Oneshot
by Salted FishThat night, I was lying on the lower bunk beneath a transmigration fanboy, watching Curse of the Golden Flower on my phone before dozing off.
The brother sleeping on the bunk above me haunted my cursed memories. When I appeared in his dream—where he was reborn as a debauched Ming Dynasty prince—I glimpsed the darkest corners of his soul.
He said, “Brother, you came too?” I replied, “Brother, we share fortunes.” He retorted, “Brother, two tigers cannot share one mountain unless one’s male and the other female.” Then he kicked me, and I experienced what it meant to have the world spin and plunge into an abyss.
When I woke up, I might as well have been on the set of The Emperor and the Assassin or Hero—both trashy—because I found myself lying on a cold stone-paved street surrounded by ancient soldiers. My first thought was, Damn, if this is a dream, why couldn’t I dream of being on the set of ‘Curse of the Golden Flower’ instead? What’s the point of a bunch of men in weird costumes?
I realized I’d transmigrated when these people spoke. Honestly, transmigration is no big deal—language barriers are the real nightmare. For example, when someone presses a dagger to your throat, you should say, “Big brother, mighty hero, spare my life! My sudden appearance here is beyond my control—blame the transmigration gods!”
So when I yelled, “What are you doing? Why are you tying me up?” the burly men ignored me, diligently trussing me up like a square zongzi before kicking me to the roadside.
I might be the only one in my dorm who dislikes rebirth novels because I’m a straight arrow who believes everything in this world has its limits. For instance, my bunkmate often fantasized about being reborn as any emperor just to have a harem of three thousand. I sincerely hope he overdoses on aphrodisiacs and turns into an idiot.
Lying by the street, pinned under someone’s foot, I saw a carriage appear on the road, preceded by a procession. At the time, I didn’t know that stone-paved roads in this era were reserved for the emperor’s carriage. Even if I were an innocent lost horse wandering onto this grand avenue, I’d be instantly captured, tied up, and pressed to the ground—then turned into hotpot meat by evening. Cough.
Maybe because I was too handsome or too striking, the carriage stopped in front of me. A bearded hunk in imperial robes stepped out, with a face comparable to… comparable to Wang Zihao, the handsome literature major from the dorm next door.
I gasped, “Holy shit, isn’t that Rat King?”
A slap promptly followed, bringing tears to my eyes.
Rat King, damn it, did our entire dorm transmigrate? But why are you the emperor? Who the hell did I transmigrate into?
I wanted to argue with Rat King, but I was pinned to the ground, unable to move.
Rat King looked disdainfully at my tear-streaked face, oblivious to the blood stubbornly trickling from the corner of my mouth. I’m a tough guy.
With arrogant indifference, Rat King muttered something to my captors before turning and boarding his carriage in a cool flourish.
Damn rat, you heartless bastard, leaving me to die. I curse you to hell.
I screamed, but it was useless. Rat King abandoned me, and as the burly men dragged me down the endless imperial road, my heart turned to ash.
Later, I learned that man was the First Emperor. My thought at the time was: If I ever return to modern times, I’m beating Rat King senseless. Who told you to build the Epang Palace1The Epang Palace was a colossal palace complex commissioned around 212 BCE by Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor who unified China and founded the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE). Intended to be the grandest palace ever built, its construction demanded a huge amount of resources and the forced labor of hundreds of thousands of conscripts under notoriously brutal conditions.? Who told you to build the imperial mausoleum?
If you asked me where I was dragged through, I couldn’t tell you. All I know is I was eventually thrown into a tile-making workshop.
If you must transmigrate, make sure you won’t be forced into hard labor, reduced to begging on the streets, or crushed into a human pancake by chariots on the battlefield. Trust me, if you wake up in bed one day and realize you’ve transmigrated, point at the sun and say, “Fuck you.”
This workshop produced large tiles for palaces. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d be making tiles for the Epang Palace—just like I never imagined I’d one day pin a man beneath me and devour him whole. Nightmare. Trauma. Tears streaming down my face.
