Ouyang Daye yawned in front of the computer. The "shipped" prompt that jumped on the screen made her rub her sore eyes. At three o'clock in the morning, cross-border logistics information was still popping up. She repeated into the microphone, "Dear, this cream is in stock and shipped directly from the bonded warehouse." Her throat was as dry as a ball of cotton. The iced American cup on the corner of the table had long since lost its temperature, and the water droplets on the wall of the cup dripped down the edge of the table and accumulated into a small puddle next to the keyboard.
Suddenly, a pale light flashed outside the window, followed by deafening thunder. There seemed to be something wrong with the apartment's circuit. The screen instantly went black, and the emergency lights sizzled on the ceiling, making her face flicker. She stood up to touch the phone, but her foot kicked the power strip. She threw herself forward and hit her forehead heavily on the corner of the table. A strange sweet smell filled her nose - like moist soil mixed with rotten flower petals.
When he opened his eyes again, Ouyang Daye found himself lying on a wet grass. There is a gray-blue sky above the head, and the clouds are like crumpled cotton wool, slowly drifting to the west. There was the sound of running water and vague shouts in her ears. It was not the Mandarin she was familiar with, but more like some kind of dialect, with an unfamiliar hardness in the cadence.
She struggled to sit up and looked down to see the clothes she was wearing - burlap shorts, the cuffs were frayed, and the trousers were stained with black mud. These are not her bear pajamas. What frightened her even more was the scene around her: there were several awning boats floating on the river in the distance, the boatmen were wearing bamboo hats, and there were faded flags on the bows. She didn't recognize any of the words on them, but she felt inexplicably like the vague words she had seen in history textbooks.
