Dusk.
Chu Feng curled up in a corner of an inn’s back courtyard.
He was a seasoned modern-day Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor. After an accident, he had transmigrated to an ancient world called the Great Jing Dynasty.
His modern clothes and short hair drew frequent sidelong glances from passersby. Two patrol constables even began following him, so he hurriedly ducked into an alley and wound through several turns before reaching the inn’s back courtyard, where he hid in a corner.
The constables tailing him had left, but Chu Feng still didn’t dare go. Unless he changed clothes, he would attract the constables again as soon as he went outside.
This was an inn with many guests. Clothes had been hung out to dry in the back courtyard. He planned to steal a set after dark and change into it, so people wouldn’t mistake him for a monster.
Unexpectedly, before nightfall, all the clothes hanging outside had been taken in.
Fortunately, a man’s robe was still hanging from a clothes pole outside a second-floor guest-room window. But someone was in the room, so he would have to wait until they fell asleep before figuring out how to steal it.
He patiently waited.
The window was half-open, and a lamp was lit inside. Through the half-open window and the silhouettes cast on its lattice, he confirmed there were two people in the room: a middle-aged woman and a young man.
The man was crying, and the woman was trying to comfort him.
A grown man crying—honestly, it left him speechless. Still, men don’t cry easily unless they’re truly heartbroken. Perhaps the young man had encountered a hardship he couldn’t overcome, and that was why he was so miserable.
As long as the people in the room were awake, he couldn’t steal the robe. He curled up where he was, started feeling sleepy, and decided to take a nap first. By the time he woke, it should be around midnight, making it easier to act.
Leaning against the wall in the corner, he soon fell asleep.
When he woke, it was indeed late at night.
The moonlight was hazy, and all was silent. Nearly every light in the inn had gone out. Only the lanterns in the downstairs hall and the front courtyard were still lit.
Half a moon hung at an angle in the night sky. Its watery light fell on the second-floor window lattice, and the robe was still hanging outside.
Fate was on his side. Time to start stealing the clothes!
There were several bamboo poles in the corner of the back courtyard. He could use one to hook the clothes down.
After checking that no one was around, he picked up a bamboo pole and tried to hook the clothes outside the second-floor window. But, unable to see clearly in the darkness, he accidentally pushed the half-open window all the way open.
Chu Feng jumped in fright. He had been about to drop the pole and run, but there was no movement upstairs. He waited a little longer; still nothing. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief and cautiously try again to hook the robe with the pole.
Suddenly, his body stiffened.
By the faint moonlight, he saw someone hanging from a roof beam inside the open window!
From the person’s build, it was the man who had been crying earlier.
A human life was at stake!
He was a doctor. He couldn’t stand by and let someone die.
Without thinking of anything else, Chu Feng hurriedly propped the bamboo pole against the window and climbed up it.
Soon he reached the second-floor window. He peered inside, saw no one else in the room, and laboriously hauled himself in. He quickly stepped forward, wrapped his arms around the man’s knees, and lifted with all his strength.
Fortunately, the loop around the man’s neck was loose, so his head came free easily.
The man was heavy. Swaying with the effort, Chu Feng carefully lowered him to the floor.
Then he grabbed the man by the shoulders and shook him hard, but there was no response. He reached out and felt for the carotid pulse at the side of the man’s throat, but couldn’t find one; his skin also felt cold. He pressed his ear to the man’s chest, but heard no heartbeat at all!
His heart sank. He immediately began chest compressions.
After a long while, the man’s heartbeat still hadn’t returned.
Exhausted and panting, he had no choice but to stop.
He surveyed the room. It was a single room, simply furnished. The bedding on the bed was neatly arranged, and a sewing basket sat on the table.
He took a pair of scissors from the sewing basket and pricked the man’s finger.
The fingertip’s Shixuan acupoint was highly sensitive to pain. As long as someone still had even the faintest signs of life, a sharp pain should cause some involuntary twitching or withdrawal. But the man remained completely motionless.
