Chapter 1: Delivering a Baby for the Young Lady
If the Way is compassionate, then Heaven is merciless: the Great Dao is fifty, yet Heaven grants only forty-nine; one is hidden, thus all things retain a thread of hope for survival…
“Haha, if this is real, then send me to the world of Qin’s Bright Moon and Songs of the Nine Heavens! As a powerless migrant worker on Earth, I’ll never find true love! Ah~ Shao Shao~ Ling Ji~ Don’t rush…”
The chubby man lying on the bed curled his body, drool trickling from the corner of his mouth—anyone could see this lonely bachelor was lost in an erotic dream.
…
“Damn it! Send orders to the Yan and Zhao branches to intercept them! Kill without hesitation!” The black-armored swordsman barked in fury. A shabby ox cart had actually escaped right before his eyes, taking with it both the traitor Jing Ni and the Jing Ni Sword!
“At your command, Lord Yanyin!” The two half-crippled assassins hurried off—of the dozens who had come before, only the two of them remained now.
…
After a bout of jostling, Jing Ni, bloodied and her armor in tatters, was finally roused by the bone-chilling wind.
“Where is this?” she wondered in alarm, glancing around. Though winter had yet to arrive, the land was already half-blanketed in white, and the endless distance shimmered with cold, pale light.
Weakened, Jing Ni lay atop a battered, clean ox cart—what angered and alarmed her more was that the corpse beside her suddenly rolled over, pressing against her.
“Heh heh~ Little darling~ Here I come~”
“Ah! Damn you! Get off—get away!” A wrenching pain twisted her belly; Jing Ni knew the child inside was about to be born! But in this icy wasteland, gravely wounded and powerless, she feared the baby could not survive even half an hour.
So… this is my retribution, is it? Child, it is your mother who has doomed you…
The sound of a woman’s desperate cry instantly startled the dreaming, chubby uncle awake.
In truth, Uncle Lin was not truly fat, just well-padded; but at just over 1.6 meters tall, barely scraping 165 centimeters, he looked every bit the part.
Awakening, still clad in pajamas, Lin Shu shivered from the biting cold around him.
“Ah—get off!” The person in his arms was no longer Shao Siming or Yan Lingji, but a blood-soaked female ghost.
The flat ox cart had no railing, and Jing Ni, feeble, could only watch herself tumble onto the frozen earth.
“Ah~ save me~ no—save my child—please, save my child…” Jing Ni, who was usually so reticent, for the first time wailed and sobbed for help.
After a moment’s daze, Lin Shu jumped off the cart.
“Hey? Are you human? Where is this place? How did I end up here?”
Her clothes soaked beneath her, Jing Ni had no time to explain—even she didn’t know why she’d appeared here! “Kind sir, I’m about to give birth, I beg you—take my child away! Remember, her name is Yan—”
With those words, she could no longer speak. Where once her eyes had been cold as ice, now they brimmed with sorrow: perhaps this was her fate!
“What—you’re going to give birth! Get back on the cart!” Realizing she was indeed pregnant, Lin Shu shoved aside his fear and hurriedly lifted the bloodied woman onto the cart.
Fortunately, in his younger days, Uncle Lin had spent several years at a nursing school and had watched plenty of childbirth videos.
Ten minutes later, the cry of a newborn rang out, and only then did the cold sweat on Lin Shu’s brow subside.
“It’s a girl, miss—don’t worry, if I survive, I will take care of her!” The slender, voluptuous woman’s face, unmarred on one side, was so strikingly beautiful that Lin Shu couldn’t help but steal a few more glances.
“Thank you, benefactor… Please, don’t worry about me, take the child and go, survive!” With her child delivered, Jing Ni’s strength slowly returned.
Lin Shu glanced at the distant mountains and shook his head. “No, we leave together!”
The huge black ox pulling the cart was twice as large as an ordinary water buffalo, practically a small elephant, though its eyes appeared rather dull.
“Hey, big guy, would you please take us to the eastern mountains?” The ox looked harmless, but Lin Shu dared not scold or kick it—if the beast went mad, all three of them would perish.
At the sound of Lin Shu’s voice, the dazed giant ox seemed to come alive, its eyes suddenly much more alert.
[Ding! Commander, the starship is activating.]
The cart began to move, not slowly at all, and the voice in his mind left Lin Shu dumbfounded.
Seeing the translucent screen appear before him, Lin Shu understood at once. “What! Don’t tell me I’ve transmigrated! And I get a golden finger too! But what kind of bird starship is this?!”
[Commander, you have indeed traveled through time and space. Due to the world’s laws, the starship can only appear as an ox cart, though internally it retains a hundred-meter storage space.]
Closing his eyes to sense, Lin Shu immediately saw the storage area. “Good grief, my bed! My pots are all here! Speechless! Even the garbage by the door has been packed up!”
The clutter inside was unmistakable—pots, pans, and daily necessities, the sum of his life’s possessions.
“Starship AI, where’s my motorcycle?” The motorcycle was missing—and so were all his appliances!
[Commander, you may call me Xinyin. The starship’s AI is a manifestation of your own consciousness. Owing to the world’s differing laws, all electronic and high-energy items have been obliterated by the world’s rules.]
With Xinyin’s explanation, Lin Shu understood.
This world teemed with a vibrant form of spiritual energy; high-energy chemical molecules like gasoline and ammunition could not be preserved in such an environment.
“So the ox is actually a mechanical evolution! No wonder it looks so dim-witted!” The cart, though lacking railings, now radiated a warmth that dispelled the cold air.
[Commander, please staunch this lady’s bleeding. As the ship’s temperature rises, her wounds are heating up as well.]
“Ugh! Still bleeding! Who on earth could be so heartless! To harm such a delicate lady!” After depleting most of his stock of medicine, gauze, and thread, Lin Shu finally finished treating her wounds.
“Luckily it’s only a small knife cut on her forehead—her looks aren’t ruined! Damn bastards!” Even with her body swathed in bandages and scars, her fair, luminous skin had Lin Shu swallowing hard.
Having tended to the injured, Lin Shu quickly washed the newborn and wrapped her in cloth.
[Rest assured, Commander, the starship’s bio-energy is nurturing the infant, ensuring she will have no lingering ailments. However, the ship’s energy reserves will only allow it to operate at a steady pace for two days. Please replenish energy as soon as possible.]
The starship could absorb solar energy, but there was too little sunlight to sustain it.
“Good thing it can take in internal energy! We’ll head to the mountains and gather wood for a fire!” The gas in his home cylinder was running low, and Lin Shu was loath to use it.
“By the way, Xinyin, what time or era is this?” The air was extraordinarily fresh and vibrant, and Lin Shu could sense the world was different.
[Commander, current conditions cannot be fully determined. The starship requires upgrades to activate full brainwave scanning. To upgrade, you must accelerate integration with this world. Based on climate, environment, and celestial magnetic field data, initial analysis suggests we are on the outer edge of an alternate Arctic Circle.]
Level One Starship: Ox Cart
Internal Space: 100 meters
Comprehensive Scan Range: 100 meters
Field Effect Range: 10 meters
Maximum Force: 1,000 catties
Defensive Strength: 10,000 catties
Energy Defense: 1,000
Upgrade Requirement: Subdue 10,000 native humans and attune to corresponding spiritual energy.
Level Two Starship: Iron Age
Level Three Starship: Mechanical Age (requires subduing 300,000 people)
Level Four Starship: Spiritual-Electronic Age (requires 3,000,000 people)
After reading the information, Lin Shu frowned and muttered to himself: Thank goodness this isn’t the South Pole of the planet—otherwise, there wouldn’t be a single soul around!