Chapter 1: The sea turns into a field of mulberry trees

People are always forgetful, so after walking a certain distance on the journey of life, they will inevitably stop and take stock of their gains and losses over the past period. If gains outweigh losses, it means that the time has not been wasted, and they are ecstatic and ready to embark on the next journey. If losses outweigh gains, it means that the time has been wasted, and they wish they could turn back the clock and live it all over again. There is no such thing as a pill for regret, so what is lost cannot be recovered. Even if you run faster than Liu Xiang, it is a universal law of life that what is lost cannot be recovered. Is there really no exception in the world? In an era when even Newton’s laws can be overturned, it is understandable that there are one or two things that are beyond science.

Yun Ye had just taken the medicine for regret, but the medicine was a bit too strong, so when he found himself standing naked in the wilderness, he was still in a daze.

The wasteland was beautiful, with a green carpet of grass stretching from his feet to the end of his vision. The occasional wildflowers that poked out of the grass added a touch of color to the carpet.

“Fluttering” a pheasant rose from the grass, startling Yun Ye and causing him to stumble, and only then did he wake up from his daze. His eyes regained their liveliness, and his mind cleared from its confusion.

“Where am I?” Yun Ye asked himself. Ten minutes ago, he was still searching for the two missing foreigners in the Gobi Desert with his backpack, but now he was standing naked on the grassland. This was beyond his understanding. Looking at the scorching sun overhead, it still looked familiar.

Yun Ye was sure that he was still on Earth. The low elm trees, scattered locust trees, and the quiet, half-man-high wild wormwood grass made him feel at ease. Since he was in the northwest, it wasn’t a big deal. He could just go back. Yun Ye estimated that he had encountered the legendary wormhole, and had just walked from the front to the back of the paper. It was pure luck that he had not walked out of the paper. He had been living on this barren northwest land for 15 years, and had seen sandstorms, mudslides, quicksand, wolves, and even been bitten by giant ants. His nerves were already very tough, so now he was not surprised to encounter a wormhole.

The wind blew, and he felt cold all over his body.

The temperature in the northwest in May is not warm enough for people to run around with their bare bottoms. He remembered that before he came out, he replenished his water at the sixth drinking point and saw a flash of gold at the bottom of the water pool. No wonder greed is the original sin of man. Yun Ye gave his right hand a hard slap, “Let you be greedy, now you’ve gotten into trouble.”

He covered the key parts and looked around for a pool. When he got to the fourth lap, the sound of rushing water finally reached his ears. In great joy, he jumped to the water’s edge in two or three steps. He saw a clear stream flowing slowly through the grass. He walked along the stream and soon reached the source of the stream. A pile of clothes was covering the mouth of the stream, rolling up and down with the water. Yun Ye took back all his clothes, including his shoes and socks, and even a frying pan, which he used to cook instant noodles. After wringing out his clothes and spreading them out to dry on the small tree next to him, Yun Ye let out a long sigh of relief, finally not having to run naked. If you could just give me back my backpack, I wouldn’t ask for anything else.

Yun Ye spread his hands and looked at his white, delicate hands, which were a full circle smaller than his own. This was not an adult’s hands at all. He had long since discovered this problem, but he had tried hard not to think about it. He reached back and grabbed the hair that was hanging down over his shoulders, tugging it hard. It hurt, and this was not a dream. Turning his head to look at the familiar, youthful face in the water, Yun Ye vaguely felt that things were not as simple as he had thought.

Survival is the first priority. In the wilderness, you can go without clothes, but you must never go without shoes. The instinct to run, which comes from our ancestors, is clumsy, but it is the most effective way to escape. Yun Ye knew that the water source in the wilderness was not a safe campsite. With the faintest hope, he forced himself to endure the fear from his heart, staring at the spring water, hoping that the heavens would open their eyes and return his backpack to him.

This is a virgin land that no one has ever been to. The breath of the primeval wilderness envelops this quiet land. Yun Ye knows that he is just a mechanic. If he wants to survive here, he must not lack equipment. Only by getting equipment can he have food and rely on tools to keep this 14- or 15-year-old body alive.

