Dual Crossing at the End of the Ming: I Save the Ming, He Helps the Later Jin

I scored nearly ten points more than the runner-up on the civil service exam, but a massive cheating scandal across the province voided every result.

I took it again, made it to the interview, and failed.

At a barbecue stall, Xu Xinran asked Zhou Guangyuan:

"If you really went back to the late Ming, what would you do?"

"Find food first. Worry about surviving the day after that."

"What if you knew a lot of people were going to die?"

Zhou Guangyuan shot back, "What could you do to save them?"

In the end, he just said, "What does that have to do with me?"

After drinking half a glass, Zhou Guangyuan said:

"If we really go back, don't be the first to die."

"You too."

The clink of their glasses rang out only halfway.

When they opened their eyes again, it was the sixth year of the Tianqi reign.

They had no identities, no money or food, no System, and no history book they could consult whenever they liked. The first thing these two ordinary people had to figure out was not how to save the world, but how to survive the day.

Later, one joined the Ming army, hoping to help those doomed to die live a little longer. The other was forced to remain in Later Jin. At first, he only wanted to find a way to survive, but in time, he had no choice but to find a way for more and more people to survive too.

They were the best of friends, and the only people in the world who knew each other's true origins. They had trusted each other with their backs, but in the end, they stood beneath opposing banners.

When Xu Xinran began changing the course of Ming history, Zhou Guangyuan realized that the last "winner" in his memory was being erased from history, bit by bit, by his friend.

All they knew beyond what people of this era knew was how the world was supposed to end up.

But when two people changed history at the same time, history no longer had an answer.