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

As night falls, Qianyang Town, about a 5-minute drive from Xie'ao Village, is brightly lit.

This is an industrial town built right next to the Feiyun River and the county road. Along the way, you can see textile, forging, and auto parts factories with constant roaring noises, as well as a group of workers flocking to the small restaurants on the street after get off work.

Zhu Shiting drove the rented Nissan Sylphy with practiced ease, passing through the town's main street and turning into his own yard.

His house is a somewhat narrow four-story old house. The first floor has a kitchen and living room, and the three floors upstairs have a total of 6 bedrooms. There is an open-air courtyard in front of the door, and the yard is surrounded by cement walls that block the view.

These houses are very common in rural areas of Vancouver and are jokingly referred to by locals as "ground-floor houses".

Rural residents can't afford a three-bedroom apartment in the county town, nor can they afford to build a grand villa. Most of them live in these simple houses.

It was dinnertime, and Zhu Shiting had just parked his car in his yard when he saw his father, Zhu Youlong, carrying a thermos and about to go out.

He is 60 years old this year and works as a security guard in a textile factory owned by a relative in town. After going home for a meal, he has to go to the factory to keep watch at night.

Seeing that his son hadn't returned in his familiar pickup truck, Zhu Youlong asked, "Shiting, why did you change cars? And why is your face covered in injuries?"

"Dad! I bumped into someone this morning when I went out to deliver goods. The truck was taken to the repair shop and the insurance covered everything. It's not a big problem."

Zhu Shiting made an excuse, saying that he only had minor scratches on his face, and casually took two bags of Wuchang rice from the trunk into the house.

"I've told you to drive carefully on the road. You're almost 30 and you're still so clumsy."

Mr. Zhu watched his son's retreating figure, muttered a few words, circled the Nissan Sylphy once, then lit a cigarette and went to work.

At home, Li Yuan, the mother, was clearing the table.

Upon seeing her son return from driving, her first thought was to feel sorry for the injury on his face, but Zhu Shiting made up a bunch of excuses to brush it off.

"Mom, this Wuchang rice was a free gift from the boss who delivers it to me."

"I heard it sells for over 6 yuan per jin (500g), I'll cook some and try it tomorrow."

Zhu Shiting sat down at the dining table and started eating the three home-style dishes his mother had cooked.

"Six yuan per jin?"

"Is this rice some kind of rice that can make you immortal? It's so expensive!" Li Yuan muttered to herself, holding the rice bag.

Zhu Shiting's parents have gone to great lengths for their only son. They live frugally, eating rice grown by his grandparents and reluctant to buy it from the supermarket, all in an effort to save up for a down payment on a house in the county town.

After all, people in Ruixian County place great importance on continuing the family line, and marriage is a very elaborate affair. Without a house in the city, virtually no girl would be willing to marry into a rural town.

In addition, Zhu Shiting will be 30 years old this year, and if he doesn't get married soon, he will be laughed at by the neighbors. The old couple are even more anxious to save face in town.

The three dishes on the table were either stir-fried pickled vegetables and tofu with bean sprouts, or the cheapest seafood from the market, clams, with hardly any fat on them.

However, Zhu Shiting was quite happy with it, feeling that his mother's cooking skills were no less than those of the food stall chefs outside.

I ate too much oily food at noon, so I'll have some simple food to cleanse my stomach of the excess oil.

……

After finishing dinner, I chatted with my mother for a while.

Pretending to be nonchalant, Zhu Shiting first changed into an outdoor windbreaker for hiking, then picked up a pair of hiking boots and returned to his room on the second floor.

He locked the door, drew the curtains, and even unplugged the webcam from the computer.

"Let's test the function of this jade pendant first."

Zhu Shiting touched the family heirloom jade pendant around his neck, silently chanted "Teleport," and in a flash, he arrived at the mountain path he had anchored during the day.

As darkness fell in the late Ming Dynasty, a damp, cold night wind blew along the mountain path, and the occasional cooing of birds echoed from the dense forests all around.

Zhu Shiting took out his phone, turned on the stopwatch, placed it in the roadside weeds, and silently said "return." Instantly, he was transported back to his room in the real world.

After watching five minutes pass by on the computer screen, he set off again and was transported to the late Ming Dynasty.

When I picked up my phone again, the stopwatch had also run for 5 minutes.

"Time passes at the same rate on both sides, with virtually no time difference."

Seeing this, Zhu Shiting muttered a few words and looked around at the surrounding mountains and forests. He felt a sense of déjà vu, like playing a single-player game, creating a save file independently, and being able to load it at any time.

……

After confirming the difference in the passage of time between the two worlds.

For the next half hour, Zhu Shiting tested the various functions of the ancient jade pendant on the mountain road.

First and foremost are the core abilities of "travel" and "return," which allow him to instantly travel between the two worlds anytime, anywhere, simply by issuing commands through his thoughts.

Secondly, there's the [anchoring] feature. After numerous movement tests, he discovered that he could adjust his landing point in this alternate world at any time.