Yun Ye shook his feet in the heavy suede boots. The wet leather boots were uncomfortable to wear, and every step he took made a “popping, popping” sound. He held a wooden stick as thick as an egg in his hand, and from time to time he would pull the grass twice to give himself courage.

The gods and Buddhas seemed to hear his plea, and a green canvas belt floated out of the water outlet. Yun Ye’s eyes lit up, and he leaned over and grabbed the belt, pulling it hard. All he heard was a loud crash, and a half-man-tall backpack shot out of the water. Yun Ye clung to the backpack, and this was his fate! He drew out the engineer’s shovel with his back hand, and his heart was at ease.

Not far from the stream was a patch of red sandstone, with no grass growing on it. Yun Ye moved the site to it, carefully leveling the ground. The red sandstone was scorching hot from the sun, so he threw his wet clothes on the stone, believing that it would take less than an hour for the clothes to dry.

The tent was set up with gaps on all sides to allow the hot air to take away the moisture from the tent. After checking that the full set of equipment was intact, Yun Ye let out a long sigh of relief. He had long since given up hope for the positioning device. The more sophisticated something is, the more likely it is to be damaged. This is common sense. The compass needle still stubbornly pointed north, even though it was filled with water. After determining the location on the map using the intersection method, he was surprised to find that his location had not changed at all. How could this be possible? Could it be that the compass is broken? After observing the plants, Yun Ye dismissed the idea that the compass was broken. He was puzzled. The powerful, but cheap, mobile phone had no signal. Looking at the silhouette of the distant mountains, except for the trees, was it not the desolate Gobi?

Has the wormhole changed my position, but not the time?

Yun Ye buried his head between his knees, his head as big as a bucket, his heart in a whirl. He had always thought that the word “time travel” was a term coined by novelists, but now it had happened to him.

Yun Ye always thought that he was a homebody, and that his mother, wife, and son were the strongest fortress in his heart. If it was just a matter of distance, he wouldn’t consider it a problem. Even if he were on Mars, he would kidnap the little green men and have them send him home. It wasn’t just distance, but a thousand years of vastness. The disappearance of the forests in the northwest, or more accurately, the Longzhong Forest, was a matter after the Tang Dynasty. The drastic changes in climate and the rapid expansion of the population caused a major ecological disaster. As a native of Longzhong, Yun Ye knew better than anyone else what the green landscape represented.

“Is it the Tang Dynasty? Or the Han Dynasty? Or even the Qin Dynasty? Please don’t be the Northern and Southern Dynasties. I’m just a small person, I can’t take on too much responsibility.”

Yun Ye muttered incoherently.

The air is pure, the scenery is beautiful, and even the rabbits around him are kind. They hide in the shadows beside Yun Ye to comfort him.

The rushing stream washed away the red stains of blood, and Yun Ye’s eyes shone as he looked at the plump rabbit, his stomach already hungry.

Yun Ye chewed on the delicious rabbit meat, and the fat occasionally slipped from the corners of his mouth. The bonfire in front of him was still burning, the sun had already set, and the red clouds were pressing down on the mountain peaks. The birds of all sizes flew into the distant forest. Yun Ye couldn’t help but feel sad, and he cried loudly while holding half a roasted rabbit.

The endless coldness woke Yun Ye from his sleep. Last night, he seemed to have returned to the noisy world of the past, with the tenderness of his wife, the rebellion of his son, and the nagging of his mother all reappearing before him. He wiped his face and drove away the last vestiges of nostalgia.

Survival is the most important thing in front of him. Only by living can he talk about anything else. Today, he will face his new life thoroughly and completely. The fire was lit again, and the rabbit meat left over from yesterday was grilled over the fire and eaten slowly with the boiling water. Food is precious. After sucking the last bit of oil from the bones, Yun Ye’s will was also strengthened.

