Chapter 3

Just like all time-travel stories, ours began without any clear start...

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Yang Rui sat on his suitcase, leaning helplessly against the wall at the entrance of the alley, his gaze lost in the dim depths of the alley. Even now, he still didn't know what had happened, or how it had happened. He clearly remembered just coming out of the Walmart East China headquarters—where the buyer had politely rejected him—and hurriedly preparing to take the subway to the train station. Then he received a call, and the noise on the street made him involuntarily enter this alley. After the call ended, when he walked out of the alley, everything felt wrong. The streets were lined with banners and people in long robes and braids, making it clear that this was not the world he knew...

He walked back and forth in the alley hundreds of times but couldn't find a way back. Finally, he was exhausted. He grabbed his phone, sat at the entrance of the alley, and his mind was in chaos. This can't be real, he thought. Time travel should involve being struck by lightning, drowning, or at least a fog, but nothing like that happened. He just answered a call and ended up here. The people who time-travel are usually secret agents, special forces, or Ph.D. holders in science and engineering. Or they are revolutionaries who know how to start revolutions and struggles, all capable people with various miracles and a deep knowledge of history. But he was just a fruit vendor. What was he supposed to do here? Sell fruit? Yang Rui thought wildly, but the setting sun and his hungry stomach reminded him that he needed to face reality. Finally, he stood up, put on his backpack, pulled his suitcase, and chose a direction at random, avoiding the people in long robes and braids, and moved forward. After walking for a while, he hurriedly returned to the entrance of the alley, looked around, but couldn't find any house numbers. The only thing he saw was the sign "Ruyili" in traditional Chinese characters above the entrance. I will come back, he said to himself.

The street wasn't very wide, like a narrow lane in an old city. There were no high-rise buildings; on both sides were two- or three-story wooden houses with various fabric signs, all in vertical traditional Chinese characters, some of which he recognized and some he didn't. There were scattered pedestrians, some in long robes, some in short jackets, all with braids. Occasionally, a chicken cart passed by, loaded with goods or people, the cart drivers pushing hard, sweating and panting, gradually disappearing into the distance. Most surprisingly, he saw a few foreigners on horseback, dressed in white, riding proudly through the crossroads. This can't be the concession, Yang Rui thought. It seemed that the area he had come from was part of the original concession. Oh my God! He had actually time-traveled to the concession. What year was it? 18-something or 19-something? He really wanted to grab someone and ask, but he was an identity-less person and didn't dare to ask, not knowing how to ask or who to ask. What if he asked who the emperor was or what year it was? Could he understand the accent? He thought as he walked, moving quickly. When he passed a pawn shop, he stopped, took off the chain around his neck, and went inside.

Inside the pawn shop, there was a tall, dark wooden counter with account books, pens, ink, and an abacus. It was almost closing time, and there were few people in the shop. A few clerks were either sitting or standing behind the counter. One of them, seeing a foreigner, perked up and greeted him, but unfortunately, Yang Rui didn't understand what he said. He could only smile at the clerk, who was wearing a small hat, had a dark face, and yellow teeth, and then handed the gold chain over the counter. The clerk took it, examined it carefully in the light, tested its hardness with his teeth, and finally weighed it with a small scale. "One gold chain, seven silver dollars, okay?"

Yang Rui didn't understand the local dialect at first, but he heard the number seven. Fortunately, the clerk repeated it, and he finally understood. He gestured, "Seven is too little, at least ten."

The clerk understood his Mandarin and, after a pause, replied in a Beijing accent, "Sir, the most I can offer is eight, for a three-month loan." He placed the chain on the counter.

Yang Rui saw that this was the highest offer and, considering the size of the pawn shop and the clerk's attitude, felt that the chain might be worth only eight dollars here. It was almost evening, and he had no money, so he nodded in agreement.

The clerk immediately took a piece of yellow paper, wrote on it, and announced, "One gold chain, eight silver dollars, monthly interest of 15%, storage fee of 4%, redemption period of three months." He handed one of the yellow papers to Yang Rui, and on the other side of the counter, an accountant moved the abacus and threw eight silver dollars onto the counter. Yang Rui took the silver dollars without a word, but he stared at the yellow paper—a pawn ticket—on which the date was written: September 20, 1892.

What year was 1892? Yang Rui remembered that 1894 was the year of the First Sino-Japanese War, so it was 1902 now. In nine years, the Xinhai Revolution would happen, and the Qing Dynasty would fall. When he came to his senses, he asked the clerk, with a trembling voice, "Where is there a hotel, a guesthouse?" He had to repeat it twice before the clerk understood.

The clerk shook his head, but the accountant who had paid him said to go right for about two miles. After leaving the pawn shop, Yang Rui finally found a place to stay before it got dark.