The workshop housed people from various states—Chu, Yan, Zhao…—all speaking different, incomprehensible dialects. The overseers forbade us from talking; a whip would lash out at the slightest sound, so we grew accustomed to working in silence.
I was assigned to make large tiles. No one taught me—I learned by watching others. A flawed tile meant a beating. Turns out, people improve under pressure. Someone once said if you put a shark behind you, you’d swim faster than Michael Phelps2An American former competitive swimmer. After two days of beatings, I mastered the craft. The abuse twisted me a little—I thought, If I can’t find a job after graduation, I can always work at a Shanxi brick factory. Employment problem solved.
Now, some might ask: Why didn’t you try to escape? Well, when you’ve already seen someone fail miserably at escaping—beaten until even their parents wouldn’t recognize them—you think, Next time, it could be me.
As long as you didn’t try to escape and worked diligently, the overseers wouldn’t whip you. But we toiled from sunrise to sunset without rest, collapsing like exhausted dogs on straw beds at night. The worst part was the food—filling, but barely edible. Beans, vegetable-and-rice gruel… I was so desperate that when new, soft-skinned prisoners arrived, I wanted to bite them.
I carved tally marks on a broken tile. After nearly forty lines, I finally got a chance to leave this dark, scorching workshop.
One morning, I was roughly pulled from my straw bed to join a handcart team transporting tiles. I pulled the cart from the front, while a frail, effeminate man pushed from behind. I hated this arrangement because whenever we hit a bump, I struggled to pull while he’d trip, faceplanting in a bloody mess.
Sometimes I wanted to kick him, but seeing his back already shredded by the overseer’s whip, I held back. While others pushed carts in pairs, I staggered alone, dragging mine in frustration.
Delivering tiles to the Epang Palace construction site, I felt nothing at its grandeur—just numb indifference. If I were that damned First Emperor, I’d be thrilled. But as a laborer building it, I’d pray for Xiang Yu to hurry up and burn it down—even if that was years away and whether Xiang Yu actually burned the Epang Palace remains a mystery3Xiang Yu was a warlord who led the rebellion that overthrew the Qin dynasty. According to the Han historian Sima Qian, he burned the Qin capital and the Epang Palace in 206 BCE. Though this reinforced his reputation as a formidable and tragic figure, modern archaeology calls the story into question. Excavations reveal that the palace was likely never finished, and there is no evidence of a large-scale fire..
On the first day, after several trips, I noticed the useless guy behind me could barely walk after a few rounds. Every time he lagged and got whipped, my heart ached. Damn, that hurts. Though I’d only been whipped during my first two days in the workshop.
Strangely, this guy never made a sound when whipped. For someone so delicate-looking, you’d expect screams.
He must’ve been new—his fine clothes hadn’t yet turned to rags. Probably some noble who’d exploited the working class, never lifting a finger or even feeding himself before.
At night, returning with empty carts, the ragdoll limped behind me, swaying as if about to collapse—yet stubbornly refusing to fall.
Back at camp, everyone scrambled for food with clay bowls while he sat slumped like a stone. Out of sheer kindness, I fetched him a bowl of gruel after finishing mine, even dissolving some salt in water for him.
The camp was dimly lit by distant torches. Handing him the gruel, I couldn’t see his face clearly—just a glimmer, as if he was crying.
The ragdoll took the bowl but didn’t eat, setting it aside.
I ignored him, convinced hunger would eventually force him to eat. Most people’s nerves aren’t as thick as mine. Being imprisoned, beaten daily—it shatters innocent souls. But I’d been whipped with everything from clothes hangers to broomsticks since childhood, so I was born thick-skinned. As for dignity—you’ve got to have it before you can defend it.
After silently crying, the ragdoll murmured something. Heaven knew what—I didn’t understand a word. I gestured for him to remove his clothes so I could treat his wounds with saltwater, but he refused. I almost drank the saltwater myself—I’d sweated all day and needed the electrolytes. But his half-dead look pissed me off, so I pinned him down and poured the saltwater straight onto his clothes. Hurts? Duh, of course it did. He bit my arm so hard I thought he’d tear off a chunk before letting go.
