Phoenix flowers bloomed red as fire in the humid, sweltering weather of the southern territories. Outside Zhenhai Tower, which stood majestically atop Little Coiling Dragon Hill, the mottled cannon platforms had grown a ring of azure moss. Climbing the tower to gaze into the distance, the clear Pearl River flowed gently past Guangzhou City, merging into the vast sea.

On the mudflats and empty ground near Wuxian Gate in the new city, several tall wooden poles stood upright, each bearing a human head congealed with black blood.

The head in the very center was particularly conspicuous. It had a fierce, malevolent appearance, with a full scraggly beard soaked in coagulated black blood, each hair standing like thorns. A frightfully thick queue hung in the air, swaying slowly in the wind.

This was the first “person” Lin Yuchan saw upon opening her eyes.

She stared at that severed head for a long time.

Not because she had any perverted preferences. It was simply because she was seven or eight parts dead, lying in the dust and sand, unable to move her eyes or neck properly. The moment she opened her eyes, she found herself in deep communion with that severed head.

On the wooden pole bearing the head, fluttered a tattered strip of white cloth with several large black characters declaring the person’s identity.

“Heaven and Earth Society bandit leader Jin Lanhe.”

Lin Yuchan’s consciousness scattered as she thought: “Someone with such a name should be an otherworldly master, shouldn’t they? How did he die so easily…”

Her body alternated between hot and cold, each breath requiring half her life’s strength. Her three souls and seven spirits floated in the air, under Jin Lanhe’s watchful gaze, drifting in and out of consciousness.

The original owner of this body had probably already rushed off to reincarnate. She was no more than fifteen years old, with sparse, disheveled yellow hair, thin as a skeleton, dressed in rags that exposed her bony, pitiful elbows and ankles.

Fragmented memories fluttered chaotically in her mind like leaves in the wind, impossible to grasp when she tried to catch them.

She was still in Guangzhou City, but not the Guangzhou in her memories. She could understand the local accent that people spoke. She recalled some faces with blurred features, perhaps family members…

But there was no more information about this society and era. The original owner’s life had probably been lived in a daze, with no pursuits beyond eating and clothing.

People came and went around her, treating this sick girl who had collapsed and died in the street as nothing unusual.

The men were short in stature, with thin, long queues hanging behind their heads, wearing robes and jackets of indeterminate color and baggy pants. Their trouser legs were bound layer by layer with cloth strips, outlining their protruding ankle bones before disappearing into oversized hemp shoes. But half of them had no socks at all, walking barefoot with thick soles treading on the uneven roads.

The scattered women walked with hunched shoulders, pressed against the walls in small, slow steps, their feet remarkably small, like pointed rice dumplings.

Occasionally, a sedan chair would creak past, its curtains slightly raised, revealing half of a glossy black, elaborate headdress.

The entire world seemed like a dull, silent film, emanating a strange yet familiar atmosphere.

The Qing Dynasty.

Lin Yuchan closed her eyes in despair.

Others who transmigrated to the Qing fell in love with princes; she had air-dropped directly into becoming a corpse on the street.

This was hopeless!

Jin Lanhe stared with his pair of eyes that refused to close in death, gazing at her with compassion.

…

Lin Yuchan discovered she wasn’t dead yet.

Someone pulled her out of the earthen pit. The movements weren’t particularly gentle; her foot knocked against broken stones at the pit’s edge, but she didn’t feel any pain.

“Tsk, just died, still soft… Oh my.”

It sounded like a young man. While moving her, the back of his hand was scratched by broken stones, drawing several bloody marks that made him hiss softly through his teeth.

Lin Yuchan wanted to shout “I’m not dead,” but she lacked even the strength to move her lips.

The young man looked at her deathly pale face and said sympathetically, “This place is filled with freshly beheaded society members, people who have no one to burn incense for them after death. Even if you’re going to collapse and die in the street, you can’t choose this kind of place. You won’t be able to explain yourself to the King of Hell, understand?”

Lin Yuchan: “…”

Indeed, she had been sent back by the King of Hell.

