Two Realms: A cartload of rice arrived at the end of the Ming Dynasty

0002 Jade Pendant

"Monk?"

"What kind of demonic monk?"

"Me?"

Zhu Shiting looked at the group of mountain people dressed in ancient costumes and felt a little confused.

It's one thing to have a car accident so early in the morning, but to make matters worse, in this eerie Jiyun Mountain, you encounter a group of extras who look like they're from an ancient costume drama, speaking with a very heavy Wenzhou accent. Anyone would find it unbelievable.

At this moment, the woman in the red dress, who was surrounded by the crowd, saw that in the distance, just as the servant had said, was a blue-robed monk with bruises on his body and holding a black stick. She nimbly took the longbow off her back, nocked an arrow, and aimed at the man.

From a distance, the woman in the red dress called out, "Who are you? Why have you come to our Jiyun Village!"

"Jiyun Village?"

"Isn't this Jiyun Mountain?"

Seeing this, Zhu Shiting was a little confused. While muttering to himself, he pointed to the small truck at the bottom of the slope and shouted, "I'm a deliveryman, delivering rice to Wuling Temple. I accidentally fell off the slope while turning! Are you guys filming a short video? Could you lend me your phone to call the police?"

"Delivery? By car?"

"Cell phone? Call the police?"

"What exactly are short videos?"

The woman in the red dress listened to the blue-robed monk's ramblings, then glanced down the slope and sure enough, she saw a gleaming silver lump of iron in the ravine.

However, when they heard that the gift was rice, the villagers around the woman all became agitated.

Several hungry young men, their eyes glazed over, pursed their lips and urged, "Young Miss! Look at all that white stuff in the hollow, could it really be rice?"

"Young Miss, he's all alone, why don't we just rob him?"

"Shaving his head and changing his clothes—even if this person isn't a Tartar spy, he's definitely not a good person!"

The crowd chatted amongst themselves, following the woman in the red dress as she slowly approached from the mountain path.

"Don't come any closer!"

Zhu Shiting sensed something was wrong with the group and immediately switched on the stun gun.

A series of crackling electrical bursts, the flashing lightning on the black stun gun, and the ear-piercing sound startled the group of mountain people, causing them to stop in their tracks.

"Oh my god! That wicked monk is performing magic!"

"Still using Thunder Magic!"

"Could he be a god?"

The crowd stirred, and some people began to back out.

The woman in the red dress stared intently at the black staff in Zhu Shiting's hand that could unleash lightning. She swallowed hard a few times and continued to call out, "Master! Could you please put away your supernatural powers?"

"Supernatural powers?"

Zhu Shiting stared at the group of mountain people dressed in ancient costumes and speaking with strange accents, and slowly figured it out.

Combined with the disappearance of his cell phone signal and the utterly vanished modern buildings, a sense of foreboding crept into his heart: "Holy crap? Could it be that I've time-traveled?"

Having spent a lot of time watching short videos and watching time-travel comics, he was starting to realize what was happening.

To verify his guess, Zhu Shiting temporarily stopped activating the stun gun and called out, "Beautiful lady! Excuse me, is this still Rui County? What year is it?"

"Beauty?"

The woman in the red dress blushed at the frivolous address, then loudly replied, "Master, this is Ruian County, Wenzhou Prefecture. This year is the Year of the Rooster, the eighteenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign!"

"The eighteenth year of the Chongzhen reign?"

"Have I traveled back to the late Ming Dynasty?"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Shiting was struck dumb.

Although he was a poor student in school and only got into a vocational college, he did quite well in history.

In his memory, Li Zicheng, the rebel leader, led his peasant army into Beijing, and Emperor Chongzhen, Zhu Youjian, hanged himself under a crooked tree on Coal Hill in March of the seventeenth year of his reign, marking the end of the Ming Dynasty, which had ruled for 276 years.

