However, after passing through so many cities and official post stations, Xing Yue wasn’t entirely without gains.

Based on the characters found on city gates, door frames, and lintels across the region, Xing Yue concluded that although people in that era pronounced words differently, they used the same set of characters as modern people.

Of course, these were not simplified characters, but traditional ones.

Xing Yue knew only a limited number of traditional characters, so he tried writing on the ground to communicate with Xing Zhao.

He reasoned that while the adults’ pronunciation was a jumble, a child’s surely wouldn’t be. By following the child’s lead, he could first figure out the fixed pronunciation of certain words in this language.

As long as he could figure out the pronunciation of just one word, he’d be able to communicate with people, which was better than not understanding a single thing and being unable to speak at all. However, he had overestimated a five-year-old child.

Xing Zhao could recognize characters, but his vocabulary was limited; he had only learned the Thousand Character Classic. He could understand what was said, but his speech was laced with a babyish lisp, and his pronunciation was far from accurate. Sometimes, when Xing Yue wanted to express himself, he would subconsciously combine what he’d learned from the boy with what he’d picked up from the constables, prisoners, and passersby.

One day, when it was time for lunch, the shackles were removed. Xing Zhao had been walking for ages and was exhausted; finally able to curl up in his arms, he just kept snuggling against him, unwilling to get up.

Xing Yue let him snuggle for a while, then pointed at the food, sifting through his limited vocabulary to piece together a sentence: “I’m hungry. I want to eat.”

The moment the words left his mouth, everyone froze. Then, several constables burst into thunderous laughter.

Xing Zhao also froze, his face contorting with utter disbelief. He glanced around, then let out a howl and lunged at the constable who had laughed the loudest—and had “accidentally” shoved the original host, Xing Yue, into a rock, causing him to hit the back of his head.

As he struck, he wailed and cursed.

Xing Yue pieced together the meaning as best he could, guessing it went something like this: “My big brother is so smart, and you’ve messed up his brain. You’re a bad person—compensate my big brother!” Not knowing what had gone wrong, Xing Yue was horrified and quickly grabbed the child, pulling him into his arms.

Children don’t believe in supernatural nonsense, but adults certainly tend to think that way.

The constable had been eyeing them suspiciously all along, and it seemed he’d deliberately laid a hand on the real Xing Yue. If he found a pretext, he could easily find an excuse to have them killed at any moment.

Besides, the constable didn’t even need an excuse. Xing Yue had truly been replaced—he wasn’t the original host—and a single test would give him away.

At that moment, the scene descended into chaos. The constable leaped three feet into the air, cursing and brandishing his club as he lunged to strike them.

Fortunately, several other constables stepped in with a laugh to restrain him, saying something to the effect that the child was merely protecting his older brother, acting on impulse and not knowing any better—there was no need to hold it against him. This finally calmed the ill-intentioned constable and prevented him from exploiting the situation.

Later, Xing Yue carefully questioned Xing Zhao and finally figured out that when he had said “food,” his pronunciation was off—he had swallowed the final syllable, and his dialect had affected the tone—so to their ears, it had sounded like: “I want to eat shit.”

The pronunciations of “food” and “shit” were different in that era, but Xing Yue managed to twist and contort his words in such a way that he brilliantly confused the two. 

In short, that single sentence left Xing Yue completely mortified.

Later, he learned that the original host, Xing Yue, was not only a literary genius well-versed in the Six Arts of the Gentleman but had also passed the imperial examination at the age of twenty. At the Qujiang Banquet, the emperor praised him as a promising young talent. This made Xing Yue even more wary; afraid of revealing his illiteracy and being exposed, he could only remain tight-lipped and put on a cold, aloof facade every day.

Gradually, Xing Yue got a handle on the original host’s background and family situation. He learned that the original host had once had a fiancée, but just as they were going through the wedding formalities, a rebellion broke out in his family, leading to the engagement being called off. He also discovered that Xing Zhao, who had always relied on him, addressed him as “Big Brother” rather than “Father” or “Master.”

Xing Yue breathed a sigh of relief. He had never been in a relationship in the modern world; he had no experience—nor the ability—to be a father or a grandfather. But he did have experience being an “elder brother,” so he wouldn’t be so easily exposed.

After a bumpy journey, they arrived at Xizhou Prefecture. The group of constables had been replaced, and the one whose gaze had been unsettling—the one Xing Yue had been wary of all along—had finally been dismissed. But before Xing Yue could catch his breath, he realized that the dialect spoken in Xizhou Prefecture was different from what he’d heard before.

Xing Yue could only feel his vision go dark.

Of course, he wasn’t alone this time—Xing Zhao was just as lost as he was.

Perhaps due to the constant mental strain of the journey, Xing Zhao fell ill upon their arrival in Xizhou.

Seeing that the weather was growing colder by the day, yet Xing Zhao’s clothes were tattered and couldn’t cover his hands and feet, Xing Yue quickly stripped off the dirty, worn-out clothes he’d been wearing all the way and wrapped them around Xing Zhao. He held him tightly in his arms to keep him warm, but Xing Zhao showed no signs of improvement. His cheeks were flushed red from the fever, and he curled up in Xing Yue’s embrace, too miserable to speak, not moving a muscle.

Although Xing Zhao was usually obedient and well-behaved, he still had the typical traits of a young child—he loved to jump and run, chattered constantly, enjoyed snuggling up close to adults, and was full of boundless energy, seldom stopping.

