Working in Ancient Times

In the seventeenth year of Yonghe in the Great Zhou Dynasty, on a late spring morning in March, before the sky had fully brightened, the first drumbeat rang out in Anren Ward, east of Chang'an City. The drumbeat was deep and long, piercing the thin mist, crossing the ward walls, and startling the gray pigeons perched on the eaves. Han Su sat up abruptly from his hard wooden bed, groping for the rough earthenware water jug by his bedside with his eyes still closed. He took a swig of cold water, which sent a shiver through him, finally waking him completely. He rubbed his sleepy eyes, gazing at the gray light outside the window, and for the hundred and seventh time, the same lament echoed in his mind—he, a 21st-century corporate slave, had died from overwork and somehow transmigrated...