"So cold!"
"So painful!"
"So hungry!"
Xiao Fei woke up in a daze, feeling himself lying on the cold ground. His bones felt like they were falling apart, and he couldn't muster any strength.
His eyelids felt as heavy as a thousand pounds. It seemed to take all his strength to barely open his eyes.
What greeted his sight was a leaky thatched shed, about six or seven square meters, just enough for one person to shelter in.
The clothes he was wearing were torn like a fishing net, ragged, with pieces of tattered cloth hanging on him.
And the style of these clothes was wrong. They were clearly ancient attire.
"Did I transmigrate?"
He remembered being in an underground auction house in a barbarian land, spending a huge sum to purchase a Chinese cultural relic that had been lost abroad.
Just as he left the auction house, he was chased by a group of barbarians. Xiao Fei's last memory was a bullet hitting his chest...
As Xiao Fei recalled his past, a sharp pain shot through his mind again, causing him to break out in a sweat. He dug his fingernails deep into his flesh.
When the pain subsided, all the memories of this body surfaced in his mind.
The fusion of two different life experiences left him a little confused, unable to distinguish which was the real him, or if both were him.
The original owner of the body was also named Xiao Fei. He was 14 years old, the son of a tenant farmer. Due to consecutive years of drought in his hometown, which resulted in no harvest, his family was forced to wander in search of a way to live.
His parents and two elder brothers, and one elder sister, all died one after another during their wandering. His second eldest sister had sold herself to ensure Xiao Fei's survival.
Now, only he was left to struggle, not knowing when he would give up and starve to death by the roadside, becoming food for wild beasts.
Yesterday, he had good luck. After lying in wait for two days, he finally managed to catch a wild rabbit.
However, before he could even eat it, the bully of the refugee camp, Li Da Er Duo (Big Ear Li), came with his men and snatched away his rabbit meat and skin.
During the struggle, Xiao Fei's leg was stabbed.
Perhaps it was due to excessive blood loss, or extreme hunger, or anger that overwhelmed him.
He died alone, quietly, on this early spring night.
"Alas! Truly tragic!"
This sigh was for the former owner of the body, and also for himself now.
Xiao Fei took stock of all his current possessions in his mind.
A set of ragged clothes, barely enough to cover his body, leaky and with minimal warmth.
A pair of half-worn straw sandals, woven by himself from rice straw, barely protecting his feet, with comfort and warmth that were negligible.
A chopping knife with many nicks, said to have been acquired by his grandfather, used for fifty or sixty years, its blade worn down to just over two fingers wide.
This knife was usually used for chopping wood, cutting grass, digging for wild vegetables, slicing food, and self-defense.
If he hadn't held onto the handle tightly and swung it with all his might just now, the chopping knife would have been snatched away. It was the most valuable item he possessed.
Half of an ancestral black pottery pot, called "half" because most of it was broken, leaving only a section, with several cracks.
Even a broken piece of pottery was valuable to the poor. This half-broken pot was used by him for cooking, boiling water, and as a rice bowl.
A large pile of dried grass, collected from the barren mountains before the snow last year. He had collected a large pile then, and used some for his shelter.
Half the credit for him surviving this winter should go to this dried grass.
Whenever he got a little food, he would burrow into the thick grass, sleep warmly, which conserved heat and saved food. A good sleep dispelled a thousand worries!
Xiao Fei pushed away his scattered thoughts. He never imagined that something as fantastical as transmigration would happen to him.
If he had known, he would have at least memorized a few books, like "300 Tang Poems," "Military-Civilian Dual-Purpose Talent," "Barefoot Doctor's Manual." Even if he couldn't memorize them, he would have read them through.
"Alas! I was too careless!"
At this moment, a sharp pain twisted his stomach. The severe hunger forced Xiao Fei to stop this energy-wasting, useless effort, pulling him back from his dreams to reality.
Xiao Fei struggled to stand up, feeling dizzy. His limbs were weak and trembling, his body severely lacking energy.
But he still forced himself to stay awake. The previous Xiao Fei had likely died from excessive blood loss.
He needed to clean his wound now, to prevent infection as much as possible. In this place lacking medicine, if the wound became infected, he would still be doomed.
Only then did he look at the bloody mess on his thigh. The wound had already scabbed over. This wound had been pierced by a dagger, at least two to three inches deep, almost going all the way through.
Xiao Fei boiled some water in the pottery pot, cleaned and bandaged the wound again, and then burrowed into the grass to sleep soundly.