The hotel was a bit off the main road, in a small alley. It was dark, and the sign was hard to see. The entrance was small, and there were few rooms. However, the owner was friendly, and there was a noodle shop next door where he could eat. Considering that he might not find another place to stay, he decided to stay here. He was given a single room on the second floor, but there was no bathroom. The owner said the toilet was in the yard to the west, and there was a chamber pot in the room for emergencies. There was no shower, but the owner said there was a bathhouse across the street. The room was clean, and the extra 15 cents for the bed was well worth it, but the room had a musty smell that made him uncomfortable. After the service person—probably the owner's wife—laid out the bed and lit the kerosene lamp, Yang Rui stood at the door, hesitant to enter. The dark corridor, the dim room, the flickering lamp, and the creaking floorboards made him wonder if this was a scene from a ghost story.

In the small hotel in the Shanghai concession in late autumn 1902, under the light of the kerosene lamp, Yang Rui's mind calmed down, and he began to organize his thoughts, writing in his notebook and planning his next steps.

Whether he could return was uncertain. He vaguely remembered walking back and forth in the alley while on the phone, and then his phone suddenly lost signal, and there was a bright light at the corner of his eye. After that, the surroundings were the same as when he arrived. Was it something he triggered that caused the time travel, or was it something he encountered? Could he trigger it again, or would he encounter it again? Maybe he could never return, but he would still go to the alley every day, at the time of the time travel—4:56 PM, according to his phone's call log.

He needed to prepare for the possibility of not returning. He had 7.49 silver dollars, 0.35 for the hotel, and 0.06 for dinner, so he needed at least 0.53 silver dollars per day. At 0.60 per day, he could last for 12 days. He needed to find a job, but what could he do? He was a fruit vendor, and although he had a business degree, would it be useful in this era? If he had a science or engineering degree, it would be different. His English was at a basic level, and his spoken German was poor. Who would hire a person with no education, no identity, and no references for an office job? Apprentices in this era needed a guarantor.

Finding a legitimate job was unlikely, and he wasn't suited for illegal activities. He wasn't a secret agent or a special forces soldier, and he didn't have the strength to rob anyone. He didn't know enough about historical events to trick anyone or exploit historical loopholes. He couldn't even pull a cart or carry bags. Yang Rui felt overwhelmed.

What else did he have? A laptop, two phones—frequent calls made him carry two phones—a camera, some orange samples, an electronic scale, a sugar meter, and a fruit card. The rest were clothes. He also had a suitcase with things he used in college, mostly textbooks—these were things he had left with a classmate after leaving Shanghai and were now being brought back home. These items were either not useful or not valuable, except for the laptop and phones, but there was no electricity here. He would need to wait until the Xinhai Revolution for electricity. His phone had some battery, but his laptop was almost dead—he had fallen asleep with the laptop the night before, and the power cord was on the side, so he had unplugged it to lie on his side. He had forgotten to turn off the laptop and fell asleep, so the battery was drained. These items were valuable with power, but without power, they were just plastic shells. Who would want them?

Thinking about this, Yang Rui became even more frustrated. He stood up and paced, the old wooden floor creaking under his feet. He stopped and walked to the window, opening it. The window faced north, and a cold wind blew in, making the kerosene lamp flicker wildly. The night was dark, with no moon, and the stars were unusually bright, like when he went to the mountains to buy fruit. The distant lights were brilliant, and if the direction hadn't changed, that should be Nanjing Road, or as old movies called it, the main street. The street below was almost empty, with few people and no chicken carts, only the occasional call with a local accent, probably a parent calling a child home. Home, home, can I ever go home? I need to live well first!

Identity was a big issue. Without an identity, he couldn't get a job, and without a job, he couldn't wait for the day he could return, if he ever could. He needed to create a plausible identity. He gathered all the items that didn't belong to this time—tickets, train tickets, invoices, RMB, and the publication dates on the university textbooks—and burned them. He kept his ID card but scratched off the font, in case it could still be read electronically. He changed the time on his phone and set a password. He thought, even if I have nothing to prove my identity, I must have nothing to disprove it.

After all this, it was already 9 PM. Yang Rui lay on the bed in his clothes. The events of the day had been too intense and exhausting. The dry straw smell and the soft bedding made him relax, and he soon fell asleep. That night, he had a dream: he saw a huge square filled with people, a vast sea of black. At the head of the square was an ancient city gate, covered in red carpets and filled with people. Red lanterns hung from the eaves. A tall figure stood at the front, speaking, but he couldn't hear what was said. As soon as the figure finished speaking, the square erupted in cheers and waving flags, as if the earth itself was trembling. Yang Rui smiled and fell into a deep sleep.

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