Chapter 3: Descent

Ding Yu opened his eyes amidst bouts of headache. What met his eyes was a dilapidated roof supported by thick beams. He was covered with a black-yellow quilt full of patches, and his nose was filled with a faint musty smell. At the same time, his mouth was dry, and his whole body was abnormally sore, as if it were very difficult to even move.

He grinned, tilted his head reluctantly, and looked around.

This was a small wooden hut, the surrounding walls were patched up, and some wind was vaguely blowing in. Except for the crude bed covered with dry straw, there was nothing else in the room.

Where is this?

Ding Yu was dazed for a long while before he finally remembered something. Ignoring his physical discomfort, he sat up laboriously and lifted an arm.

A black, thin, skinny arm, somewhat unfamiliar, but it seemed to have some impression.

"No way..."

Ding Yu groaned.

At this moment, the door was pushed open, and a woman wrapped in a gray coarse cloth dress and a colorful headscarf walked in from outside. As soon as she saw Ding Yu wake up, she shouted "Zhuer" and rushed over, holding Ding Yu tightly in her arms, crying.

Ding Yu's body couldn't help but stiffen in the woman's arms. After feeling two hot tears shed by the woman on his neck, he subconsciously called out "Mother," then broke free from the woman's embrace, clutching his head with both hands and twitching on the bed, looking like he was in agony.

"Zhuer, what's wrong?" The woman exclaimed incessantly when she saw this.

Before Ding Yu fainted with black eyes, he vaguely saw two familiar figures rushing in from outside the door, and then he lost consciousness again.

This time, he had another very long dream. In the dream, he experienced the intermittent growth process of a boy from birth to twelve or thirteen years old, and finally, his memory stopped at the time when he was helping his father and brother reclaim a piece of wasteland, encountered heavy rain, and stepped into the void, losing consciousness.

……

I don't know how long it had been, Ding Yu woke up again on the bed, panting, only feeling the taste of bitter medicine in his mouth. After moving his mouth twice, he could even feel some dregs of medicine.

"Little brother, you're awake. How do you feel? After taking the medicine prescribed by Dr. Wang, are you any better?" The tall, thin youth guarding beside the bed was overjoyed when he saw Ding Yu wake up.

"Big... Big brother, I'm fine, just don't have much strength in my body." Ding Yu looked at the tall, thin youth's joyful face and muttered in reply.

"That's good, you rest for a while, I'll go call Father over." The youth rushed out of the room joyfully.

Ding Yu lifted his hands on the bed and stared at them for a long time.

Is he 'Ding Yu' now? Or an other-world boy named 'Wang Tiezhu'?

It seems that the two have merged together, but the new memory is broken and incomplete, and it seems that only part of Wang Tiezhu's memory has been merged, so he is still Ding Yu, but there is an inexplicable extra part of someone else's memory in his brain.

After Ding Yu analyzed his situation, he breathed a sigh of relief, but what is going on now?

The promised dream of the other world, possessing others, how did it directly become a person of the other world? And it is very clear that this person who was replaced is the other-world boy he possessed last time.

During the training, Chen Boshi and other teachers had never mentioned that such a thing would happen.

After Ding Yu thought about it, he tilted his head, patted his head with his hand, and shouted "Taiyuan" in a low voice, but a moment later, nothing happened.

This is really a big trouble. The method of activating the Taiyuan auxiliary system taught in the training class seems to have failed too.

Ding Yu's face began to change uncertainly.

"Clang."

A dark, middle-aged man pushed the door and broke in. Seeing Ding Yu sitting on the bed, he immediately sat down on Ding Yu's bed joyfully and asked with concern:

"Zhuzi, you're really awake. Hu Laosan also said that you would sleep for two or three days and be in danger of your life. It's really nonsense. But don't say, although his medical skills are not very good, that bowl of herbal soup poured down really saved your little life. That half bag of bean rice was not sent in vain."

"Father, I'm fine, just a little headache." Ding Yu looked at the strange yet familiar man in front of him, and in the other party's concerned gaze, he twitched the corners of his mouth twice and replied in a low voice.

This man is the biological father of this body, 'Wang Kui.'

"Zhuzi, you fainted in the field this time, it's because your body is too weak. It's also Father's fault, I shouldn't have let you work in the field in the rain. Being able to wake up this time is a lucky life. Your mother has gone to your grandfather's house to ask for some bacon to nourish your body." Wang Kui reached out and touched his forehead, and seeing that his body temperature was normal, he was truly relieved.