As a kid, I’d heard of an ancient torture method where a sieve was pressed against flesh before slicing and salting the wounds. It gave me nightmares for days. Back then, I didn’t know if it was just folklore—or that compared to lingchi4Death by a thousand cuts, this was nothing.
As I prepared to beat this ungrateful ragdoll, he finally released my arm. I yanked it back, howling in pain.
The workshop was warm at night. Lying on straw, I slept soundly, dreaming of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rescuing us—rising up to overthrow Rat King. Thrashing in my sleep, I must’ve hit someone’s wounds because a sharp cry woke me. The ragdoll lay beside me, sleeping on his stomach—my hand had probably struck his back.
I remembered my first days in the workshop, my back similarly scarred. Sleeping on my stomach, every accidental touch kept me awake all night in agony.
I said, “Hurts, huh? Be sharper tomorrow, or they’ll beat you to death. Dying’s easy—leaving me traumatized isn’t. I’ve lived twenty vigorous years as a passionate youth, free of mental issues. Don’t ruin me.”
I knew he couldn’t understand, but I rambled on like an idiot anyway.
Maybe my words worked—the next day, the ragdoll stopped dragging his feet, pushing the cart with effort. But his strength was pitiful. Pulling the rough hemp rope, my shoulders and hands blistered and bled.
If only I’d stayed in the workshop making tiles—whoever dragged me into this cart team that morning, I curse your ancestors!
Of the entire team, I was the unluckiest. Lagging behind meant eight or nine new whip marks daily—they stopped whipping the ragdoll, focusing on me instead.
That night, I dissolved more salt in water. After treating his wounds, he gently dabbed mine and tore his outer clothes into bandages for my hands and shoulders. Kneeling neatly, his long hair loose, he tended to me with quiet focus. For the first time, my nose stung. Damn it, I don’t want to transmigrate—I want to go home.
I asked his name, deciding to stop calling him “ragdoll.” Whether he understood or not, he took my hand and wrote two characters. I only recognized one: “Tian.” The other was a mystery.
I guessed he was from Qi, hence the surname “Tian.” His pampered demeanor suggested Qi royalty or nobility.
I wrote my name in his palm, though I doubted a 2,000-year-old ancient could read modern simplified Chinese. From then on, I called him Tian Qi—no idea what he called me.
In the following days, I lost hope in Chen Sheng, Wu Guang, Xiang Yu, or Liu Bang (duh, they hadn’t entered history yet). Tian Qi and I delivered tiles day after day. My hands grew calloused, my face darkened like Zhang Fei’s. Bathing in a river one day, I discovered I’d developed an eight-pack. Damn it all.
After delivering tiles to the Epang Palace for over half a year with little visible progress—just a few more roofs—one night, the entire camp was rounded up. Soldiers randomly selected people, tossing them aside. Sensing trouble, I shrank into the crowd. Tian Qi gripped my hand anxiously.
Of course, the worst happened—I was dragged out. Tian Qi clung to me, so we both left the line.
That night, the chosen few carried some food and followed the soldiers. I figured we were off to build something else—another grand historical project. Damn it, I’d rather build the China-Burma Road5A strategic supply route built during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) to transport military aid from British-controlled Burma into China; constructed largely by Chinese laborers under harsh conditions but seen as a symbol of resistance and national effort. during the Anti-Japanese War—at least that was willingly exhausting, not whip-driven.
After marching all night, we gathered in a desolate wilderness at dawn. The crowd stunned me—I’d only seen so many people during a snowstorm at a train station. A sea of heads, swarming like ants.
The swarm moved in one direction, driven forward. Halfway there, I cursed—what massive project in this wilderness needed hundreds of thousands of laborers? Damn, it’s the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum, isn’t it?