“Anyway, I’m not staying in Guangzhou anymore. I’ll do a good deed before leaving and move you to a better spot. Little sister, do you want to go to the small hill at the western moat of the city wall, or to Yizhong outside Zhenhai Tower?”

The young man flicked his queue behind his head, looked left and right down the road, and made his own decision.

“Let’s go to Yizhong. There’s a pastry shop across from there. The owner is kind-hearted and has people bring offerings of steamed buns every day. Look how thin you are, you probably never had a full meal in your lifetime, right?”

Lin Yuchan couldn’t speak. Beside her was a mass grave with corpses strewn everywhere, all bodies of executed rebels. This young man, a living person walking in, showed no fear whatsoever. He spoke to her in a gentle, calm tone, completely ignoring the rivers of blood around him.

He carried a traveling bag, dressed as if for a long journey. He shifted the bag to one side, hoisted her over his shoulder, and tied a rope around his waist.

I’m not dead, I don’t want to be buried alive, I need to go to a hospital…

Lin Yuchan screamed helplessly in her heart.

High on the wooden pole, the head of “Heaven and Earth Society bandit leader Jin Lanhe” swayed in the wind, his bull eyes still wide open, reluctantly watching her depart.

The young man took a secluded path. Chaotic shops lined both sides of the road, with murky dirty water accumulated along the roadside. A squad of soldiers passed by beating gongs, shouting something: “Harboring remnants of society members carries the same crime as the bandits themselves…”

No one paid them any attention. In the sweltering heat, shirtless laborers stood in the shade of trees, drinking tea from large bowls.

She heard the words of passersby, their voices reaching her ears in fuzzy waves.

“…This time in suppressing the Heaven and Earth Society, we’re lucky Master Qi provided soldiers and silver. Otherwise, with just those worthless soldiers the government has, heh heh… Official and merchant, official and merchant, Master Qi is going to be promoted to another rank this time. His mansion will probably need more construction work. You’d better stay alert, there’ll be work coming soon!”

“Hey there, young man, want to earn some silver? There’s a foreman here offering double wages! Come, come with me…”

“Did you all hear? Zhan Xinghong’s son from Defeng Trading House is hosting a hundred-day celebration today. Let’s go get a red envelope…”

Everyone was busy with trivial matters, and no one noticed someone collecting corpses.

Suddenly, a deep bell tolled overhead. A stone-built church stood out jarringly among a cluster of earthen courtyards. At the church entrance, a line of raggedly dressed children waited while an elderly Western Pastor with a beaming smile brought bowl after bowl of porridge, handing them to the children.

“Thank God for His blessing, forgive my sins!”

The aging pastor, naturally cheerful-faced, spoke in imperfect Chinese, teaching the children to say these words.

The children, eager for porridge, mumbled through the phrase once each, snatched the bowls from the pastor’s hands, squatted on the ground, and wolfed down the food.

One child stepped barefoot into a puddle, splashing dirty water three feet high. The pastor hurriedly dodged, carefully examining his robe with concern.

Fortunately, the robe hadn’t been soiled. Only then did the pastor smile again, calling for the children to eat their porridge.

Such charitable acts didn’t earn much praise. The common people stood far away, looking at the pastor with suspicion, as if sizing up a human trafficker. Several well-dressed children swallowed their saliva, looking at the porridge, only to be immediately pulled away by their families.

Suddenly, the pastor noticed the young man carrying Lin Yuchan, thinking he too had come for porridge, and called out a greeting.

The young man ignored him, walking straight ahead without turning his head.

Only then did the pastor see clearly that he was carrying a “corpse” on his shoulder. Startled, he then showed a compassionate expression and made the sign of the cross on his chest.

“May this poor soul rest in peace. Amen.”

The young man snorted coldly and paid no attention.

Lin Yuchan felt her head growing heavy, with waves of intense drowsiness washing over her. Her body could no longer feel hot or cold. Occasionally, her consciousness would float, seeming to rise into the air, watching “herself” being carried like a sack.

“I can’t die,” she thought, “I still don’t know what year I’ve transmigrated to.”

She bit her tongue, using pain to tear through the chaotic fog of her mind, slowly taking control of this failing body. She desperately flexed her fingers, her fingertips touching the tip of the young man’s queue behind his back.

