Chapter 1: Transmigrated as Little Silly Zhu

1944, Si Jiu Cheng.

The sky was exceptionally clear, and the biting north wind whipped up snow flurries, scraping across the streets and alleys like blades.

Icicles hung from the eaves of every household, and the frozen dirt roads were covered in ridges of ice that had melted and refrozen; they were hard underfoot, and one careless step would lead to a stumble.

Nine-year-old He Yuzhu shoved his small, frostbitten red hands deep into the sleeves of his tattered cotton-padded jacket.

A large hat was pulled down over his head, revealing only a pair of shifty, wide eyes that were darting about.

He stomped his feet hard and hunched his neck, looking just like a cold-fearing quail, standing before a large Japanese pharmacy in Qianmen that hung a "Gold-Medal" sign, counting the people entering and exiting.

He wasn't standing here to wait for someone, but to risk his life—to put it bluntly, he intended to rob this pharmacy.

This was a move born of desperation.

Ever since giving birth to her younger sister He Yushui, his mother Shen Guizhi's health had been hollowed out.

A cold she caught a few days ago, due to a lack of money for the hospital, had been dragged out until it became acute pneumonia; her high fever would not break, and the phlegm she coughed up was stained with blood.

If she wasn't saved soon, she likely only had three or five days left to live.

Worse still, He Daqing was also on the verge of losing his job, and even when he asked the Boss for an advance, he was heartlessly refused.

The He Family was at the end of its rope.

Today, He Yuzhu didn't go to school and had been carefully looking after his mother; seeing her on the verge of death, he suddenly thought of a life-saving medicine—Penicillin.

In reality, the one residing in this nine-year-old shell was no longer the original "Silly Zhu," but a soul from the twenty-first century—He Yuzhu.

He had been an excellent graduate from a 985 university, majoring in industrial design, and after graduation, he entered an Automobile Factory in Beijing, where he worked for seven years.

His technical skills were solid, but because he had a bad temper, was not gregarious, and didn't know how to flatter, he was never promoted.

Doing the most work for the least pay, he eventually grew rebellious and no longer believed the Boss's words—the lie that the company would give him shares as soon as it went public.

He made up his mind and finally went to the Boss to demand a raise, but unexpectedly, the Boss showed no regard for their past relationship and fired him directly on the grounds of being insubordinate.

In a fit of rage, he beat the Boss up, didn't even take his salary for that month, and went straight to England for further studies.

Who would have thought that fate would play such a trick, and he would die in a hospital in a foreign land in 2023, just as the pandemic seemed to be fading.

When he opened his eyes again, he had become the little "Silly Zhu" in this period drama, *Romance of the Siheyuan*, at only nine years old.

"Why? Why?" On countless nights, He Yuzhu (now He Yuzhu) would shout silently in his heart, wanting to return to that world which, now that he thought back on it, felt very beautiful, but he could never find a way.

After a month of torment, he had tried praying, chanting, and calling out to his ancestors, but nothing worked.

He resigned himself to his fate; the He Family treated him quite well, especially his mother Shen Guizhi, who always thought of him first whenever there was something good to eat, to the point that even He Daqing was jealous. Given this, he reluctantly accepted this absurd reality.

What else could he do if he didn't accept it? At the tender age of nine, in a chaotic world, it was impossible to move an inch. The house was bare, his mother was dying, and his sister in swaddling clothes was crying for milk.

For the past few days, He Yuzhu had been calculating a plan to rob the "little devils," but his body was still too weak, so he made quite a few preparations for this operation.

He spent his entire meager little treasury, ran to Nancheng to find a blacksmith, and had several Flying Knives forged—this craft was a skill passed down through his family in his previous life; in a chaotic world, having a few knives in his pocket made him feel much more secure. At the same time, he also ran to a rouge shop and bought a lot of women's makeup items.

Because of this, the woman watching the shop mocked him for a long time.

Besides this, He Yuzhu was not entirely without support.

There was a strange "System" in his mind.

This System was quite shabby; it had no starter gift pack, nor could it conjure food or water. It only had a Storage Space of a few square kilometers, which counted as the standard equipment for a transmigrator—anything he touched with both hands, with a single thought, could be stored inside.

He Yuzhu had hoped for the System to upgrade, looking forward to a miracle, but was told: only by devouring gold, jade, and precious stones could it upgrade.

He was so angry he almost fainted at the time: in this day and age, if one really had such treasures, what would they need a lousy System for?

Angry as he was, seeing his mother's breath grow weaker by the day, the matter of getting the medicine could not be delayed any longer.