Seeing the pain on the boy’s face and feeling his head growing hotter by the minute, Xing Yue, no longer caring if he gave himself away, stammered a plea for the constables to examine the child. But a constable with a cold stare shoved him hard against the wall; the back of his head, which hadn’t fully healed, struck the wall, causing it to bleed again.

He collapsed in a daze inside the cell. The temperature fluctuated drastically between day and night; when he woke up the next morning, he was still alive, but he had lost a fair amount of blood, and his head was burning with fever.

Later, in a daze, he hoisted Xing Zhao onto his back and was escorted by the constables to Jiaohe County. Before he could catch his breath, another constable caused trouble, bringing a middle-aged man with a sleazy, timid demeanor and a greedy, shrewd gaze to snatch Xing Zhao away.

Xing Yue was beyond furious.

He didn’t know if he was just being paranoid, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about these people—that they all seemed to harbor ill intentions. That’s why he was so furious, on high alert, and deeply wary.

After all, he wasn’t the original host; he hadn’t committed treason. Why should he have to endure this?

And what about that five-year-old child? He hadn’t done a thing, yet they wouldn’t even spare him. Were these people even human?

But he never expected that after finally driving away the middle-aged man, enduring last night’s hunger and cold, and basking in the sun by the wall for half a day to regain some strength, someone would come again this evening.

This time, it was a young teenager.

With tears welling in his eyes, the boy pressed a flatbread into his hand and covered both him and Xing Zhao with a cloak. In the warm, golden glow of the setting sun, his eyes seemed to shine—a mix of curiosity and mischief, yet clear and lively. Even his grimy, disheveled clothes couldn’t hide his radiant spirit.

Xing Yue’s body resisted, and his mind remained on guard, but when the back of his hand touched the boy’s palm, his heart eased slightly—this wasn’t a rich person dressed in rags disguised as a poor laborer.

Then why was he here?

What could he possibly gain from them?

Xing Yue was puzzled, and his gaze inadvertently swept over the constable standing beside the boy.

Ever since he turned down that middle-aged man yesterday, he and Xing Zhao—both running a fever—had been dumped in this courtyard. The constables wouldn’t let them leave and refused to give them any food.

Last night, cold, hungry, and feverish, he and Xing Zhao were so delirious they couldn’t resist scraping dirt off the wall and shoving it into their mouths.

Then, in the dead of night, this constable named Jiang Shen sneaked out of the cell, brought out water and a bun, and told them to eat.

At first, Xing Yue worried that the man might be trying to poison them under the cover of night, but he soon realized that the constable looked shifty, his eyes darting about and his fingers gesturing frantically, desperately signaling them to stay silent—he seemed even more nervous than they were.

The gnawing hunger in his stomach was driving him mad, and Xing Zhao’s eyes were fixed on the biscuit in the guard’s hand, his mouth watering incessantly. Xing Yue thought to himself, Why not take a gamble? At worst, they’d go to the underworld together. Protecting this kid on his final journey would at least fulfill his duty as a time traveler.

After a moment’s hesitation, he decisively accepted the bread and water, splitting them in half—one piece for him, one for Xing Zhao. He took a bite, then Xing Zhao took a bite, and the two of them began to wolf it down.

With the water and cake down, he’d made the right bet. Though he was still hungry, he and Xing Zhao—both running fevers—had weathered the cold night and survived to this day.

Thinking back now, that constable must have been an ordinary man who didn’t want any trouble but had a bit of a kind heart. And what about that boy?

He was arguing back and forth with the constable, trying several times to come over to their side, only to be pulled back by the constable with a look of exasperation or irritation, preventing him from getting closer.

The two seemed very familiar with each other.

Was that boy even considered a person?

Xing Yue wasn’t sure what many of the words meant, and with a pounding headache and a ringing in his ears, he couldn’t make out what they were arguing about. So he didn’t respond, just clutching the bread, swallowing hard as he pondered the situation.

However, after the two had been arguing for a while, the boy stopped muttering, fell silent for a moment, then suddenly crouched down in front of him, tilted his head, stared at him, and asked him something.

It wasn’t a long sentence. Xing Yue had been dazed, but the boy’s gaze held no probing or calculation—just simple curiosity and confusion, and he asked with such patience that Xing Yue suddenly grasped the words and understood.

“Didn’t you understand?” he heard the boy ask.

Xing Yue’s heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively tensed up: Could he have noticed something was off?

“You mean he can’t understand what we’re saying?” Before Xing Yue could react, Jiang Shen stopped worrying about whether Qingheng would interfere with the two of them. He suddenly leaned in, his large head close, and examined the boy curiously. “No way? We’re speaking Mandarin.”

“Are you sure people from outside West State can understand our Mandarin?” Seeing that Xing Yue remained silent, Qingheng began to doubt himself. He only knew the West State dialect; he’d picked up some practical Mandarin just to conduct business with visiting merchants.

He’d never used it before; it was only today, upon meeting the Xing Family, that he’d brought it out, mixing it with the local dialect.

Jiang Shen could understand because he was just as much of a mixed-language speaker as Qingheng.

“Isn’t he supposed to be a literary genius? I heard he knows everything,” Jiang Shen said skeptically. “Then why hasn’t he responded at all?” Qingheng asked doubtfully.

“He might have a screw loose.” Suddenly, a deep, hoarse voice came from the entrance to the courtyard.

The man spoke the dialect of Xizhou. He was in his forties, wearing a scholar cap and a quekuapao. He had an ordinary face and a handlebar mustache, and he eyed Qingheng with a harsh gaze. “I hear you’re going to vouch for them?”