In the fourth year of Tianyou, in the fourth month.
The spring breeze carried the damp breath of Jiangnan as it swept through the mulberry groves outside Lin'an.
Chen Yue suddenly coughed up a breath of foul air tinged with the smell of earth, his head splitting with pain.
The hum of air conditioning was gone. In its place came the creak of an ox cart rolling over a muddy road and the unfamiliar, awkward cadence of farmers speaking softly in the Wu dialect.
He propped himself up and sat, then lowered his head to look at his hands.
They were rough and small, with thin calluses covering the palms, the hands of someone who had spent years working the fields. They weren't the hands he used to type on a keyboard.
Fragments of scattered memories surged into his mind like a tide.
The owner of this body was also called A Yue.