Realizing this, I froze. Even if I survived the construction without overworking to death, I’d be killed and buried upon completion. No chance of survival—unlike the Epang Palace, escape was the only option.6The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang (d. 210 BCE), near modern Xi’an, is a vast tomb complex best known for the Terracotta Army. According to Han historian Sima Qian, over 700,000 laborers were conscripted, and those who worked on the interior were allegedly sealed inside to protect its secrets, like traps, treasures, and rumored mercury rivers.
By dusk, we reached Mount Li’s base. Words fail to describe the sight—how would you react to 200,000–300,000 people laboring simultaneously? And that’s not counting those inside the massive pit of the tomb.
Tian Qi and I vanished into the human ocean like two drops of water. The only “luck”? Our ankles were tied together—with so many prisoners, the guards feared escapes and resorted to this.
By then, Tian Qi and I could somewhat communicate—or at least, I understood fragments of his speech. His most frequent words were shivering against me at night, whispering, “Cold.”
Our first nights were spent outside the tomb, without even a tent. The icy wind left us trembling, covered in goosebumps. We huddled together for warmth—Tian Qi always burrowed into my arms. I’d hold him, thinking, Damn, I don’t want to turn weird, yet loving his closeness. Without Tian Qi, I’d have died multiple times during the Epang Palace construction. Every time I considered escaping (knowing capture meant death), I’d think, If I die, what happens to the kid always trailing me? Who’ll take care of him?
Holding Tian Qi at night, I’d whisper, “We have to escape.” He’d always shake his head, resigned to fate. I’d say, “When the tomb’s done, you’ll be buried alive.” He’d grip my hand silently, fueling my rage. I’d rather stab a few overseers—if I die, I’ll die spectacularly.
The underground palace had been dug “three springs deep”—probably into hell itself. Tian Qi and I walked over an hour just to reach the bottom. At least 500–600 meters deep, the chambers were a maze. Without a guide, newcomers would be lost forever.
Our job was compacting the tomb walls and floors with wooden mallets. Day after day, we’d finish one chamber in half a month, then move to the next. Thankfully, we weren’t assigned to excavate or haul dirt—the most grueling tasks, where laborers often collapsed mid-work, never waking again.
Since arriving at the tomb, Tian Qi visibly withered. I realized he feared darkness and being underground. He had nightmares, sometimes staring blankly all night. Later, I noticed my own abnormalities—hair loss and unexplained headaches.
At that time, I hadn’t realized the central chamber of the underground palace had a trench dug into it, filled daily with transported mercury. Mercury evaporates, and we’d been inhaling too much of it—hence the poisoning.
I’d been looking for a chance to escape, but it was nearly impossible. Not only were our feet shackled together, making running difficult, but the tomb’s outer perimeter was tightly surrounded by overseers and soldiers.
At night, people in the underground palace secretly discussed escape plans. Some even suggested digging a tunnel from inside the tomb—but that was impossible. Overseers monitored us during the day, and the tomb was so deep that even if we could dig in secret, it’d take forever.
I studied the wooden shackles binding Tian Qi and me. With a serrated tool, they could be sawed off—but we had nothing like that. The only place with such tools was the lumber workshop west of the tomb. We had no bronze tools, just a small mallet—useless for killing, barely enough to knock someone out with a head blow.
As my hair loss terrified me and I desperately plotted escape, a group of blond prisoners suddenly arrived. These tall, burly men were assigned to transport excavated dirt. They worked in the chamber next to ours, and I seized a chance to greet them—though we couldn’t understand each other. I had no idea where they were from.
I gestured to my shackles, miming sawing. These men had access to the tomb’s exterior—they were our best hope for getting a saw.
One ragged blond shook his head and spoke in Cantonese-accented Mandarin, nearly scaring me to death:
“No good. You can’t escape.”
I said, “Boss, where are you from?”
He replied, “Fuck his mother! I was in Guangzhou for the Canton Fair, visiting the Nanyue King’s tomb, when some bastard dragged me here. I want to sue! I want to go home!”
I asked, “Didn’t you see the Terracotta Warriors outside? Do you know Qin Shi Huang?”
