In the bitter depths of winter in the third year of Chongning, beneath a broken wall at the southwest corner of Xiangguo Temple in Bianjing, Chen Yan suddenly opened his eyes against the bone-chilling wind. One moment he had been a delivery rider in 2023, dodging a truck on a storm-lashed night; the next, a frail, icy body was beating beneath his ribs. Its original owner was a homeless wanderer whose parents had both died. He had collapsed from hunger in the street and never woken again, leaving this body as a shelter for a soul from a thousand years in the future. All Chen Yan had was half a hard wheat cake tucked in his arms, and hunger gnawed at his belly like a knife. The fragments of the original owner's memories told him that beneath Bianjing's prosperity, homeless people froze or starved to death every day. If he wanted to survive, he had to find work at once.