For example, he slowly moved the grassy area where he fell off the cliff during the day to the mountain road, which could be done by thought commands, making it very convenient.

Finally, there's the [Targeting and Carrying] feature, which allows you to target any object you come into contact with and bring it into this alternate world.

As a result, Zhu Shiting carried all the furniture, computers, beds, and other items in his home back and forth countless times.

According to the information conveyed by the ancient jade pendant, if he wished, he could even treat his own house as an object and then select and transport it to another world!

However, there is one rule that cannot be ignored during the testing process: no living creatures can be carried during the journey and return.

The goldfish tank on the computer desk was taken by Zhu Shiting through time, and as a result, all eight goldfish inside were turned belly up and died almost instantly, without any sign of struggling.

In this way, Zhu Shiting basically figured out all the functions of the ancient jade pendant and the rules of time travel.

……

After testing it dozens of times to confirm all the functions and limitations of the jade pendant, Zhu Shiting went to the cabinet and found a high-powered flashlight.

He usually lives in town and doesn't spend money recklessly. His only hobby is playing video games with his friends and occasionally buying odd and unusual things online.

This powerful flashlight has 35000 lumens when focused, and its maximum range is said to be over a thousand meters!

As soon as he was teleported there, Zhu Shiting pressed a switch, illuminating the mountainous area within a few hundred meters in front of him as if it were daytime.

"Awesome!"

Zhu Shiting clicked his tongue in amazement.

He bought this powerful flashlight purely to teach those who drive recklessly with their high beams on the road a lesson, never expecting it would come in handy in this late Ming Dynasty era.

With a clear view, he mustered his courage and climbed deeper into the mountains along the muddy path.

After walking for about five or six minutes, Jiyun Village, built in a mountain valley, came into view.

When the powerful flashlight was shone, the entire village was shrouded in a pale white light!

Terrified faces appeared through the cracks in the doors of those drafty thatched huts.

In the dead of night, a bright light, as bright as the sun, suddenly shone in the deep mountains and forests, enough to scare even the most Ming Dynasty person to death.

Seeing this, Zhu Shiting turned the flashlight to its lowest brightness and shouted into the village, "Is Miss Sun Lu here? It's me! The one who brought you rice during the day."

His shout caused a stir in the village.

"immortal!"

"It's a deity!"

"The immortal grandfather has descended to earth again!"

One by one, the members of the Sun family poured out of the thatched hut.

Before long, hundreds of men, women, and children knelt down and kowtowed before Zhu Shiting.

Most of the prisoners, young and old, were seeing Zhu Shiting for the first time. Their eyes were full of awe, and they didn't dare to look at him even once while kowtowing.

Although they had heard various descriptions from the clansmen who came down the mountain during the day, the inexplicable shock of seeing the powerful light emitted by the immortal grandfather using the immortal artifact had left everyone's heads buzzing.

"Immortal, what instructions do you have for me this time?"

Sun Lu asked curiously, her eyes filled with undisguised surprise.

Very good!

This celestial being who delivers goods to the Heavenly Court is here again!

Heaven truly has been kind to the Sun family!

Sun Lu had never heard of or seen such a miraculous encounter with the divine twice in any storybook or novel.

"I, being a mortal, have nothing better to do than descend to the mortal realm for a stroll and come see how your village is doing."

Zhu Shiting coughed twice, and at this moment he also began to put on airs.

He felt that pretending to be a compassionate immortal in front of these mountain people from the late Ming Dynasty was the quickest way to win them over.

"Thank you for your mercy, Immortal!"

Upon hearing this, Sun Lu immediately got up from the ground, told the villagers to disperse, and led Zhu Shiting on a tour of the village, introducing him to the various simple dwellings and facilities.

When Zhu Shiting saw that the thatched huts were completely bare of furniture, and everyone was sleeping on dried, withered straw stuffed with dry grass, their blankets damp to the touch, he frowned slightly: "It's so damp and cold in the mountains, don't you get sick sleeping here?"

"To be honest, it's spring now and not so cold. It's quite warm when we all sleep together. If we really can't stand it in the winter, we burn some firewood to keep warm."

"It was during the winter before last that a heavy snow fell in the mountains, and five elderly people and children in the clan froze to death," Sun Lu said, wiping away tears.

"Five people froze to death?"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Shiting felt as if a heavy stone was pressing on his chest.

Living in modern times, he had never heard of people freezing to death when it snowed in the south.

News of people freezing to death occasionally breaks out in the north, but those are mostly drunkards who get drunk in the middle of the night and treat the snow as their own home, which leads to tragedy.

Thinking of how miserable the lives of these mountain people were, Zhu Shiting, who had earned over 100,000 yuan from them during the day, was suddenly overcome with compassion: "Miss Sun, please wait a moment, I will go back and get you some quilts."

"what?"

"Is the immortal going to bestow upon us celestial robes?"

Sun Lu thought she must have misheard.

With a whoosh, Zhu Shiting suddenly disappeared from the thatched hut.