The answer was unexpected, and yet not entirely so. Ding Songyan felt the absurdity of it, the confusion of it, and then a cold sweat broke across his back all at once.

Should I be grateful I don’t have to change my name, or should I be terrified of what a coincidence this size might be hiding? Could sharing a name be the key condition for a successful transmigration? Would the original Ding Songyan have transmigrated into my world? And could we switch back? His thoughts raced. He ran through the openings of every transmigration novel he’d ever read.

He had already concluded that this body had been dead before he arrived. He was, in some sense, a soul borrowing a corpse. That was why he could find no memory fragments, why he recognised no one around him, why he knew nothing of what had happened here.

Ding Songyan looked up again at the cobwebbed, dust-laden rafters and roof, swept his gaze across the crumbling walls and the broken idol, and searched for a hidden camera. He was looking for the architect of all this, the one who would step out and tell him this was all a Truman Show.

That was the answer he wanted most.

His last hope.

But he found nothing.

“Second Brother, shall we go home?” After confirming that her brother had truly forgotten everything, Ding Qingyan’s spirits had fallen low.

“All right.” Ding Songyan answered, his voice quiet.

The two of them filed out through the collapsed gate. Ding Qingyan stopped in the open ground before the temple, tilted her head back, cupped her hands around her mouth, and called out, “Found him! Found him!”

Who is she talking to? Ding Songyan followed her gaze upward. A few sparse clouds drifted like white hounds across the sky, stained with the red of the setting sun, making the gray-blue expanse look vast and empty.

The thought had barely formed before a great shadow swept in from behind them, swallowing the last of the evening light.

Then a great strange bird dropped from the sky and landed in the ground before them, raising a cloud of dust like fog.

Ding Songyan’s eyes went wide.

A w-wooden bird?

It was flying up there?

Is there a drone rigged inside?

Or one of those flying sword things from those video sites?

What had startled him so was a bird made entirely of wood, enormous—on a scale with the large helicopters of his previous world. Its back bore an open cockpit, through which he could make out a round rudder, levers, and various fittings, some with a metallic sheen, others showing bare wood grain. The great bird’s head tapered to a sharp beak, and its two painted red eyes gave it a strange, imposing aura.

When the wooden wings stilled and the dust began to settle, a figure climbed out of the cockpit and dropped to the ground.

Ding Qingyan had already covered her nose with one hand and shielded her eyes with the other the moment the flying contraption began to descend, practiced as someone who had done it a thousand times.

Now she glanced sideways at Ding Songyan, her voice taking on a pinched quality, and said, “This is a wooden kite carriage, made by the Qiguren.

“The third son of the Qu family from Baoping Lane heard you’d gone missing and came to help search.”

Qiguren… I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before… Ding Songyan studied the approaching figure of Qu, who moved in a series of hops.

The figure in the blue short jacket was visibly different from an ordinary person. His face bore three eyes, the extra one positioned at the center of his brow, set horizontally just like the other two, currently closed. His lower body had only one leg, centred beneath him, which meant he had to hop to move forward.

Two leather belts were wrapped around Qu’s waist, hung with a short blade, a small hammer, and an assortment of tools ranging from rough to finely made.

Beyond that, he was not so different from anyone else. Decent-looking, with a complexion close to bronze.

He glanced at Ding Songyan, then turned to Ding Qingyan with an ingratiating smile, “Little Sister Qingyan, you found Second Brother?

“Shall I take you both back in the wooden kite carriage?”

I’d rather not. Doesn’t feel particularly safe… Ding Songyan declined inwardly and began casting about for an excuse.

Ding Qingyan shook her head. She looked at the sun, which had sunk a little lower, and said, “Brother Zhongheng, we’re grateful for the thought. Home isn’t far from here. Second Brother and I will walk.”

Before Qu Zhongheng could press further, she added in a softer tone, “Could we trouble you to inform Father, Mother, and Eldest Brother that Second Brother is on his way home? No need to keep searching outside. Only your wooden kite carriage could manage that, after all.”