Early this morning, he steeled his heart and decided to pull off a big job.

At first, He Yuzhu tentatively walked into the pharmacy to buy medicine.

When that Japanese doctor heard that this child in rags wanted to buy Penicillin, he immediately ordered his clerk to beat him out.

At this moment, He Yuzhu was calculating the number of people in the pharmacy, wanting to wait until there were fewer people to make his move, but after lingering for a long time, seven or eight people still hadn't come out.

The bone-chilling wind wrapped in snow flurries whipped his cheeks, and He Yuzhu's teeth were chattering.

Just as he was extremely anxious and his brain was calculating rapidly, two drunken Japanese soldiers suddenly flashed out from the street corner!

One of the short devils caught a glimpse of He Yuzhu huddled in the corner of the wall looking around, and a malicious intent arose; he actually charged over unsteadily with his rifle!

He Yuzhu didn't notice at first, and by the time he realized it, the gleaming bayonet was already whistling through the air, stabbing straight toward his lower abdomen!

If this strike landed, he would surely die!

Every hair on He Yuzhu's body stood on end, and his survival instinct exploded in an instant! He violently twisted his body to the side, narrowly dodging the blade, and with a flash of cold light from his sleeve, a Flying Knife was already thrown from his hand!

In his panic, his aim was off; the Flying Knife failed to pierce the throat of the lead devil, only grazing the skin on his neck, and with its momentum undiminished, it made a "pfft" sound and buried itself deep into the shoulder of the devil behind him!

Neither of the two devils had expected this child to be so fierce, daring to assassinate Imperial Japanese soldiers on the street; the two were shocked and enraged, reaching out to pull the bolts of their rifles.

Alas, their frozen fingers were trembling, and they couldn't chamber a round for a long time.

Taking advantage of this moment, He Yuzhu took to his heels, running in a zigzag pattern.

He Yuzhu was able to have such agility partly because his physique had strengthened due to the dual souls overlapping after his transmigration, and partly because he had practiced wrestling with his father's senior apprentice, Wang Daqing, when he was seven.

"Baka! Baka!" The exasperated roars of the devils came from behind He Yuzhu.

The two devils, rifles in hand, chased wildly through the snow, stumbling and falling every now and then, but these two had locked onto He Yuzhu and were in hot pursuit.

Pedestrians on the road were like frightened birds, scattering and fleeing in all directions, fearing they wouldn't be able to get away in time.

Little He Yuzhu knew these streets and alleys by heart—his father was a head chef at Dongxing Lou, not far from here, and he often came here to play.

His thin, small figure darted left and right through the maze-like alleys, choosing only the narrowest and most difficult gaps to squeeze through.

After several turns, he quickly put some distance between himself and the devils.

He plunged into a dead-end alley piled with debris and slammed to a halt in front of a dilapidated courtyard gate covered in spiderwebs.

A crazy thought struck his mind like lightning: use the System Space to suck these two death-bringers inside!

His thoughts raced, and he didn't hesitate! He darted through the courtyard gate with the agility of a spirit cat.

The courtyard was desolate, with broken walls and ruined pillars.

He swept his gaze rapidly, instantly locking onto the top of the gatehouse.

To mislead the enemy, he first ran into the house, then climbed from the house's window onto the courtyard wall, and doubled back to the gatehouse; this way, once the little devils saw the footprints, they would believe he had hidden inside the house.

He Yuzhu lay prone on the gatehouse, pulled a few handfuls of withered mugwort from the gatehouse to cover himself, and left only his eyes to stare fixedly downward through the gaps in the grass.

Holding his breath like a dormant hunter, he waited only for those two soul-reaping ghosts to step into this death trap!

"Pat... pat..." The sound of heavy leather boots treading on frozen snow came from afar, accompanied by heavy panting and garbled Japanese curses.

The two devils chased to the courtyard gate and stopped in their tracks, alert.

The two devils were initially a bit wary upon seeing this courtyard, but once they saw that there was only one set of small footprints on the residual snow in the courtyard, their tense nerves immediately relaxed.

The devils looked at the fresh footprints on the ground, exchanged glances, and grinned hideously.

They concluded that the "little brat" was hiding in this dilapidated courtyard.

"Bang!" The rotten courtyard gate was kicked open!

The two devil soldiers held their bayonet-fixed Rifles and stepped into the courtyard cautiously, the gun barrels gleaming with a cold, eerie light under the dim sky.

Suddenly, the pile of mugwort on the gatehouse exploded outward!

A black shadow, carrying a biting gust of wind like a night owl pouncing on its prey, descended from the heights, tearing through the air!