"Mother went back to Grandfather's house?" Ding Yu was a little stunned, and an image of an old man with a tall stature but a thick beard couldn't help but appear in his mind.

In his memory, this grandfather only had one daughter, his mother, and loved "him" as the youngest child in the family very much.

"Yes, your grandfather is a famous hunter for dozens of miles around. Although he is old now, no one in the nearby villages can compare to his ability to catch wild rabbits and pheasants on the mountain. You drink some meat soup later, and your body will recover quickly." Wang Kui said with a smile.

"Meat soup?"

Ding Yu found that after hearing this word, he subconsciously smacked his lips, and even some saliva flowed out. He couldn't help but raise his sleeve awkwardly to wipe the corners of his mouth.

"Haha, look at how greedy you are. By the way, I picked a fruit for you on the way back, just make do and fill your stomach. Your brother and I still have to work, you continue to rest well in the room." Wang Kui laughed, took out a small green-red fruit from his arms, stuffed it into Ding Yu's hand, and after comforting him a few more words, left in a hurry.

Ding Yu looked at the furry wild fruit in his hand and looked at the door direction where Wang Kui left, his heart full of mixed feelings.

He clearly still had a 'father' in his memory on Blue Star, but the natural intimacy brought to him by the other party clearly showed the blood connection between this body and the other party.

"No, can't be deceived. In the training class, the trainers once said that possessing a person of the other world in a dream will produce an illusion of substitution. If you are not careful, it is easy to lose yourself. Now it is not possession, but truly replacing the other party, which makes it easier to lose yourself. What I need to do now is to search for information about this world and complete the task first." Ding Yu pondered silently, and after taking a bite of the sour fruit, he began to carefully search for the extra memories in his mind.

In these memories, he lived in a village called 'Wang Family Village' since he was a child. The whole village had only a hundred households, most of them surnamed Wang, and he had only been to a few other villages within twenty or thirty miles, most of which were about the same size as Wang Family Village. But in a place far away from Wang Family Village, there was a large Huang Shi City, where hundreds of thousands of people lived. All the villages and larger towns nearby were under the jurisdiction of Huang Shi City, but Wang Tiezhu himself had not been to this city once.

The daily life of Wang Tiezhu's family almost revolved around the word "poor."

In his memory, hunger was a common occurrence. The whole family lived on a few acres of land allocated by the village. What was planted in the field was a kind of black pea. Except for a small bowl of salted vegetable soup that occasionally appeared on the dining table, the two meals a day were bean rice porridge made of black peas. This kind of bean rice porridge smelled fragrant, but it tasted a bit bitter in the mouth. But even with such staple food, he, who was not yet an adult, could only drink two small bowls a day, and the extra bean porridge had to first satisfy his father and brother Wang Dagang, who were the main laborers in the family.

As for food like white rice and white steamed buns, it was not that this world didn't have them, but for the Wang family, they could only see a small bowl during festivals. Fortunately, he still had a grandfather who was a hunter. Every time he came to Wang Family Village, he could always bring some pickled wild game, letting him see some oil and water. But unfortunately, grandfather's house was relatively far away, and the number of times he could come to Wang Family Village every year was very few.

As for the farm tools, salt, lamp oil, and other daily necessities needed by their family, they were purchased together by people sent by Wang Family Village to Huang Shi City every once in a while.

What kind of country this area belonged to, and whether there was a court or emperor above it, Ding Yu did not find relevant memories. It seemed that for the people of Wang Family Village, the Huang Shi City Lord's Mansion was the government, and the Huang Shi City Lord was the biggest official they knew.

Ding Yu also did not find anything related to the supernatural powers mentioned by Chen Boshi and others in Wang Tiezhu's memory. The entire Wang Family Village was a model of a poor and backward village in ancient China. Everyone in the village seemed to live only to fill their stomachs.

"It seems that to find valuable information, I have to think of other ways." Ding Yu pondered like this.

At dusk, the sky turned dark.

In a spacious room, Ding Yu sat at a crude wooden table, looking at the black-green porridge-like food full in the wooden bowl in front of him, a bit dazed.

"Zhuzi, your body hasn't recovered yet, you can eat more." Wang Kui sat opposite, seeing his youngest son like this, mistakenly thinking he was too surprised, and said kindly.

"Yes... yes, little brother, you just... just open your stomach and eat. Don't worry about the farm work in the field, 'slurp'... Father and I will do it well." The tall, thin youth sitting on the other side of the table, while using a wooden spoon to shovel food into his mouth, swallowed and said without delaying his speech.

