A Goose Lands in Chang'an

A bone-chilling cold seeped through his tattered hemp prisoner's uniform, making his teeth chatter. When he opened his eyes, he saw gray wooden beams overhead, and beyond the frost-encrusted window lattice, huge snowflakes were falling. "You're awake?" a hoarse voice said beside him. "You've got a tough life. Anyone else would've been dead after the kick you took yesterday." Liang Da'e turned his head and saw a boy with frostbitten sores all over his face, huddled in the corner and gnawing on a frozen, rock-hard wheat cake. Crumbs fell into the straw, but he still remembered to pick them up and stuff them into his mouth. This wasn't his office with a view of the CBD at night, much less the rental apartment where he could lie flat after working overtime. His memories stopped at yesterday afternoon. He had just finished revising the third version of a WeChat article and was cursing the planning department for being idiots when the world suddenly spun around him. When he opened his eyes again, someone had shoved him into this godforsaken place. Before he could figure out what was going on, a thick-necked soldier had kicked him in the face for "disrespectful eyes," knocking him unconscious.