Chapter 3

After an indeterminate amount of time in a daze, Qing Ying suddenly felt a sharp, needle-like pain in his head. His consciousness gradually returned, and he remembered the scene of being sucked into a black hole at the Brandenburg Gate. Filled with fear and shock, he abruptly opened his eyes.

The light was soft and the white blanket was warm.

A clear and elegant crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, gently swaying, casting a soft and pleasant white light. Although Qing Ying had just woken up from a coma and his pupils were still dilated, he did not find the light from the chandelier glaring at all. He looked around and realized he seemed to be in a hospital room.

The floor was beige, and the desks were clean. The warm red cross emblem embedded in the central wall gave a sense of trust and peace at first glance. Two half-full IV bags hung from the horizontal bar at the head of the bed, with German letters clearly visible on the labels. In the corner stood a large, dark blue oxygen tank with various dials and scales. A faint medicinal scent permeated the air.

Seeing these characteristic hospital symbols, Qing Ying finally felt relieved; he must have been saved by a kind person and brought to this hospital. However, something felt off, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it. This subtle feeling made him frown and think hard.

Just as he was puzzled, his peripheral vision caught the window bars on the wall. A flash of insight struck Qing Ying, and he suddenly understood what was wrong. The room was too classically styled! The walls, floor, windows, and chandelier were all from over a hundred years ago. It felt as if he had... as if he had traveled back to the late 19th century!

Which hospital could be so retro, creating such an atmosphere with so many replicas? Qing Ying had been in Berlin for almost two years and had visited many large hospitals due to his major, but he had never heard of any hospital with such a fully retro design, even the IV bags and tubes were completely different from 21st-century medical equipment!

While he was lost in thought, low footsteps came from outside the door. Qing Ying's heart leaped with joy. Could it be a nurse? He didn't know how long he had been unconscious in this retro hospital, and he could finally ask some questions. With this thought, he became more alert, his eyes fixed on the brown door without blinking.

The footsteps grew louder, accompanied by the sound of wheels rolling. Soon, the wooden door of the ward opened, and a female nurse in her thirties, dressed in a pure white uniform, pushed a cart full of bottles and vials into the room. Seeing the angel in white, Qing Ying felt reassured. He switched his mind to German and began to speak, "This lady..."

Just as he uttered the first two syllables, Qing Ying suddenly realized his voice had become high and clear. Shocked, he looked down and saw the most unbelievable thing in his life: his arms and body had shrunk by a third, becoming the size of a child's! Even his originally yellow skin had turned as white as milk, smooth and silky to the touch! Qing Ying shuddered, his eyes trembling as he glanced down again, relieved to see that his chest was still flat and that certain parts, though smaller, were still there.

"Thank goodness, thank goodness! Although my body has shrunk, at least I haven't turned into a woman!" Qing Ying, still in shock, couldn't help but pat his chest. However, this action pulled the IV needle, causing it to suddenly come out of his hand, and he couldn't help but cry out in pain.

"Oh! Your Highness, how could you be so careless and pull out the needle?" The female nurse, seeing the needle fall from Qing Ying's hand, quickly let go of the cart and hurried to the bed, swiftly reinserting the needle into his vein. She looked at the almost empty IV bag on the bar and skillfully replaced it with a new one, saying, "This is the last one. Don't move around anymore."

"Your... Highness?" Qing Ying's mind went blank. He was clearly a 20-year-old young man, so how did he end up as a 10-year-old boy? Thinking of the strange title, the eerie classical atmosphere, and this young body, Qing Ying was deeply shaken. A bizarre thought flashed through his mind: could the mark under the Brandenburg Gate have the inexplicable power to transport his soul to the body of a child in a parallel universe?

Before he could finish his thought, a flood of complex and intricate memories surged into his mind, a myriad of unfamiliar scenes flashing before his eyes as if he had experienced ten years in an instant. Qing Ying sat there in a daze, as if turned to stone, none of these memory fragments belonged to him.

Seeing Qing Ying's vacant eyes, the female nurse thought he was still traumatized by the lightning strike. She felt sorry for him. Even an adult would be terrified by such a terrifying display of nature's power, let alone a child under 11 years old.

"Your Highness, don't worry. Although the Crown Prince is no longer with us, you are safe now," the female nurse said in a gentle tone, with a peaceful smile. "In the next few days, we will continue to monitor your condition. Rest well, Your Highness, and don't worry too much."

Seeing the kind and sincere smile of the nurse, Qing Ying's mind was in chaos, and he mechanically nodded. The nurse smiled, not offended, and turned to push the cart out of the room.

—

With a soft click, the door closed again, blocking out some of the cold from outside. Qing Ying lowered his head and looked at his "body" over and over, hoping it was just a dream... but no miracle appeared. The flood of memories in his mind reminded him that this was the real world.

Could it really be that he had traveled through time?

Qing Ying's mind was in turmoil, and he felt bitter. However, there was one thing to be grateful for: he was alone in the 21st century, with no ties to hold him back after the穿越. Since he could remember, he didn't know who his parents were. He completed high school with the help of a philanthropist's large donation and came to Germany as an exchange student at XXX University. By now, his two-year exchange program had ended, and he was planning to leave Berlin in a few days when this bizarre incident occurred!

However... this穿越 luck wasn't too bad, right? He didn't become an old man, a woman, or a cat or dog. Instead, he got the body of a young boy, and this body was 10 years younger than his soul... the feeling of rejuvenation was something not everyone could experience!

Thinking of the belly he could never get rid of in his previous life, and looking at his now flat abdomen, Qing Ying, gradually calming down, finally showed a hint of a relieved smile. After sitting in silence for a while, he finally accepted the reality that his consciousness had taken over another body. Seeing the classical atmosphere around him, he wondered if he was no longer in the 21st century. What year was it now?

As soon as this thought arose, a memory not his own surfaced. The feeling was strange, as if he had suddenly remembered something he had forgotten, a moment of clarity that was hard to describe. October 17, 1893, was the most recent date this body's previous soul had recorded. It seemed he had traveled back to the early days of the Second German Empire under Wilhelm II.

"The Second Empire...," Qing Ying murmured, a look of longing and excitement on his face. The reason was simple: during his more than a year as an exchange student in Berlin, he had been fully exposed to everything about this nation: their industrious and punctual nature, their disciplined and resilient people, their grand and precise industry, and their brilliant and splendid civilization. Over time, these impressions had deeply influenced Qing Ying, making him genuinely admire and respect this nation. This deep-seated feeling, born from personal experience, was fundamentally different from the blind enthusiasm of rebellious teenagers on the internet for national socialism.

During his time at a second-tier university in Berlin, due to his love for the country, he naturally read books about Germany's modern history and had a thorough understanding of the nation's recent past. Wilhelm II's rule brought the German nation to an unprecedented height, with the world's strongest army and the second-strongest navy, and the total steel production representing industrial power surpassed that of Britain and France combined. Unfortunately, due to Wilhelm II's excessive confidence in the empire's strength and his own talents, he made significant diplomatic blunders. Despite Germany's industrial superiority, it was defeated by the combined forces of Britain, France, and Russia, suffering a tragic defeat. On June 21, 1919, the once-mighty High Seas Fleet sank itself at Scapa Flow in a coded message of "Rainbow." A week later, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in Paris, and the world's strongest army was dismantled, becoming a part of history.

Although the Führer later rose from the ruins, the time was too short, and he lacked the substantial foundation of the Kaiser's era. In terms of war preparation, he was far behind the Second German Empire under Wilhelm II. Compared to the Führer's brief and dazzling brilliance, the long and profound Second Empire was even more lamentable!

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