The poor blond fell to his knees, wailing in despair, shouting foreign words. I assumed he was excited.
He agreed to help, saying he’d try to pick up a blade when dumping dirt near the lumber workshop. His vague promise disappointed—no, devastated—me.
During this time, Tian Qi’s condition worsened. He tossed and turned in my arms at night, unable to sleep. His once-oval face had sharpened into a gaunt, pointed chin—like a spinning top’s tip.
“Sleep,” I urged. He shook his head, murmuring, “Can’t… everything hurts.”
I warned, “If you can’t sleep, stop rubbing against me. I’m no saint—trapped in this hellhole without even a sow in sight, I might just fuck you. Don’t blame me afterward.”
He said, “It’s okay.” I asked, “Do you even understand me?” He shook his head again.
Tian Qi was clearly past his limits. Once, while transporting tiles for the Epang Palace, he’d coughed up blood from exhaustion—breaking my heart, making me want to kill someone. Ancient people might’ve looked younger, but Tian Qi couldn’t have been older than eighteen. We had so much life ahead—why were we trapped here, dying? The injustice burned.
After the blond’s half-hearted promise, I gave up on him. Tian Qi deteriorated daily. I decided we couldn’t wait—we had to risk escape, even if it killed us.
One night, prisoners in our chamber whispered: “If we don’t go now, we’re dead. Tomorrow night, we attack the overseers. There are fewer of them than us.” The odds of fighting our way out were slim, but staying meant certain death.
We steeled ourselves. Half-dead, half-bald—what did we have to lose?
The next day, after compacting the Nth chamber, the blond dirt-hauler slipped something by my foot as he passed. I quickly stepped on it. Damn—a blade! And iron, too—likely from a broken dagger-axe.
That night, our chambermates worked to notch the blade into a saw. One strong prisoner used a hidden stone to chip three serrations into it.
I went first, sawing through Tian Qi’s and my shackles. The clumsy effort left my feet bleeding, but we broke free. Others followed suit—but with 100–200 people, one night wasn’t enough. By the fiftieth man, the blade bent, useless. Dawn approached—overseers would soon arrive to march us to work.
The few freed, able-bodied men grabbed mallets. When four overseers appeared, we ambushed them, beating them to death and stealing their weapons to pass back for more shackle-cutting.
Never did I imagine leading a prisoner revolt. I stripped a dead overseer’s leather armor for Tian Qi, donned a helmet, raised my mallet, struck a pose, and roared: “Charge! Fight for freedom!” In that moment, I wasn’t alone—the spirits of all oppressed people throughout history possessed me. Chen Sheng7Leader of the first recorded peasant uprising in Chinese history, who rebelled against the Qin Dynasty in 209 BCE., Wu Guang8Co-leader with Chen Sheng in the Dazexiang Uprising against the Qin Dynasty, a symbol of early resistance to tyranny in China., Spartacus9A Thracian gladiator who led a major slave revolt against the Roman Republic from 73–71 BCE., William Wallace10A Scottish knight who led resistance against English occupation during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the late 13th century.—every freedom fighter’s courage surged through me.
Fifty of us stormed out, sparking chaos. Prisoners everywhere rose up, seizing the moment. To our surprise, the tomb’s overseers were weak—and those aboveground had no idea what was happening. Unstoppable, we pushed toward the exit.
Two hundred meters from the surface, armored soldiers blocked the tunnel. By then, most front-line prisoners had weapons. A brutal fight erupted—I took down five or six men but got slashed across the face and arm. Fearing separation, I kept Tian Qi close behind me. He wielded a short sword with surprising skill—must’ve trained before.
Tens of thousands of tomb prisoners surging forward were an unstoppable tide. We trampled soldiers’ corpses, the Internationale11A revolutionary socialist anthem that originated in 19th century France and has been adopted as a rallying cry by communists, socialists, and labor movements worldwide. ringing in our hearts.
Near the exit, a crush of bodies pinned Tian Qi and me against the wall. A horrific scream echoed ahead—scalding tung oil poured down the tunnel.
