Chapter Three: She Couldn't Even Speak Anymore

"Stop right there, you rascal—" Someone shouted from horseback. The language sounded strikingly similar to Chinese, yet Zhang Qian couldn't understand a single word.

The dizziness from his exhaustion made it impossible for him to puzzle out what exactly the other person was saying. Staggering, he braced himself against an ancient elm with his left hand.

The rough bark scraped his palm, sending a searing pain through his hand. But at least it slowed his fall, preventing his face from making direct acquaintance with the dirt.

"Stop right there, you rascal— I’m about to…" The rescuers continued shouting as they approached, their actions crisp and decisive. Midway, two riders broke away from the group, fanning out to search the undergrowth and woods on either side of the mountain path.

"Hey!" Zhang Qian used what little strength he had to push himself by the tree roots, twisting his head and upper body forty-five degrees from his face-down sprawl into a slumped, half-reclining position.

He was still disheveled, but at least now he could lift his head and manage a polite smile for his rescuers.

"I’m fi—" He only got two words out before his voice caught in his throat. His eyes, completely beyond his control, widened to the size of saucers. His heart, heavy as if filled with mercury, plummeted and plummeted, sinking into a bottomless abyss.

"Heavens above, are you blind? All I did was glance at my phone while walking!" A wail rose inside his mind. In that instant, Zhang Qian knew with absolute certainty that he had truly crossed over into another world.

Though he’d been vaguely prepared for the possibility, seeing what the rescuers wore struck him like a hammer, leaving him dazed and devastated.

There were eight of them in total, all on horseback, but the differences in their ranks were obvious at a glance.

Only two wore odd, round hats—one black, one blue. The other six had their hair wrapped in dusty cloth headscarves.

Beneath the scarves, their hair was dusty and twisted into a bun like a steamed bun, with a greasy, twisted wooden stick jammed horizontally through the center.

The two with round hats wore earth-colored long robes, while the other six were clad in gray-blue tunics and matching trousers.

The round-hatted pair each wore half-height boots, while the rest all sported cloth shoes—ugly ones at that, even more unsightly than the old cotton shoes Zhang Qian had seen during a summer teaching stint in rural Qinghai.

...

"Stop right there, friend!" Before he could take in any more, the man in the black round hat clasped his hands before his chest, greeting him again.

"Ah, ah, it’s nothing, I’m fine!" Zhang Qian’s soul was yanked back by the man’s words and gesture.

He pushed himself upright, supporting his weight with both arms, responding loudly in Chinese, not caring what the man had asked or whether he could understand.

The other’s left hand was placed atop his right, hands lightly clasped together. A fist-and-palm salute—the traditional greeting of ancient China! Zhang Qian had seen it in TV dramas. When an epidemic swept through during his high school years, people had even tried to revive the practice to avoid spreading viruses by handshakes.

His sinking heart finally hit bedrock. If not ten thousand fathoms deep, then at least two or three thousand. He’d crossed over, but at least he was still in China, still on Earth, and these people must be Han Chinese. He hadn’t ended up on an alien planet or among headhunter tribes and cannibals.

"Stop right there, friend…" With Zhang Qian’s behavior finally normalizing, the black-hatted man leaned down from his horse, scanning Zhang Qian’s clothes as he continued loudly questioning him.

It was still a case of the chicken talking to the duck, but the man’s expression and gestures reassured Zhang Qian that he meant no harm. Zhang Qian managed to sit up straighter and, mimicking the gesture, placed his left hand atop his right and returned the salute. "It’s nothing! Thank you!"

The black hat didn’t understand a word, but he recognized the salute. His travel-worn face immediately broke into a friendly smile. "Thank you, friend, thank you…"

This time, he wasn’t speaking to Zhang Qian, but to his blue-hatted companion and the others with cloth headscarves. At his words, all but the two keeping watch on horseback leapt down, hurrying to Zhang Qian’s side to help him up.

"It’s fine, really, I’m just exhausted. A little rest and I’ll be okay." Unaccustomed to being fussed over, Zhang Qian waved them off, blushing. But the others, probably not understanding a word, went on supporting him—one at his armpits, another at his back—hauling him up from the ground.

"Hiss—" The abrupt movements tugged at the wound on his thigh, making Zhang Qian suck in a sharp breath.

That sound worked better than all his polite refusals. The helpers immediately gentled their touch. The blue-hatted man, meanwhile, dashed off to his horse in three quick steps. As he turned, two short hat flaps bounced on the back of his round cap, looking for all the world like a pair of rabbit ears.

Suppressing a laugh, Zhang Qian quickly averted his gaze from the blue-hatted man’s bobbing flaps and focused on the headscarved men beside him.

Their gray-blue tunics overlapped to the right and fell well below the knee—a detail that reassured him even more.

As a humanities student, Zhang Qian remembered Confucius’s saying, "If not for Guan Zhong, we’d be wearing our hair loose and our robes left-lapped!" Not that he was a die-hard cultural purist, but his smattering of historical knowledge told him that in the ancient agricultural societies, food was more abundant, hygiene better, and if you got sick, at least there was herbal medicine rather than mere bloodletting or shamanic rituals.

Yet barely twenty seconds later, his relief began to evaporate.

The blue-hatted man pulled a gourd from beneath his saddle, uncorked it, and poured a heap of earth-gray powder into his left palm.

Just as Zhang Qian wondered what the powder was, the man corked the gourd, hurried back, bent over, and spat twice onto the powder—then, in the blink of an eye, smeared the mixture onto Zhang Qian’s wound!

"Ah—" Zhang Qian yelped and tried to dodge, his vision going black again. Not from pain, but from sheer horror at the act.

There was no escape! Four strong helpers pinned him in place, easily negating his feeble resistance. The next instant, the scent of herbs and a wave of bad breath invaded his nostrils at once.

"He’s treating my wound, he’s treating my wound! He means well! In ancient times, the land was vast and people few—no infectious diseases, no infectious diseases! Don’t punch the doctor; those who hit doctors have bad karma!" Zhang Qian desperately tried to calm himself, resisting the urge to lash out at the man tending his wounds.

"Just a scratch, just a scratch—" The blue-hatted healer, oblivious to the threat his nose had just faced, prodded each of Zhang Qian’s three wounds with his filthy fingers and declared his verdict loudly.

"Really, it’s nothing, just a surface wound!" Zhang Qian bellowed, goosebumps rising all over.

The healer didn’t understand, nor did he care. His gaze remained fixed, enraptured, on the injury.

"Please, let me do it myself, I’ll handle it!" Fearing what further treatment might entail, Zhang Qian lowered his voice, pleading.

The healer ignored him, reaching out again with those grimy fingers to caress the wound as if it were some priceless treasure.

Dread flooded Zhang Qian. "Great, I’ve met a pervert! Heaven, what grudge do you bear me?" Even separated by a layer of denim, the touch sent wave after wave of goosebumps across his skin.

Drawing a deep breath, Zhang Qian gathered the last scrap of his strength into his left leg, aiming his knee carefully at the tip of the “pervert healer’s” nose.