Chapter 5: Confirming the Transmigration

"Young lord! Young lord Erlang! Come out quickly! The great deed is done! The great deed is done!"

Just as the two sides were at a standstill and Zhang Chao was considering whether to risk rushing out, a clamorous noise suddenly came from outside the door.

And it was clear from the voice that its owner was quite excited. Even without seeing the man, Zhang Chao could imagine him striding over with great vigorous steps.

This voice... why was this voice so familiar? The great deed is done? Right! He seemed to have some impression of it. He seemed to have been about to go do some great deed?

Huh? No, that's not right! Does doing a cosplay shoot count as some great deed? Did I transmigrate in soul or in body?

Before anyone else reacted, Zhang Chao felt as if some nerve had been struck, and his head began to spin and ache, yet no matter what, he simply could not remember.

"Eh? Where did all these horses come from? Aiyah! What villain dares come to your granddaddy's place to do murder! Taste my blade!"

"Aiyah! Is the young lord still well! Yin Yaozi, go quickly and check on the second young lord!"

A clatter of clanging and clashing rang out outside — clearly the man shouting for the young lord had started fighting with several Uyghurs.

'Thud!' The reeling Zhang Chao suddenly could no longer hold on. He felt as though ten thousand arrows were piercing his head, and his vision kept going black.

"Old sir outside, your young lord is safe. Please come in quickly!" Cao Sanniang, delivered from certain death, caught the tottering Zhang Chao with one arm and shouted loudly.

"Young lord! Oh, my young lord! You mustn't come to any harm! Young lord!"

Zhang Chao slowly came back to consciousness, but the moment he opened his eyes, the scene before him thoroughly disgusted him.

An old man in a black side-slit robe and a soft cap was sprawled beside him, weeping so hard he could barely catch his breath. He looked exactly like someone who had lost a beloved toy.

Young... lord...? Young lord? Young lord my ass! What the hell! Zhang Chao felt a wave of nausea for no reason at all. Being called "young lord" by a black-faced, gray-haired old man — it was as disgusting as it could possibly be!

But then he immediately froze. Huh? A side-slit robe? Wasn't that Tang-dynasty clothing? And wasn't "young lord" a Tang-dynasty honorific for men of status?

Zhang Chao was still in that small cave, his head pillowed on something warm and soft. It turned out that Lady Cao was supporting his head, while Shanniang was scooping up thoroughly boiled millet porridge with a wooden spoon, blowing it cool, and feeding it to him.

He opened his mouth out of habit and took a bite. To be fair, the millet porridge didn't look like much, but it tasted quite good. Zhang Chao could even make out a hint of salt and a faint aroma of mutton fat. And after a few mouthfuls of millet porridge, that spinning, blacking-out condition actually improved considerably.

"Rest easy, old sir. You see, what I told you was right, wasn't it? Your young lord was merely faint from hunger — he was never ill at all!"

After he had eaten a few mouthfuls, Lady Cao's hands, which were supporting Zhang Chao's back and head, exerted a little more strength, hinting that Zhang Chao could sit up now.

Zhang Chao's old face reddened. His mind had been in such a jumble that he had forgotten to get up. Now that he thought about it, it really was somewhat improper — letting two women he had never met wait on him, and on top of that, he had just put on a full display of stark nakedness.

And not only had Cao Sanniang and Shanniang seen it, but this old man had probably seen it too — and it was very likely this old man who had changed his clothes.

Bleurgh!! At that thought, the great transmigrator Zhang nearly threw up the millet porridge he had just eaten.

"My deepest thanks to you, lady. Had anything befallen the young lord, I could not atone for it even with ten thousand deaths!"

The old man thanked her again and again. Zhang Chao also turned his head at this point to take a careful look at the old man, and he confirmed that he had indeed transmigrated.

If he hadn't transmigrated, wearing a black side-slit robe so thoroughly steeped in sour stench and mutton reek would not have been easy even in later ages.

And he knew the side-slit robe well! At a glance, this was clearly not made in a later era. If later eras made them like this, not even a ghost would buy one!

At the same time, he was also very familiar with the Tang dynasty. As someone who did armor and full-contact armored combat, and as a native of Chang'an District in Xi'an, a Guanzhong man might forget his wife, but he could never forget the Great Tang!

For Guanzhong and Xi'an, increasingly marginalized in later ages, the glory of Han and Tang was practically the last pride they had! No matter whether one admitted it aloud, in the heart one absolutely thought so.

And the side-slit robe was the most representative garment of the Tang dynasty, the soft cap even more so. Now he could basically confirm it: he had transmigrated, and had arrived in the Great Tang he had once yearned for in his dreams.

"May I ask where the lady is from? Why have you come here? And who were those people just now?" Seeing that Zhang Chao was largely out of danger, the old man began to look at the woman before him with suspicion.

He could not help but be suspicious. He knew what kind of temperament his young lord had — apart from keeping a vegetarian diet and chanting Buddhist sutras, the young lord did not even dare kill a chicken.

Then who had killed the corpses filling this room? Where had the Uyghurs he had just driven off come from? And why had the young lord just now been lying stark naked in this woman's arms?

Could it be? Surely not... The more the old man looked at this beautiful Lady Cao, the more suspicious he became.

Could this woman be a flower-plucking bandit? Or some mountain spirit or wild demon come to seduce the young lord and drain his essence?

"To answer you, old sir, I am from Hongrun Township in Shouchang County. My husband's family is surnamed Song. Those Uyghurs just now were horse bandits. I was abducted by them, and they meant to harm the young lord as well. Fortunately, old sir, you arrived in time!"

Lady Cao naturally had no idea that the old man before her had already let his imagination run wild. But she too had told almost no truth — apart from the abduction being real, nothing else was accurate.

Zhang Chao glanced at Lady Cao in surprise. Wasn't this woman surnamed Cao? She sounded like a lady from some great household. And wasn't her deceased husband surnamed Murong? Why was it Song now?

But Zhang Chao did not expose her, because he still did not know who this old man who kept calling him "young lord" was, nor where this place was. At a time like this, one should speak less and observe more — first figure out the place, the dynasty, and the relationships between people.

The old man hesitated, looking as though he wanted to say something but held back. Just as he was weighing whether to keep pressing the question of who exactly had killed these Uyghurs, Yin Yaozi came over from gathering up the horses and water in the distance.

"Old Zhong! Let's escort the young lord up the mountain first! It's almost dark, and soon we won't be able to travel. Those Uyghurs might come back!"

It turned out these two fellows were no fierce warriors like Zhang Chao. Although only five of the Uyghurs remained, two of them wounded, these two had still failed to finish off a single one. Now of course they feared the Uyghurs would go back, call for reinforcements, and return for revenge.

"Right! Then, Lady Song, there is nowhere nearby to rest except this vicinity. If you don't mind, please come with us up the mountain to take shelter for the night!"

Although the old man called Old Zhong spoke words like "if you don't mind," what his eyes revealed was something that brooked no refusal.

"How dare I not obey! Then I shall impose upon the young lord and old sir!" Lady Cao naturally knew how to read expressions, and agreed without hesitation.

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