Night fell, and with it the farmer lay down on the rocking chair, his hat covering his face.
Embracing the new Winchester rifle, he recalled the past.
A tired young man who had suffered a traffic accident on public transportation. With blood on his fingers, the game he had been playing was still displayed on his cellphone.
After closing his eyes, he appeared wearing the game's clothes, standing on the land together with his equipment and workbenches.
But in his mind, his name became nothing. His nickname in the game was "the man without a name", and as if by a divine decree, he had forgotten his name from Earth, his mind becoming somewhat more serious.
After a few moments, he felt free. For someone with little money, dreaming of having his own house—even an apartment—was something feverish. As he looked at the land that belonged to him, he let out a sigh, and a shout of joy escaped his mouth.
He went to harvest the corn he had in the game, and when he touched it, everything disappeared in an instant, leaving on the ground around twenty corn cobs and some seeds.
"—EXP +100—"
It was the first time the system's voice spoke to him.
He was startled for a moment before the voice fell silent. Later, when he started cooking the corn in the charcoal oven, the voice spoke again.
"—EXP +100—"
It said it without emotion or anything else.
He simply stared at what had happened and finally realized that the game system had come with him.
After giving himself a moment to think, he simply raised his hands into the air and began his life in the new world.
Ten years had passed since that moment, cultivating, completing quests from the request board, and capturing bounties, dead or alive.
Until finally something changed. Remembering the plaque in front of him that read "allow guest entry, exit facing forward", he simply nodded.
Now, with the certainty of entering a cultivation world, he considered the possibility of reaching immortality, but quickly removed it from his mind, since his appearance had not changed in the decade since his arrival.
He finally lay down to sleep.
The hours passed like bullets through the air. When the sun rose again, Hui Cao had come out of the house.
She looked at everything outside with eyes brighter than the sun. Determination filled her heart with every step.
Seeing Blackie calmly eating his hay, she climbed onto his back.
The horse glanced at her sideways with some displeasure and continued eating.
—Don't be like that, Brother Blackie, take me around, yes, yes, yesss,—she said respectfully. The horse grabbed the princess's clothes with his teeth and gently lowered her from his back before continuing to eat.
—Hmph, stupid horse, I'll go explore by myself,— she said with great dignity as she walked quickly.
The horse simply snorted and continued on his way.
She looked at the well they had outside. When she lifted the bucket, at the bottom she saw forty sealed canteens that, no matter how she tried, she could not touch.
Then she looked at the chests beside the workbenches. Some contained braided ropes made from what she recognized as spiritual vines. After yesterday, she simply accepted the fact and moved on—if she kept thinking about it, she would go crazy.
She closed the chest with tired eyes and looked into another one. There were some physical weapons. Taking what looked like a sword from the bottom, she noticed it had no guard and examined it carefully with her divine sense.
It had several glyphs. She noticed the metal, wind, and earth elements, so tiny they seemed smaller than ants. They extended throughout the entire weapon, leaving no empty space.
—What kind of sword is this? Even the imperial blacksmith who made Father's sword doesn't have this ability!
Suddenly, she lightly slapped herself before returning to her pragmatic mind.
On the outside of the chest, it was marked Common Machete Chest.
She continued checking chest after chest until reaching one with clothes. Inside were numerous cowboy hats of the same color and category. Hui Cao stopped using her divine sense before she suffered an aneurysm.
Taking one of the hats, she placed it on her head. As soon as she did, it shrank to perfectly fit her head.
She bit her fist in rage before cursing with all her heart the man who possessed such great treasures in such large quantities.
With her mind on the verge of exploding, she looked toward the crops she had seen planted yesterday in the distance, now spanning entire hectares overnight.
She threw herself to the ground, kicking and flailing as she asked herself:
—Is this hell? If so, is this what evil men see?—
She was practically on the verge of tears.
—No, no, no. I still have my cultivation. If even that is useless, then what's the point of working so hard?
She brought her hands together in a relaxed posture and began to cultivate, but before she could achieve anything, the system's voice spoke.
"Pest detected in the area.
Pest detected.
Analyzing pest.
Pest analyzed.
System Guest detected.
A warning is issued to refrain from repeating the previous action until a Mythic-grade training room is created"
The system spoke rapidly.
There, together with the system's scornful words ringing in her ears, the girl collapsed to the ground, while beside her appeared a figure mounted on a black horse.
—In the world of cultivators, didn't they teach you to enjoy the sunrise? Come on, breakfast is already ready,— the man without a name said as he offered his hand to the girl on the ground.
