Transmigrating to the Qi Family - Chapter 1

“Mmm…”

Jiang Miao held his head, feeling extremely uncomfortable. He didn’t know why, but upon waking up, his head was throbbing, and his body felt weak and sore, as if he had been seriously ill.

He tried to open his eyes, only to see the dark beams above him, and, on those beams, a fleeting tail.

Jiang Miao immediately became nervous. He recognized at a glance what that thin, rope-like tail belonged to – he hadn’t expected there to be mice in this house!

As if to laugh at his ignorance, the mouse made a “squeaking” sound, got into a broken tile along the beam, and disappeared quietly.

Jiang Miao breathed a sigh of relief, his consciousness clearing up a bit. He thought, fortunately, the mouse didn’t jump down; otherwise, he would have escaped out the door, dragging his ailing body.

But where exactly was this place? He only remembered sleeping at home. Suddenly, fragments of voices flashed through Jiang Miao’s mind, and he seemed to smell a burnt odor again… he remembered!

Yesterday, he was drinking with a few buddies because they were annoyed about the rent for their shop rising. He accidentally drank too much and stumbled home. When he was lying in bed trying to sleep, he vaguely heard someone shouting “fire” or something outside. His neighborhood was chaotic, with incidents happening all the time. Jiang Miao, feeling groggy, turned over and went back to sleep. After a while, he smelled a choking smell, so he got up to ventilate, but it was too late. The fire in the house next door was so intense that the gas tank exploded under the high temperature. After a harsh roar, he lost consciousness…

It seemed he had traveled through time. Judging by the furnishings in the room, it should be ancient times. He hadn’t expected that over twenty years of ordinary days would end in this way. It seemed that God was treating him well! Jiang Miao thought wryly.

The term “time travel” is not new nowadays. Time-travelers were everywhere in online novels and dramas, each one more formidable than the last. However, he wasn’t a science and engineering genius who could get rich with glass and soap, nor was he a liberal arts genius who could rise to prominence through the imperial examination. He was just an ordinary commoner. What was he doing here in ancient times? Was he going to farm? Well, he needed land for that.

Just as Jiang Miao frowned and thought about the days ahead, a knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

In an instant, Jiang Miao realized a terrible thing. He actually had no memory of his original body!

Traveling through time without fine clothes and regal status was one thing, but not having memories was too unreliable, right? Jiang Miao was quite angry; this was completely different from what was said in the book!

It’s over; the secret is about to be exposed as soon as I arrive! I wonder who’s knocking; what if I mistake them for someone else? Jiang Miao thought about pretending not to hear and not opening the door, but the knocking continued incessantly.

“Coming…” Jiang Miao weakly called out, then struggled to get up, unlatched the door, and came face to face with an old man outside.

The old man looked to be in his sixties, not tall, and hunched over with a worried expression on his face. After seeing the confusion on Jiang Miao’s face, he awkwardly spoke up.

“Young man, I noticed you haven’t been out for the past couple of days, so I came to check on you… Are you alright?”

Jiang Miao felt happy; he didn’t know him. That’s great!

“I’m fine. I just feel a little unwell these days, so I haven’t gone out. Thanks for your concern, Uncle.” Jiang Miao put on the appearance of someone who had just recovered from a serious illness. When he smiled, his sunken cheeks weren’t very pleasant to look at, but it made the old man feel like there was something different about this young man.

They both lived in the same courtyard. When this young man moved in, he felt that this person probably wasn’t very friendly. He always had a gloomy face and never spoke to anyone in the courtyard. He came and went alone every day, without anyone visiting him. To be honest, if it weren’t for the strange fact that he hadn’t stepped out for the past few days, Old Mo wouldn’t have come knocking on his door.

“It’s good that you’re fine, but you seem to have caught a cold. You should go grab some medicine. Turn right when you go out, walk to the end of the alley, and there’s a pharmacy there,” Old Mo kindly advised.

As soon as he finished speaking, someone in the courtyard laughed, “Old Mo, he’s a bun seller. He sets up his stall at the end of the alley every day. Do you really need to give him directions?”

Following her voice, Jiang Miao looked over and saw a woman squatting by the well, washing vegetables. In her basin were several clean white radishes, their green leaves dotted with water droplets, looking quite enticing in the sunlight.

Old Mo was taken aback by her words, his face showing a moment of embarrassment. Jiang Miao quickly spoke up, “Auntie, Uncle Mo means well. I’m a bit confused due to my illness. If I don’t understand something later, I’ll have to ask you for help.”