But not even flesh-melting oil could stop desperate men. The crowd surged even more wildly. Shielding Tian Qi, we inched along the wall. Outside, ignoring stinging eyes and archers’ rain of arrows, I dragged Tian Qi into a dead sprint. My mind flashed to D-Day12The Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, a pivotal World War II operation that marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany., the Battle of the Bulge13The last major German offensive on the Western Front during WWII (December 1944–January 1945), known for brutal winter combat and high casualties., the bloody defense of Taierzhuang14A major Chinese victory during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938, where Chinese forces successfully repelled a better-equipped Japanese army in fierce urban combat..
An arrow pierced my back—heart-stabbing pain—but I ran on, pulling Tian Qi.
The entire site had erupted. Prisoners poured from the tomb; others outside grabbed tools and revolted. Anything became a weapon—rocks smashed overseers’ skulls, leaving mangled, unrecognizable corpses.
When first arriving, I’d memorized the mountain’s layout. The northern slope was steep but sparsely guarded. Tian Qi, a mob of prisoners, and I fled there—half-running, half-rolling down. At the base, another fight. Already arrow-shot and slashed, I had no strength left. Tian Qi, unwounded but gasping and swaying, looked ready to collapse.
Spotting horse-drawn carts, I cut a horse free (I couldn’t drive but could ride), shoved Tian Qi on, leaped up behind him, and whipped its flank. The panicked horse bolted.
Watching the pursuing soldiers shrink behind us, euphoria flooded me.
We rode endlessly, resting at night in a narrow mountain pass. I told Tian Qi to pull the arrow from my back—leaving it in wouldn’t kill me, but it hurt like hell. He refused, insisting on just breaking the shaft.
But I couldn’t stand the jabbing pain—like being stabbed over and over with every touch. “Just yank it out!” I snapped. His eyes reddened, still refusing.
Fine—I’d do it myself. As I reached back, Tian Qi grabbed my hand, pressing against me, murmuring something.
“Hurry up!” I growled. Without warning, he wrenched the arrow out with all his strength. I howled curses, writhing on the ground.
Imagine hooking a barbed blade into your bone, then ripping it free—that’s the pain.
Tian Qi clung to me, silently crying, tears dripping onto the wound.
In that moment, I accepted that this frail figure clinging to me was my burden—and my reason to live. We’d flee to some godforsaken corner of this era, though survival seemed impossible: recapture, war, or starvation surely awaited.
But I overthought it. With a dozen wounds—including that unsterilized arrowhead lodged in bone—I began hallucinating: riding a blue ox, asked if I wanted immortality; burning thorn bushes, noisy sheep bleating everywhere.
When I woke, Tian Qi cradled me at a cliff’s edge, facing a black mass of armored soldiers.
“Don’t leave me, okay?” he whispered.
I kissed him. “Okay. Let’s jump.”
Who’d have thought my twenty vigorous years would end in a lovers’ leap? Man proposes, heaven disposes.
Holding each other, we lacked even the strength to jump—just leaned back and fell.
Ask me what jumping off a cliff feels like? Nothing. Just blacking out, waking thinking we’d reached the underworld—only to see cameras flashing in our faces.
Weakly, I croaked, “Fuck… is it 2008?”
A tourist said, “Brother, it’s 2015. Did you time-travel?”
Calmly, I replied, “Yeah, fucking did. Anyone got food? Starving. And call an ambulance—this one’s about to collapse.”
Tian Qi clutched my arm, terrified of these modern strangers. I whispered, “It’s okay. We’re safe.”
The ambulance came quickly. Tian Qi, gripping my hand, fell asleep instantly—too exhausted to process the strange surroundings.
At the hospital, we underwent mercury poisoning treatment. My parents arrived the next day. I couldn’t explain where I’d been for years. Introducing Tian Qi as “my wife” earned me a beating from Dad—but Mom said, “You can’t disappear just for being gay. You’re back—that’s enough. I accept you.”
The End
0 Comments