She looked at him with eyes full of tears, and mucus began to run from her nose.
—Wah, what kind of place is this? Do you wipe yourself with jade paper every morning? Wah! And hmm, that voice called me a pest! A pest! Me, a beautiful maiden!—she said, pouring out everything in her heart.
—You look more like a crying brat,— he replied, and the horse he was riding seemed like it wanted to laugh.
It was then that Blackie did something.
The horse—who until that moment had maintained the composure of a tired old soldier—snorted. But it wasn't an ordinary snort. It was a broken sound, with a strange rhythm, as if…
As if the damn horse was trying not to laugh.
The animal's chest expanded and contracted with those stifled snorts. His ears twitched. He even slightly turned his head away, as if the sight of the crying princess was too funny to endure.
Hui Cao, through the veil of her tears, saw this. And something inside her—something deep, stubborn, something that hadn't broken even when a hundred assassins chased her—ignited.
The crying stopped abruptly. The sobs turned into a deep, trembling breath. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand—a gesture so un-princesslike that she horrified herself—then rubbed her eyes furiously.
—Is he… laughing at me?—she asked, her voice carrying a dangerous low tone. —Is the HORSE laughing at me?
Blackie immediately returned to his eternally bored expression, chewing air with feigned innocence. But the damage was already done.
The man without a name finally dismounted with a fluid motion. He approached Hui Cao, who was still sitting in the dust like a pile of defeated dignity. From his pocket, he took out—not a silk embroidered handkerchief—but a rough, clean cotton cloth of the type used to wipe tools.
She took it and noticed that it was even better than imperial silk, even better than the Immortal Banner that foretold her family's fate. Exhausted by everything, she wiped her nose with the cloth.
"Removing germ-contaminated cotton cloth.
Regeneration will occur in a few seconds"
The system said as it burned the cloth to ashes in midair and produced a completely new one in the man's pocket.
Her crying, which had calmed down, returned even louder than before.
The man lifted her onto the horse, which had already calmed its urge to snort and laugh, and began walking at a slow pace.
—You, mmh… how do you live in such a strange place? There isn't even a way to cultivate here,— she said heavily while wiping mucus on her torn clothes.
—Well, it's pretty peaceful. And according to the system, you can cultivate immortality with the training field. It's a building I haven't made yet since I'm more focused on firing speed than strength, but it's Uncommon grade right now,— he said calmly while drinking water from a canteen.
—What the hell is a Mythic rank?— she said, clenching her hands in anger.
—Well, there are seven ranks: Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic. When you look closely at an object, there's a pretty aura color. For example, Basic is light gray, Common dark gray, Uncommon green, Rare blue, Epic red, Legendary yellow, and Mythic purple,— he explained calmly as various objects extended from his hands, glowing with different colors.
The cabin appeared again in the distance. In the outer yard was a very beautiful carved wooden table, with plates of bacon, eggs, and bread beside two cups of coffee.
When they arrived, he lowered the girl from the mount and sat her at the table. The horse glanced briefly before returning to his stable.
—Alright, since you're very dirty, there's a shower thirty feet away. Turn the knob and hot water will come out. You can regulate it yourself. There's also soap to clean yourself more thoroughly,— he said as he took the coffee and drank calmly.
Hui Cao, who had reached a level of cognitive exhaustion so deep that words no longer offended her, simply processed the information. She had stopped paying attention to the disparaging references to her hygiene or status. At that moment, the only biological imperative was immediate survival, and that included understanding her surroundings.
With the little energy she had left—which was not much—she asked the question that encapsulated the absurdity of her situation:
—What is a… 'shower'?
The word sounded strange in her mouth. Shower. It was not part of classical imperial language. Nor any regional dialect she knew. It sounded… functional. Utilitarian. Like "revolver" or "system."
As she asked, her gaze fell on the scrambled eggs on her plate. Under her residual divine sense—which she now used with the caution of someone who had been electrocuted—she could see them brimming with spiritual energy. Not pure qi from phoenix eggs or dragon spawn, but a dense, nourishing, earthy energy, mixed with the solar vigor of the herbs used to cook them. A dish that, in the Empire, would have been reserved for injured physicians or declining elders.
And yet, she could barely eat. Each bite required herculean effort. Her body, shattered by escape and shock, was operating on its most basic reserves. The "bonus" from the breakfast struggled against a wall of absolute fatigue.