Hearing him say that, Old Mo urged him to go and see a doctor quickly, to avoid any confusion due to illness. The woman also advised him to seek medical attention. Jiang Miao thanked them both, and once they left, he hurriedly returned to his room and closed the door, afraid of encountering anyone else.

Sitting on the bed, he carefully summarized the information he had just received. Firstly, judging from the surroundings outside, the original owner lived in a large courtyard. The courtyard was quite large, but all the residents were strangers, indicating that this was probably a place rented by the original owner rather than his own home. Secondly, the people here were probably not wealthy. Whether it was the original owner or others, they mainly wore plain clothes with patches on them.

Under the warm sunshine, the courtyard was quiet, and Jiang Miao felt a rare sense of relaxation. Perhaps, this place might be more suitable for him to live in?

…

That day, he brought back two doses of medicine. The old doctor grabbed his hand and muttered a few words about “thin white tongue coating, floating, and tight pulse” or something like that, and with a flourish of his hand, Jiang Miao’s copper coins were reduced to only twelve.

But the money wasn’t spent in vain. After taking the medicine, his body immediately improved a lot, and the tension in his head, which had been tight, also eased.

During the days of recuperation at home, Jiang Miao also familiarized himself with the surroundings.

Apart from him, there were six households living in the courtyard. The main house and the three rooms on the east side were occupied by the homeowner himself, surnamed Bai, who ran a small business from home, and the income was decent. However, to support two children’s education, they rented out the courtyard to share expenses.

The two rooms on the south were rented to two brothers who sold fish. They had a large pond at home, and they went out to catch and sell fish early every morning. In the afternoon, they go back to their village to transport fish. They earn hard-earned money. The women in these two households were also diligent; after selling fish in the morning, they would also go to the nearby area to pick up vegetable leaves and chop them. It is said that those are feed for the fish and geese raised at home.

The other two rooms were rented to an old woman with her grandson and a young waiter from a nearby restaurant. That old woman was Aunt Liu , the one who was washing radishes on the first day Jiang Miao arrived. She was quite a gossip, and Jiang Miao obtained most of the information from her. He wasn’t too familiar with the young waiter, as he came and went early every day, and Jiang Miao had never encountered him.

On the west side, there were only two rooms, rented to a storyteller and his large family of seven or eight people, all squeezed into these two rooms. Occasionally, the women in his family would take on some sewing tasks, but most of the time, they stayed indoors.

To the north lived Jiang Miao and the Old Mo’s family. Old Mo worked as a night sweeper, which might not sound glorious, but the pay was actually quite good. However, the atmosphere in his home wasn’t great; his wife and daughter-in-law quarreled and argued all day long, disturbing Jiang Miao’s sleep several times. Old Mo’s son seemed to be a layabout, rarely coming home, and whenever he did, it was to ask for money.

As for the background of the original owner, Jiang Miao still couldn’t find out clearly. Everyone only knew that he moved in two months ago and wasn’t sure if he had any family.

Furthermore, although the original owner sold buns, his craftsmanship didn’t seem to be that good. Jiang Miao discovered this himself. On that day, he was a bit hungry, so he found a few buns made by the original owner in the steamer. Although the buns didn’t go bad in the cold winter, when he tasted them, he found that the flour didn’t seem to have been properly fermented, and the buns were hard and not fluffy. The radish filling was also poorly seasoned. It only tasted salty and had no umami flavor at all.

Jiang Miao used to sell buns himself, but later, the rent became too expensive. After selling buns for a few months just to break even, he switched to another business. From the perspective of a semi-professional like him, a shop with such craftsmanship would have been closed within two days in modern times. He wondered how the original owner managed to accumulate this jar of copper coins.

In addition, Jiang Miao also found out that this dynasty was indeed called the Liang Dynasty, and it had been established for over a hundred years. The royal family’s surname was Dong, so it was also referred to as the Dong Liang Dynasty.

Even though Jiang Miao wasn’t very educated, he knew that there had never been an emperor surnamed Dong who had ruled for more than a hundred years in history. It seemed that he hadn’t traveled to ancient China at all.

However, the purchasing power here was similar to ancient China. One copper coin was approximately equivalent to about five cents in modern currency. One or two pieces of silver could probably be exchanged for a thousand copper coins, making one or two pieces of silver equivalent to about five hundred yuan in modern currency.

The night Jiang Miao arrived, he counted the money in the jar. There were a total of nine hundred and twenty copper coins, and after spending the eighty-eight coins on medical treatment, he was left with about five hundred yuan.

No wonder the original owner would rather die than go see a doctor. He is really poor!