“Of course, of course! Right away!” At the prospect of doing something useful for Ding Qingyan, Qu Zhongheng’s face lit up entirely. He hopped back onto the wooden kite carriage, climbed into the shallow hollow of the cockpit, secured himself, pulled up the lift lever, and turned the round rudder.

Watching this, Ding Songyan and Ding Qingyan both stepped back several paces simultaneously, planting themselves at a safe distance, one hand pinching nose, the other shielding eyes.

“Little Sister Qingyan, I’ll be as quick as I can!” Qu Zhongheng waved as the great wooden wings began to beat, and the wind rose around him. Gradually he lifted off, and flew away into the distance.

When the dust settled again, Ding Songyan turned to Ding Qingyan.

“You don’t dare ride it either?”

Ding Qingyan looked a little sheepish. She wrinkled her nose.

“So you really have forgotten. Gosh. It’s because word went around the city a while back that the Qu family’s wooden-man drivers and wooden carriages might be technically complete, but completely unreliable. His own mother died from a fall because of one.”

No wonder. One ought to be careful with mechanical constructions like that… Ding Songyan felt he understood Ding Qingyan’s hesitation well enough.

If the wooden carriages running on the ground already had such great risks, a wooden kite carriage in the air was another matter entirely.

Ding Qingyan added, “I went and asked Qu Zhongheng about it. He was furious. He said it was a rumor spread by sedan chair carriers and coachmen who were worried about losing their livelihoods. Carriers and ferrymen and brokers, the whole lot of them deserve worse!

“He also said his mother’s death had nothing whatsoever to do with the wooden carriage. She fell into the water while riding the wooden kite carriage out to Heavenly Gate Island in the middle of the river to look at the sky.

“Second Brother, do you think I would dare ride it?”

Ding Songyan wiped away a cold sweat that was not there.

“Qu Zhongheng has nerves of steel.”

“He spent a fortune on a special umbrella that slows your fall through the air. As long as you don’t drown and don’t fall from too great a height, you won’t die.” Ding Qingyan seemed genuinely fascinated by the umbrella. “Besides, the wooden kite carriage has been much improved. It used to need a tailwind to fly like a bird. Now, as long as there’s no crosswind and you don’t fly too far, it manages.”

As she spoke, Ding Qingyan lifted the veil hat she had been carrying in her left hand this whole time and set it on her head, letting the white gauze fall over her face.

“Let’s go, Second Brother. It will be dark soon.”

Ding Songyan gave a small nod and followed Ding Qingyan along the rammed-earth road, under a canopy of dense shade, toward the city walls not far ahead. Every so often a horse galloped past them, most bearing riders with blades at their waists or swords on their backs.

Between the wooden kite carriage and everything I am seeing now, The Truman Show could be ruled out for now… This world is not quite like any ordinary ancient setting either… Ding Songyan kept his counsel and watched, taking in everything around him in silence—including his newly acquired younger sister, Ding Qingyan.

The girl was not short, somewhere between 5’4″ and 5’6″. His eyes were no measuring tape, so he could not be more precise. She walked with a slight bounce to her step, more childlike than girlish, which suggested she was still well-loved at home and had not been burdened too early with the weight of adult life.

They rounded a thickly wooded bend, and the view opened up before him.

In the distance, a great river stretched so wide its far bank was invisible. Along the tributary channels and old waterways flanking it, a row upon row of water wheels stood tall—each one a different shape, each one combining wood and iron—and clustered around them were countless buildings, plumes of smoke rising from within and climbing into the sky.

From that direction, faintly, Ding Songyan heard the rhythmic ringing of metal on metal.

The dense buildings gave way to high gray-white stone walls, as if gathered in offering around a tower of wood and stone that rose at the city’s heart, perhaps thirty or forty meters tall.