The man without a name set down his cup. He looked at her, and for the first time, Hui Cao saw something that was neither exhaustion nor pragmatism.
It was understanding.
—A shower,— he explained, with a patience he hadn't shown before, —is like… a private waterfall. In miniature. Controlled.— He made a vague gesture with his hand. —Hot water falls from above. You wash underneath it. It cleans sweat, dirt, the… desperation.
The last word was said without emphasis, as if it were just another fact.
Hui Cao blinked.
A controlled waterfall. For washing.
In the palace, baths were ceremonies: marble tubs filled with perfumed water brought from sacred springs, attended by servants who scrubbed her skin with silk sponges and aromatic oils. The idea of standing beneath a stream of falling water sounded… violent.
And practical.
—Thirty feet to the north,— she repeated mechanically.
He nodded. —You walk. You'll see a wooden booth with a curtain. You go in. Turn the left knob for heat, the right for pressure. There's a bar of soap on a shelf.— He paused.
—Don't eat the soap, even if it smells good.—Hui Cao nodded slowly. She pushed her plate away, still half-full of nutritional treasures she couldn't yet appreciate.
—First… the shower. Then… maybe I can finish eating.
She stood, swaying slightly. The man did not help her, but his gaze followed as she took uncertain steps north, counting imaginary feet across ground that seemed to change texture with each step.
She found the booth exactly where he said it would be.
It was a simple structure of treated wood, with a slanted roof and a thick canvas curtain. Inside, it was even more spartan: a slatted wooden floor with grooves, a metal knob with markings she didn't understand (H and C? Hot and Cold?), and a gray, unscented bar of soap resting in a carved recess in the wall.
With trembling hands, she turned the knob she assumed meant "heat."
A gurgling sound ran through hidden pipes, followed by a burst that made her step back. Then, from a circular head above, water began to fall.
Not cold.
Hot.
Miraculously, wonderfully hot.
The first drop that struck her shoulder was a shock. The second was a revelation. By the time the flow stabilized into a steady, warm cascade, Hui Cao had already let her tattered clothes fall to the floor and stood beneath it, allowing the water to carry away the dust of the wasteland, dried blood, the sweat of fear, and salty tears.
She took the soap. It smelled of peach and something clean and herbal. Not lotus or sandalwood perfume. She rubbed it over her skin, forming a soft but effective lather that the hot water washed away, taking layers of her former life with it.
The man without a name brought some clothes, placed them on the ground, and spoke.
"Alright, here are some clothes. They'll adjust on their own. I don't have anything oriental around here, so you'll look like a cowgirl while you're here," he said calmly before leaving the clothes on the floor.
The man without a name walked toward the radio on his porch and turned it on again.
—Welcome back, friends, to Billy Joel's program, the best entertainer of the West. Thanks to Doctor Mitchell's tonic and our sponsors, we can continue bringing you the best music and the best news, so why don't we start right there,— said the announcer's voice with great enthusiasm.
—Winter is approaching, and with it the best time of the year: Christmas. In the town center, holiday joy is coming. Come claim gifts for your children from Toy and Manufacturing Goodman—'If it's not good, I'll change my last name to Badman.' Bring warm clothes, because the cold shows no mercy this season,—he said cheerfully as the sound of turning pages was heard.
—Continuing with this thread, our friends from the Apache tribes give us the following information: the demon Grinch will appear during this season in the snowy forests and the tungsten mine—
The announcer's voice shifted into a comic imitation.
—'Hahaha, you'd better keep your belongings safe, because I'm going to take your gifts—or your heads—to ruin this Christmas.' Well, that's all for now. With this Christmas atmosphere, here's Kay Kyser's Jingle Jangle. Enjoy.—
The music began.
—Damn it, it's already time for the Christmas event. I need to hurry to the center and secure things before that green demon steals from me again,— he said, walking a few steps before looking at the girl, who was already changed, wearing a cowboy hat and pants.
—I'm going out for a few hours to gather materials, so you'll have to stay here. Play with Blackie if you want,— he said energetically.
The horse calmly walked out of the stable and looked at the man with pleading eyes.
He patted the horse and gave him an apple before going inside his house, opening a map that lay on the table.
When he unfolded it, various locations could be seen: stone mines, stone quarries, coal mines, tribal meeting grounds, city center, your home, the Railroad of the Americas, and at the edge, a radio tower that read: maximum horse required to enter.
He touched the icon where the city center was shown, and in an instant, he disappeared from both of their sight along with the map.