The Mortal's Path to Immortality

"Shiwa, go to the stove and help light a fire."

The peasant woman who was washing clothes in the yard wiped her plain cheeks and turned her head to speak.

The child called Shiwa was about ten years old, and was looking at a child in a daze in the distance in front of the house.

"Oh."

Shiwa responded and walked towards the kitchen in the house.

"Hey, what's wrong with this kid? He is always in a daze. Is he sick?"

The peasant woman looked at Shiwa's figure disappearing in the house with some worry.

After this kid got sick a few days ago, he always stayed in a daze at home, asking some strange questions from time to time.

In the kitchen.

Shiwa opened the fire with unfamiliar and skillful manner.

He lit the dry grass and put it into the stove as a starter.

Then put in the firewood.

The fire in the stove shone on Shiwa's face.

It made Shiwa's face more confused.

"Who am I?"

"Shiwa? Or, Cao Rui?"

Three days ago, Shiwa drank raw water in the wild, which caused him to fall ill and was once unconscious with a high fever.

When he was having a high fever, many fragments of memory gradually emerged in Shiwa's mind.

These fragments told him that he was from Earth, his name was Cao Rui, a 15-year-old unemployed young man who graduated and died in a car accident.

There are also many memories that Shiwa cannot fully understand at present: mobile phones, televisions, cars, trains, airplanes...

But these things are not important, because this world does not have these things.

What is important is that these memories have brought changes to Shiwa's personality and experience.

Shiwa is no longer a mountain boy who knows nothing and has no life plan.

As he reads the memory fragments again and again, Shiwa has gradually recognized his identity as a time traveler.

He realized that he is different.

From the ignorant and foolish mountain village boy before, he has transformed into Cao Rui, an adult from another world with higher education.

"Compared with the previous life, this world is more like the present, but a little different, because the monsters my parents talked about in this life are not like legends, but seem to really exist."

"I have to find a way to leave this small village and see the wider sky, otherwise I will be wasted in this small mountain village."

Shiwa's thoughts have changed drastically now. He has an urgent desire to change his life and an ambition to go out and understand this world.

......

At noon.

Cao Rui's family in this life has arrived.

Father, brother, mother, and myself, a total of four people in the family.

My brother is already fifteen years old. In the morning, he followed his father to the mountain to chop wood.

He came back with his father to eat at dinner time.

At this time, the hungry elder brother was feasting.

At the dinner table.

Cao Rui brewed for a while and said, "Dad, I want to go to the city. It's no problem to be an apprentice."

The so-called city is just a small county with a population of more than 50,000.

But it is better than staying in this small mountain village with only dozens of households.

So I have to discuss it with my parents.

Because this body is only ten years old this year, it can't go to the county town by its own ability.

In a village, let alone monsters, even if there are big insects and wild boars, Cao Rui can take them away and eat them alive.

But going to the city is necessary.

Only by going to the county town can we see the world more clearly and make better life plans.

So, we can only rely on our family in this life.

Although they are all ordinary mountain villagers, they are at least adults and relatives of Cao Rui in this life. They are trustworthy and can provide assistance to Cao Rui when he was a child.

So he chose to speak to his father because Cao Rui knew that the only person who could really do anything in this family was his father.

In addition, Cao Rui's statement of going to the city to be an apprentice was not aimless.

There is already a precedent of sending children to the city to be apprentices in the small mountain village.

Especially the child of the neighboring Laoshan family, after years of apprenticeship, he has been able to bring back a lot of money every year since the year before last.

The house of Laoshan family is now the most luxurious and grand in the whole mountain village, thanks to the help of his children who went to the city.

"Shiwa, you are so brave? Can you endure the hardship?" The elder brother looked at Cao Rui in surprise and said.

He didn't believe that these words came from Cao Rui's mouth.

He watched Shiwa grow up since he was a child. This younger brother has always been timid and afraid of things. I didn't expect that today he would take the initiative to ask to go to the city.

This is something that he, the eldest brother, has never thought of.

He followed his father to the city to sell firewood several times. The city people were dressed brightly and behaved elegantly, which always made him feel that they were not from the same world.

Every time he went to the city, he didn't want to stay too long.

"Well, I've been thinking about it for a long time."

"After I go to the city, I will be an apprentice and study hard. I will become a master in the future and bring money to the family every year."

"In this way, our house can be renovated to be as beautiful as Dashanbo's!"

Cao Rui described it in a childish tone.

He knew that only this childish way could convince his father.

If he analyzed the pros and cons and discussed his life plan in the tone of an adult in his previous life, his father in this life would definitely think that Cao Rui's brain was burned out a few days ago.

The father took a puff of dry tobacco, his eyes fell on Cao Rui for a long time, and then looked at his eldest son.

"Your eldest brother should get married."

"This room is really too small."

"Shiwa, you are great. Children from other families are afraid of being sent to the city to suffer, but you volunteered. You are worthy of being a son of our Shi family."

"It is not a big deal to be a mountain dweller in this small mountain village."

"You can only rest in the city. Dad understands this."

"You have this heart, so Dad will pave the way for you with all his heart."

"Tomorrow morning, I will go to the city to find your cousin and ask him what kind of apprenticeship is suitable."

"Shiwa, you should be ready." His father agreed.

Cao Rui was delighted, but his mother beside him trembled and dropped her chopsticks on the ground.

"Old man, do you really have the heart to send Shiwa to the city?"

"I heard that the child of the fourth family was killed by some gang after entering the city, and the body has not been found so far!"

The mother hugged Cao Rui in her arms, and her eyes were red.

Father took a big puff of his pipe, slowly exhaled and looked at Shiwa again: "Shiwa, are you going to the city?"

Cao Rui nodded vigorously: "Yes."

"Okay, it's decided, don't delay!"

Father finally made the decision.

Mother couldn't help crying.

The elder brother looked at Cao Rui with a very complicated look, admiration, desire, but deep down, there was an unshakable confusion.

Early in the morning of the second day.

Father left early and rushed to Lianhua County.

Cao Rui was waiting at home expectantly.

Father left before dawn in the morning.

It was about ten o'clock in the morning.

Father came back sweating.

Coming back with father was a young man in his thirties.

Wearing a green dress.

This man looked similar to his mother, but unlike his mother who had a tanned skin, his skin was fair and delicate, and it was obvious that he had never worked in the sun.

"Shi Wa, call your third cousin!" Father announced the identity of the person who came.

For this person who could help him get out of his current situation.

Regardless of whether he was a relative or not, Cao Rui did not dare to neglect him. He stepped forward and bowed, and called out clearly: "Third cousin!"

"Well, not bad, you know etiquette, you are not afraid of strangers, but you are a little tanned, but you should be able to turn white again after a while." As soon as the third cousin opened his mouth, my father smiled, and he knew that it was done.