In his sleep, Xiao Fei seemed to drift in an endless darkness, with only a point of light ahead, towards which he was moving.
After an unknown amount of time in the dream, as he got closer, he realized it was a white jade disc with an ancient, simple design, now covered in cracks.
"This... isn't this the Chinese relic I bought at the auction before I transmigrated?"
"So this relic transmigrated with me!"
"Or rather, this relic brought me here."
Before Xiao Fei could think further, a suction force emanated from the jade disc, pulling him into it.
After a moment of confusion, Xiao Fei found himself in a strange space.
Beneath his feet was a patch of fertile black soil, only about two to three mu in size. Beyond the black soil, and above his head, was a state of chaos.
Xiao Fei walked around the black soil but found nothing else.
When he reached the edge of the black soil, he was blocked by the mist-like chaos.
"How do I get out of here?"
As soon as this thought arose, Xiao Fei found himself lying in the pile of dry grass again.
Everything that had just happened seemed to be a dream, yet this dream was so clear and real.
The moment Xiao Fei subconsciously thought of that space, he found himself appearing in that space again.
"Hey! This is quite magical!"
"Go out!"
As the thought arose, he was back in the pile of grass.
"Go in!"
"Come out!"
"Go in!"
"Come out!"
...
Xiao Fei went in and out countless times, gaining some understanding of this space.
What entered the space was not his physical body, but a phantom body formed by consciousness.
After his consciousness entered the space, his physical body remained lying in the grass as if asleep, completely unaware.
Moreover, he could bring items from the outside world into the space, and also bring items from the space out.
However, carrying items seemed to consume his mental energy, leading to fatigue. The more items he carried, the stronger the fatigue.
He had tried it several times in a row, which made him drowsy, and he finally couldn't bear it and fell asleep.
When he woke up again, the sky was bright.
Although he had just acquired a space, it wasn't a grand ambition that woke him in the morning, but hunger.
His stomach was empty, burning like fire, and some stomach acid had refluxed into his mouth.
His limbs felt as heavy as lead. Every movement required great willpower.
He had to find food in the next two days, even if it was just grass roots.
The two to three mu of black land in his space should be suitable for growing crops.
With this land, as long as he could survive this most difficult period, and find some seeds to plant, he would have the capital to survive in this world.
The most crucial thing now was to find food, survive first, and then find a way to get grain seeds.
It was already early spring, and the snow was beginning to melt. As long as he could endure this period, when spring arrived and wild vegetables began to sprout, he could dig them up for sustenance.
However, in this refugee camp, food was the hardest thing to find. Everyone was doing their utmost to survive.
Within several miles of the camp, the trees were stripped bare, and the grass roots were eaten by the refugees. It was already difficult to find food.
About ten miles north of the refugee camp was Black Stone Mountain. This mountain was mainly composed of rocks, with a rugged and difficult terrain to climb. It was interspersed with sparse grass and trees, and inhabited by poisonous insects and wild beasts.
Due to the harsh environment and its remoteness, Black Stone Mountain might still have some food.
Xiao Fei planned to try his luck at Black Stone Mountain. After all, he had already died once, so he wasn't afraid of dying again. If he stayed in the camp, he would starve to death sooner or later.
Xiao Fei tightened his torn robe, tucked the chopping knife to his waist, and tied a large bundle of dry grass onto his back. This bundle of grass could provide warmth outside, preventing him from freezing to death in the wilderness.
As he was about to leave with the bundle of grass on his back, he looked back at the large pile of dry grass remaining.
He was reluctant to leave it, fearing it would be stolen. In normal times, there would be nothing he could do. But now that he had just acquired the space, he should be able to take it with him.
He returned to the pile of grass and spent more than ten minutes transferring the dry grass into the space batch by batch.
He then rummaged through the bonfire from last night and found two unburnt pieces of charcoal. These were the embers he saved daily, which would make starting a fire much easier next time.
Xiao Fei picked up the embers with a broken pottery shard and put them into the space. He then placed a piece of wood on top of the embers, covered it with ash, and it would remain unextinguished for a long time.
He left the thatched shed and picked up a handful of snow from the ground to eat. The uncomfortable feeling in his stomach slightly improved.
The wound on his leg had scabbed over again after a night's rest. With every step he took, a sharp pain shot through his leg, the scab cracked, and blood seeped out again.
There was no other way. The urgent matter was to find food and survive. Even if his leg became lame, he had to keep walking.