Chronicles of the Han

Han dynasty, year seven of the Guanghe era.

Outside Luoyang, dusk settles over the land.

My name is Xiang Yun. I was a soldier in the twenty-first century, but after an accident during a time-space experiment, I opened my eyes to find myself in a land on the brink of war.

The noise of the city was gone. In its place came the pounding of hooves and soldiers shouting.

There were no skyscrapers before me, only a blood-red sunset illuminating the Han army banners as they snapped in the wind.

The soldiers beside me wore worn-out armor and had hollow, hungry faces. In the distance, villages lay abandoned, their chimneys cold.

I asked around and learned that the emperor was lost in pleasure, favoring eunuchs. At court, honest officials had been driven out and loyal servants framed.

Beyond the cities, the Yellow Turbans were about to rise. The people were displaced, and the whole realm stood on the brink of disaster.

This was the late Han dynasty, under Emperor Ling.

An age when heroes had yet to emerge, ambitious warlords already lay in wait, and human life was worth less than grass.

I looked down at the clothes I wore, so out of place in this era, then felt the object at my waist that had come with me when I transmigrated, now no more useful than a piece of scrap iron.

The road ahead was uncertain, and there was no telling if I would ever return.

In this great age on the verge of collapse, I am a lone soul from a thousand years in the future.

Will I drift with the current, at the mercy of others,

or use what I know to defy fate and write a legend of my own amid the chaos of the late Han dynasty?