After that, the Qing army entered the pass, Li Zicheng was defeated, and Wu Sangui, Hong Chengchou, Liu Liangzuo, Shi Lang and other important officials of the late Ming Dynasty all surrendered to the Qing. Under the brutal suppression of "keeping the head but not the hair", uprisings and massacres continued in various places. Thus, the Manchu Qing began a feudal slave rule over China that lasted for 268 years.

As for why the people continued to use his calendar after Chongzhen's death.

Recent news reports have shown that some people in South Korea even use couplets from the 389th year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign (1647) to commemorate the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

This demonstrates that the Ming Dynasty's influence was indeed formidable, commanding respect and awe throughout the world during that era.

Just the thought of a 21st-century modern person accustomed to mobile phones, computers, and cars suddenly being transported to the impoverished late Ming Dynasty made Zhu Shiting feel inexplicably panicked.

I haven't spent all the tens of thousands of yuan I've saved from working hard as a deliveryman, I haven't properly taken care of my parents, I haven't tried all the delicious food in China, I haven't finished watching the latest anime series, and I even made plans to play five-player online games with my friends tonight.

You just suddenly put it on like that?

"My blissful life!"

Zhu Shiting inwardly complained.

Just then, the jade pendant around her neck, which was soaked in blood, suddenly became hot.

At this moment, a kind of plug-in program information, seemingly generated out of thin air, began to be instilled into Zhu Shiting's mind.

Several strange icon function buttons appeared in his field of vision: [Teleport], [Return], [Select and Carry], and [Anchor Coordinates].

"Was it this jade pendant that transported me to another time?"

"Can I return at any time?"

Zhu Shiting's eyes widened, and he silently repeated "Return" in his mind.

With a whoosh, he vanished from the muddy mountain path right before the eyes of the villagers.

"That wicked monk... no! Where is the master?"

"Where has the master gone?"

"What master! He's clearly a deity!"

"This is truly a divine being descended to earth!"

Upon witnessing this miraculous transformation, the group of mountain people, including the woman in the red dress, all knelt down on the mountain path and kowtowed repeatedly.

Meanwhile, Zhu Shiting, who had traveled back to the mountain road of Jiyun Mountain in 2026, looked at the concrete ground beneath his feet and the yellow warning sign beside him reminding him to slow down on sharp turns, and immediately smiled: "I'm back!"

When he took out his phone again, he saw that the lost signal had been restored to full strength. He was so happy that he danced around on the spot as if he had won five million dollars.

"I remember this jade pendant was left to me by my great-grandfather, who told me to always carry it with me for safety. I never imagined it could actually transport someone through time?"

After a while of excitement, Zhu Shiting took off the jade pendant from his neck and examined it carefully.

The round jade pendant is carved with dragons and phoenixes. The front has a large character "朱" (Zhu) and the back has a character "鲁" (Lu). Both characters are in traditional Chinese characters and are powerful and majestic.

However, in his memory, the cotton-like texture and cloudy appearance of the jade pendant indicated that the material of the pendant was not precious.

But now, the bloodstains that had dripped onto it have been absorbed by the jade pendant, and the jade inside has changed from its original cloudy, cotton-like texture to a crystal clear one, comparable only to high-grade icy jadeite.

Such a drastic change left Zhu Shiting momentarily speechless.

Although he was just a delivery driver and not very well-educated, Zhu Shiting had accumulated a wealth of life experience by traveling around Vancouver and dealing with cargo owners and manufacturers over the years.

However, the appearance of this ancient jade pendant that could take him through time shattered the materialistic worldview he had painstakingly built up.

He had lived most of his life and never imagined that he would encounter something like time travel!

"Forget it, let's not call the police yet. I need to go to the hospital to get these injuries checked out."

Zhu Shiting stood there in a daze for a long time, then took out his phone and dialed 110, intending to call the police for help.

But as soon as he saw the small truck disappear down the slope, Zhu Shiting immediately hung up the emergency call that he hadn't yet dialed.

"No! We can't call the police yet!"

"I need to go back and bring the car back!"