The sun was easing itself down toward the river’s surface. In the sweltering wave of summer heat, men and women in short brown work clothes, sleeves rolled to the elbow, their bronzed muscles gleaming with sweat, filed out of what appeared to be workshops and streamed steadily toward the city gates.

Two groups stood guard at the gate. One wore battle jackets of red with accents of green, yellow, white, and black, armed with waist blades and long spears. The other, men and women alike, wore fitted black, their left cuffs embroidered with scattered points of starlight, their right with flickering candleflames, and they carried long swords as their primary weapon.

They were posted to either side of the gate. Neither group harassed those entering the city. They maintained order with practised ease, and occasionally questioned those whose movements seemed suspicious.

Ding Songyan and Ding Qingyan passed through the gate without incident and moved through the barbican.

The noise sharpened at once. The colors multiplied.

Ding Songyan took in the crowd at a glance. Some wore straight-hem robes, others upper jackets with long skirts. Some were covered head to toe like Ding Qingyan. Others had their jacket fronts open, the tops of their dudou or bellyband showing as though it were simply part of the ensemble. Others wore the high-waisted style with a great expanse of white at the chest. The men were no different—some in wide-sleeved robes, some in green-collar scholar’s jackets, some in dark straight-cut robes, some in round-collar long gowns.

Ding Songyan knew little about the traditional hanfu, but he had seen enough decent period dramas to recognise that the people here seemed to have gathered the fashions of every dynasty into one place, a jumble like the old market towns he used to visit, full of tourists from everywhere wearing every variety of historical costume for photographs.

And apart from Ding Qingyan beside him, not a single woman wore a veil. They showed their faces openly, without the slightest hesitation.

Ding Songyan could not help glancing at Ding Qingyan.

Too beautiful, perhaps? Afraid of catching the eye of some scoundrel and inviting trouble?

Not an unreasonable precaution. In an age like this, without the means to keep things well in order, devastating beauty was more curse than gift for someone without strong family connections behind her.

Then again, his younger sister was still young, still growing into herself. Otherwise, as the novels and dramas always had it, the suitors would have worn the doorstep smooth.

All at once, the tower of wood and stone at the city’s centre rang out three deep drumbeats.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

What’s that? Ding Songyan turned toward the sound.

Before a breath had passed, a streak of fire shot from the top of the tower.

It moved like a serpent, fierce and quick, and in an instant it plunged down into some part of the city below, leaving only a scattering of bright sparks still hanging in the air, its momentum remarkable.

Then Ding Songyan noticed a squad of people in red-ground, black-patterned clothes, who had been patrolling the street, looking very much like constables. They wheeled sharply and cut through the crowd with the speed of horses and the fluidity of fish, heading for wherever the fire had landed.

The stream of people paused for a few moments, took stock, and then flowed on as before.

Seeing Ding Songyan standing still, Ding Qingyan puffed her cheeks, her expression subdued.

“That’s Uncle Yi and his Nine Sun-Shooting Arrows.”

Ding Songyan made no effort to hide his bewilderment, staring straight at his veil-hatted sister.

“Sigh…” Ding Qingyan sighed. “Uncle Yi is the county marshal of Linjiang County, here in Dingjiang Prefecture. His martial arts are said to descend from the great archer Yi who shot down the nine suns. That is why all of his clan take Yi as their surname. Today he has the watch at the tower.”

“The watch tower…” Ding Songyan repeated the words back.

Ding Qingyan raised her arm and pointed at the tower of wood and stone.

“There. That is the watch tower. Every city has them, more than one, and there are smaller ones along the walls as well, though none as tall as this.

“Every day, the county office, the prefecture, and the Brightnight Sect each station experts with far-sight abilities atop the watchtowers in rotation. They watch for martial violence within the city walls and for threats approaching from beyond them.”

A human surveillance network—no, a martial one… That arrow just now seemed extraordinary, clearly beyond the limits of any ordinary person… And that was only a county marshal… Ding Songyan listened, quietly astonished.