower and narrower. Yang Dachuan walked farther and farther, and gradually disappeared at the end of the darkness...

In the county town at the foot of the mountain, Mr. Li, who runs a restaurant, waited for a day, but Yang Dachuan, who was supposed to deliver the wild animals, never showed up. No one answered the phone call, but he didn't take it seriously. Occasionally, there would be no wild animals or the signal in the mountains was bad and no news could be received. After three or five days, he gradually felt something was wrong and worried that the other party might be trapped in the mountains. He notified the village chief and several brothers in the clan, called a few villagers, and went up the mountain along the path to look for him. Finally, in some valleys, they found the cage where Yang Dachuan often put wild animals, but not even a corner of Yang Dachuan's clothes could be found. It seemed that he had disappeared out of thin air and he has never been seen since then.

When Yang Dachuan woke up, he felt as if his whole body had been broken into pieces and reassembled, and his mind was in a mess. He slowly opened his eyes and saw not the familiar hardwood bed, but the withered and black thatched roof.

He felt a little dizzy and looked up at the house. It was an adobe house with broken pieces everywhere and a shiny black mud floor. Inside the house there was a square table made of several wooden boards, on the table there was a chipped earthenware bowl, and on the floor there were two benches with broken legs.

Yang Dachuan was a little dazed. This shouldn't be his home. Although he was a loner and not very hardworking, he still worked in the fields when it was time to farm and occasionally went up the mountain to earn extra money. With government subsidies, his family had already built a small one-story bungalow with a large color TV. Although the floor was not tiled like the rich people's, it was hardened with cement. However, this shabby house looked more like the old house his parents said they lived in when they were children.

After waking up for a while, he didn't see anyone and his stomach was aching with hunger. Yang Dachuan remembered that he had eaten before going up the mountain, so why was he so hungry... How long had he slept? Yang Dachuan was hungry and thirsty, so he wanted to get out of bed and find something to eat.

Suddenly I found that there was something wrong with my body. My legs were still a little lame, but the skin on my hands was smoother and younger than mine. I touched my whole body and found that there was something wrong with my hair. I always had a short flat head, but now it was long hair. The clothes on my body were also wrong. The texture was very rough.

Yang Dachuan panicked, but he searched the whole house and couldn't find a mirror. He had no choice but to scoop some water with a ladle. The reflection in the water was indeed his own face, but it was the appearance of a young man of 26 or 27. Yang Dachuan felt a little confused and couldn't figure out what was going on. How could he become young again when he didn't take any elixir or practice any magic.

At this time, the door was pushed open, and a man in linen clothes, with rolled-up trouser legs and a pair of black cloth shoes came in. "Dachuan is awake, how are you? Are you feeling better? You've been in a coma for two days. Big brother told you a long time ago that you shouldn't always rely on your military service and fearlessness of snakes, insects, rats and ants, and think you are great, running up the mountain all day. Does your leg still hurt? Doctor Liu said that your leg is broken, you need to take good care of it, otherwise it will affect your walking. I've prepared some porridge, you eat it first, I have to go to the field." After saying that, he put down a bowl of wild vegetable porridge and left in a hurry.

Several days later, Yang Dachuan learned from the uncles, aunts, and relatives in the village who came to visit that his name was still Yang Dachuan, he was 23 years old, it was the 120th year of the Da'an Dynasty, he had just returned home last year after completing his military service, but unfortunately his parents had died two years earlier, and before they died they had divided the family property among the three brothers of the Yang family.

The eldest and third sons each had a room in the newly built mud-brick house. The second son, Yang Dachuan, was not around, so he was allocated an old mud-brick house at the foot of the mountain. The eldest and third sons got married and had more children, so they were each allocated 5 mu of paddy field and 2 mu of dry land. Yang Dachuan was not around, and he had not married and no one spoke for him, so he was allocated 3 mu of paddy field and 3 mu of dry land.

Tbc