By the moonlight, he examined the wound on the man’s fingertip. Almost no blood had flowed out.
Once the human heart stops pumping, blood circulation ceases. Blood can no longer flow properly to the extremities, and wounds naturally stop bleeding. This meant the man’s life had already been extinguished.
The man was dead. He had failed to save him, and Chu Feng felt rather dejected.
He gazed sadly at the dead man’s face. What hardship could you possibly have faced that made you take your own life, brother?
Then he got up and went to the window to take the robe, intending to leave with it.
But just then, something felt wrong.
He subconsciously turned to look at the dead man.
Moonlight like water fell across the dead man’s face.
At that moment, Chu Feng’s heart jolted. He understood what was wrong: the dead man’s appearance.
The man who had hanged himself looked exactly like him!
He quickly went over and crouched beside the dead man, examining him closely. Sure enough, there was no mistake. His face shape, features, and every facial feature looked as if they had been carved from the same mold!
A daring, mad idea instantly took root in his heart: this man had hanged himself alone in the room, with no one knowing, and looked like his twin brother.
Besides, in the Great Jing Dynasty, anyone traveling had to carry a Travel Permit. Without one, he would inevitably find it difficult to make progress. If he impersonated this man, he could hold a brand new identity, solving the Travel Permit problem and giving himself a home to rely on.
Of course, that depended on their appearances truly being very similar.
So Chu Feng decided to light a lamp and take a closer look.
He closed the window and made sure the door bolt was fastened. Only then did he light the lantern on the table and carry it over to the dead man to examine him closely again.
There was no mistake. The dead man’s features—even the faint lines of his jaw—were an exact match.
Besides, there were no moles or birthmarks on the dead man’s face that could identify him, and Chu Feng had none either. That made things easier.
Still, he cautiously stripped the dead man and examined his entire body. There were no obvious scars or birthmarks. As for small moles, there were indeed a few that didn’t quite match his own, but surely no one would notice.
He also noticed that the dead man’s member was much smaller than his own.
No one would notice that, right? The dead man might not even have married. And even if he had, women in ancient times were all shy. They wouldn’t pay attention to the size of their husband’s member, would they?
Next, he had to figure out who this man was and how difficult he would be to impersonate.
He immediately searched inside the room. At the head of the bed, he found a small bundle containing a few pieces of clothing, several thread-bound books, and—most important of all—a Travel Permit!
To Chu Feng’s delight and amazement, the name of the Travel Permit’s holder was also Chu Feng.
There was nothing else that could prove the dead man’s identity. But judging by his plain clothes, he probably wasn’t from a wealthy family—just an ordinary commoner. He shouldn’t be difficult to impersonate.
The biggest flaw was his modern short hair.
Men and women in ancient times all wore their hair long, but Chu Feng soon came up with an idea.
He took off the dead man’s clothes and trousers and put them all on. Then he dressed the dead man in his own modern clothes. Next, he picked up the scissors and cut off all the dead man’s long hair, letting it fall to the floor in front of the table.
Then Chu Feng blew out the lamp, used the dead man’s belt to lower him from the second floor, and slid down the bamboo pole himself. He carried the dead man to a secluded spot in the inn’s back courtyard.
He found a hoe behind the inn’s kitchen and quickly dug a pit. First, he smashed the dead man’s face with the hoe so his identity could no longer be recognized. Then he pushed the body into the pit, buried it, and restored the ground to its original state.
Afterward, Chu Feng bowed three times toward the burial place and silently prayed:
I’m sorry, brother. I have no choice but to impersonate you. I’ll treat your family well. I hope your spirit in heaven will protect me and help me turn danger into safety and misfortune into good fortune.
Afterward, he returned downstairs, climbed back up the bamboo pole, then pushed it over and closed the window.
He lit the lamp, picked up the scissors from the table, and cut his neatly trimmed short hair until it looked as if a dog had chewed it. Then he began wailing.