She gathered strength for an unknown length of time, finally managing to close her fingers, grasping his queue and pulling down with all her remaining strength—

The young man was still muttering to himself when the corpse on his shoulder suddenly moved!

“Ahhh!”

He jumped three feet in the air, but since the “corpse” was tied to his waist, it didn’t fall off. Instead, it dangled with arms and legs swinging, rotating halfway around to face him. The “corpse’s” sunken eye sockets flickered slightly, then suddenly opened a pair of large eyes, staring at him in dizzy confusion.

“A ghost—”

He sat down hard on the ground, frantically trying to untie the rope, but it was bound too tightly and only got more tangled as he struggled. In his panic, his leg muscles cramped, his tense face broke character, and he kept muttering: “Little sister, little sister, I’m doing you a kindness by burying you, you can’t repay kindness with enmity…”

Lin Yuchan couldn’t help but laugh.

Probably this laugh released some living energy, because the young man clutched his chest and asked tentatively: “You, you, you… You’re not dead?”

She forced her eyes open wide, finally getting a clear look at his appearance. He was not yet twenty, his face beginning to show angles, with gentle eyebrows and eyes, but his lips were constantly pressed downward, showing the particular awkward aloofness characteristic of young men. However, having been badly frightened just now, his expression management wasn’t quite up to par, and his face showed a kaleidoscope of emotions, adding five parts more human warmth.

He was tall in stature, wearing the type of sun hat commonly used by locals. But unlike the other poor common people on the street, his spine was straight, his shoulders filling out his clothes tightly, outlining half a sturdy chest.

“Hey, I’m asking you a question,” noticing the “dead person” was looking at him, he glared and tried to appear fierce, “Are you dead or not?”

Lin Yuchan moved her lips but couldn’t speak.

Her body suddenly had feeling again, so cold that her teeth chattered and her whole body shook. The young man touched her forehead and jerked his hand back from the heat.

“Last moments of clarity before death,” he sighed and concluded. “This summer hasn’t been good. Half of Guangzhou City has been struck by fever. I heard even the governor’s little grandson got sick, and despite spending hundreds of taels of silver on medicine, he couldn’t pull through. So you might as well relax about it, life and death are fate…”

Lin Yuchan shivered, thinking: Struck with fever?

Very well, at least she knew her cause of death: malignant malaria.

The young man lifted her body, about to carry her again, but Lin Yuchan struggled desperately, clinging to his queue with a death grip.

“What are you doing? You’re hurting me!” the young man complained. “Fine, I’ll help you to the very end. I’ll find you a doctor—don’t blame me if you can’t be cured. If you have any last wishes, you can tell me first…”

Lin Yuchan took a deep breath and finally managed to emit a hoarse moan.

“What?” The young man put his ear close to her lips. “Speak louder.”

“Don’t go…” Lin Yuchan finally heard “her own” voice, dark and powerless, “to a doctor…”

“Don’t go—don’t find a doctor?” The young man was puzzled. “Do you want to go straight to Yizhong?”

Lin Yuchan bit her lip hard and mumbled out a few words indistinctly.

She didn’t know whether Heaven wanted her to live or die, but she knew that in this state of final clarity before death, even if she drank hundreds of taels worth of medicine, she would most likely still end up collapsing in the street.

She had to seize these last few minutes… malaria…

“What did you say?” The young man was shaken. “Church? That foreign temple?”

Lin Yuchan gave him a pleading look, mouthing: “Quickly.”

The young man’s gaze turned wary. “You… you believe in a foreign religion?”

Lin Yuchan weakly shook her head. But she had to gamble on this.

“Help me to the very end, I beg you.”

The young man furrowed his brow and looked at her deeply.

“Minguan is having bad luck today.”

He snorted coldly and turned around, carrying her.

The Western Pastor was still distributing porridge with a beaming smile. Seeing the previously “dead” person open her eyes also startled him.

“My dear child, do you need last rites? This is the first time I’ve seen such a devout Chinese person…”

Lin Yuchan’s voice was hoarse as she used her last bit of strength to speak.

“Do you have quinine?”

The pastor didn’t understand. “What?”

“Quinine. Quinine.”