"Father, I'm just a little worried about Mother. It's so late, why hasn't she come back after going to Grandfather's house?" Ding Yu replied vaguely, afraid of being seen as abnormal, and hurriedly picked up the wooden bowl and took a big sip of black bean porridge, only feeling the bitterness in his mouth. If he hadn't been psychologically prepared, he would have almost vomited on the spot.

Can this kind of thing also be food?

Ding Yu secretly slandered, but fortunately, after chewing these soft black beans in his mouth a few more times, they finally became a bit glutinous and fragrant, so he barely swallowed them.

"Yes. Mother went to Grandfather's house early in the morning. Calculating the distance, she should be back. Could it be that she encountered something on the way?" The tall, thin youth shoveled the food in the wooden bowl clean in a few mouthfuls, habitually wiped the corners of his mouth with his ragged sleeve, and asked strangely.

"Maybe, your mother stayed at Grandfather's house for a while. What could happen on this little road?" Wang Kui shook his head, replied indifferently, and then scooped a bowl of black bean porridge from a nearby iron pot.

Ding Yu stared at the bean porridge in the bowl in front of him, just thinking about whether to find an excuse to eat less, when suddenly there were two knocks on the door outside, and then the door was pushed open from the outside, and the woman in coarse cloth dress and an old man with a dense beard carrying a package walked in directly.

"Father-in-law!"

Wang Kui saw the old man, was greatly surprised, and hurriedly greeted him with bowl and chopsticks.

Ding Yu and the tall, thin youth also stood up from the table together and shouted "Grandfather."

In Wang Tiezhu's memory, this "grandfather" loved his youngest grandson very much, not only often bringing meat to improve the Wang family's meals, but also once specifically exchanged half a wild boar for a literate old scholar in the village to teach Wang Tiezhu to read and write intermittently for more than half a year, allowing this body to finally recognize some simple characters and barely get rid of being "illiterate."

The old man saw the two "grandsons," and a smile appeared on his square face, asking with concern about Ding Yu's physical recovery.

But before the old man could say a few words to the few people, the woman beside him, who was full of worries, couldn't help but interject and say an astonishing piece of news: "Master, my father got news that Huang Shi City is going to start the Spirit Corvee."

"Spirit Corvee? Father-in-law, is this true?" Wang Kui trembled upon hearing this, and didn't even know that the chopsticks in his hand fell to the ground.

"The news shouldn't be wrong. It was an old friend of mine who told me secretly. His son serves in the Huang Shi City Guard. Once the Spirit Corvee starts, male Ding over ten years old must serve. The second child is already ten years old. In order to avoid this Spirit Corvee, I plan to send him to a nearby Taoist temple." The old man looked at Ding Yu and responded with a frown.

"Taoist temple? Which one are you talking about? Is there any way to let Zhuzi become a young Taoist?" Wang Kui was overjoyed upon hearing this.

Ding Yu was stunned when he heard this, and a series of questions popped up in his heart.

What is Spirit Corvee? Go to a Taoist temple to be a Taoist boy? Could it be the kind of Taoist temple on Blue Star! Could it be that being a Taoist boy in this world is a very good thing?

"Naturally, it's the most famous 'Bai Yun Temple' nearby. Originally, this matter was unlikely, but I got an item that Bai Yun Temple urgently needs, and the second child's age is just right, so there shouldn't be much problem." The old man patted the package on his back and said with confidence.

"Taoist temple is a good place. I heard that they have food and drink, and they eat white rice and white flour. Grandfather, I want to go too?" The tall, thin youth finished listening to the old man's words, looked down at the black bean porridge on the table, and his eyes lit up.

"Dagang, you can't, you are too old, the Taoist temple only recruits those under fifteen." The old man sighed and said helplessly to the other grandson.

"Slap."

"What are you going for? Think the Taoist temple is our family's? Being able to send Zhuzi one is already thanking heaven and earth. Besides, although the Huang Shi City Spirit Corvee is hard, and you might even get sick after coming back, the reward is also very considerable. This time, I will go to serve the Spirit Corvee with you, and after coming back, I can let you marry a wife." Wang Kui finished listening to the youth's words, slapped his eldest son on the head with his backhand, and said angrily.

"I just don't know if Zhuzi can adapt in the Taoist temple." The woman looked at her youngest son with full worry.

Ding Yu blinked, unable to say a word.