He could not live like a savage in the wilderness forever. People are social animals with various emotional needs. Living alone will only lead to reversion to the primitive state, with language functions degenerating, brain functions degenerating, and limbs strengthening. Yun Ye did not want to be a savage in the wilderness.

Where is the road? Lu Xun said that when more people walk, a road is created. But Yun Ye is the first person to set foot on the wasteland, so he has to make his own way. After walking less than a mile, Yun Ye was out of breath. How much physical strength can a 14 or 15 year old boy expect to have, not to mention carrying 30 kilograms of equipment. No matter, Yun Ye decided to follow the stream. After all, he had to join the Yellow River.

The cold stream water made his feet almost numb, and the sun on his head made his scalp hot. The grass by the stream was green and long, and it felt like a knife when it brushed his cheeks. After a while, there was a red mark on his face. It was hot and cold, and that’s how he got typhoid.

Yun Ye saw a huge sandbank in front of him, two acres in size. He hurriedly took a few steps, and as soon as he set foot on the red sandbank, a black shadow suddenly rushed at him. His heart and guts were shattered, and he instinctively swung his shovel and hacked at the black shadow. He heard a scream of “meow,” and a gray wild goat fell into the stream, splashing water all over its body.

The goat fell into the stream and desperately struggled to get up. It probably broke its leg with a shovel, and just as it got up, it fell back into the water. Seeing its painful appearance, Yun Ye had to lift the shovel again…

The rabbit leg he had eaten in the morning had long since been digested, and his stomach was growling again. The half-grown boy had eaten up all the food, and Yun Ye was back to that embarrassing age. He sighed for a long time, took out the Yingshisha knife and began to dissect the poor goat. Only the heart and kidneys were left of the goat’s internal organs, and the other internal organs were buried deep in the sand.

In the past, Yun Ye’s cooking skills have been improving rapidly with his wife’s unremitting efforts. After a hearty meal of roast lamb, the aftertaste of the chili is still lingering in his mouth. The remaining lamb was carefully smoked with lemongrass. Who would have thought that the green grass commonly found in the northwest was an excellent material for smoked lamb.

Yun Ye was once again proud of his strong public relations skills. When he first tasted the roast lamb of the Uyghur old man, he almost swallowed his tongue. It took a set of Yingshaxia knives and a week of hard work to get the secret recipe out of the old man’s mouth. The most important thing was the ubiquitous grass, for which the old man almost turned his face. Although it is a bit cheap to use to smoke meat, if the weather in early summer is not dealt with in time, it can attract flies from all over the world in a few hours.

After thanking the sheep sincerely, Yun Ye put on his dry clothes and set off on a journey to find people again.

The stream turned a corner at the foot of the mountain and flowed eastward. This was the case for 99.9% of the world’s rivers, and this stream was no exception. Yun Ye followed the stream for three days. Apart from the trees becoming fewer and the grass becoming thinner, the city on the map was nowhere to be seen.

Looking out, the entire basin was devoid of human habitation, with the green grass covering the ground. Occasionally, a bird would dart into the sky with a “whoosh,” and large groups of wild horses would gallop and play on the grassy carpet. The raised manes were illuminated by the sun, turning into thousands of golden and silver threads. The yellow sheep lowered their heads to graze in the grass, and then stretched their necks to look into the distance. Even the pheasants flap their wings twice in a low-altitude swoop, then run through the grass again.

The wind carries the fragrance of the grass. The air is full of the scent of life, and nature is so beautiful.

Yun Ye completely collapsed. What kind of scenery is this? Where is my concrete jungle? Where is the roar of my car? Where is the acid gas from my factory? Where are the smokestacks of my heavy industry? Where is the municipal government building that is full of the flavor of the times and is hated by everyone? Where are the plastic bags that I cherish most? Where are the people I hate? Where is the noise of the city that makes me collapse? Where is the rotting and smelly city garbage that piles up like a mountain?

My dear ones, where are you?

Don’t leave me alone!

Yun Ye lay on his back on the soft grass, tears flowing like a floodgate. In just a dream, the sea turned into a field of mulberry trees.