Chapter 3

3

Considering the educational background and era each of them grew up in, Wen Yan knew he could adapt to this dreamlike body-swapping situation much faster than Shen Po. To help Third Young Master Shen accept reality as quickly as possible, Wen Yan did his best to explain everything in plain, easy-to-understand language.

First, he told Shen Po how many years had passed between the twenty-first year of the Republic of China^[1] and his own era. He explained that he was a teacher currently instructing children in a small village, warning Shen Po not to scribble carelessly in his textbooks or go outside screaming and making a scene. Such behavior would harm Wen Yan’s job, and if he ended up losing it, Wen Yan would retaliate in kind and stir up some trouble for Shen Po as well.

After offering both reassurance and threats, Wen Yan got down to business.

Having gone through two nights of this, it seemed they likely swapped bodies each evening. As such, they needed a general understanding of each other’s lives and frequent acquaintances to avoid blowing their cover or making fools of themselves. Wen Yan asked Shen Po to leave as much information as possible after reading the message, while also outlining his own current work duties.

As for people he interacted with, Wen Yan did not have a vibrant nightlife like Shen Po. The dormitory where he lived had only one neighbor at the moment, Old Fan, and the old man often stayed elsewhere. As long as Shen Po did not lose his mind and go running around in the dead of night, nothing untoward was likely to happen.

Although Wen Yan had spent two nights in this era as Shen Po and gained some sense of Shen Po’s family background and social circle, he had yet to engage in any deep conversation with anyone from this period, let alone communicate with Shen Po himself. He knew Shen Po indulged in pleasure, loved hanging around dance halls, had poor grades, and harbored no ambition, but he had no idea how the young master would react to being connected with someone like him.

Once the slight thrill faded, Wen Yan could not help feeling a bit apprehensive.

He could read traditional Chinese characters but could not write them fluently, so he simply wrote in simplified characters. Shen Po should still be able to understand them anyway.

By the time he finished writing all this, two full pages of the diary were covered.

Wen Yan glanced at his wristwatch; it was past three in the morning.

He quickened the pace of his pen.

【If it is convenient, please leave me some recent newspapers. I would like to know what has been happening around you lately, which will help me blend into your era better. I will also prepare some information for you so you can learn about the changes that have taken place over the past century. I do not know how long this strange encounter will last, but I hope we can get along well. Pleased to meet you. – Wen Yan】

After finishing this, Wen Yan let out a long breath, stretched, and began imagining how Shen Po would feel upon seeing these messages.

Would this young master, who had never faced any setbacks in his life, find it impossible to believe, dismiss it as bizarre supernatural nonsense, and completely ignore the messages, causing their communication to fail?

That was a very real possibility, and Wen Yan could not help but worry.

But in their first exchange, he could not very well blurt out that over the coming decades, chaos and displacement would spare neither rich nor poor, and that a young master like Shen Po might not get to keep his life of luxury and fine clothes. Even if he told him, Shen Po might not believe it, and even if he did, he would likely assume his family’s wealth and prestige would shield him completely, or that he could simply flee ahead of time.

For someone of Shen Po’s background, war might truly be nothing more than watching a fire from the opposite bank. He could go to Hong Kong, to America, or to any haven in the world. Shen Po could easily detach himself from any turmoil to come and live out his days in carefree comfort.

That was why Wen Yan did not try to sway Shen Po with any “prophecies.” He simply threatened that he could use Shen Po’s identity to run wild. If you give me social death, I will give you social death; a direct one-for-one trade, so who’s afraid of whom?

*

The next day, Wen Yan was awakened by the alarm clock in his dormitory.

Mentally, he felt a bit tired, yet his body had the relaxed feel of having rested well. Swapping souls did not seem to cause any physical harm.

After lying in bed lost in thought for a while, he braced himself for the worst and went to check the students’ essays he hadn’t graded the previous night.

Wen Yan was fully prepared for Young Master Shen to have scribbled all over them again.

Yet, surprisingly, he hadn’t.

Beneath each essay were comments written in a messy scrawl and traditional characters, but they were still far better than the chaotic doodles from before.

After yesterday’s placement test, Wen Yan had assigned the students an essay topic: “My Dream.”

The thirty-odd students in the class had each written their dreams on paper in crooked handwriting, waiting for their teacher’s feedback.

The author of the first essay was a little girl named Yang Mei.

Wen Yan remembered her nickname was Hua Niuniu because the two little buns on her head were always tied with plaid hair scrunchies. She was lively and her imagination always ran wild.

She wrote that in the future, she wanted to invent a patch of ground where watermelons, pumpkins, and cantaloupes could all grow on a single vine, so she could eat lots of different fruits all at once.

Most fruit in the small village came from the mountains or was grown by the villagers themselves. Fruits like cantaloupes were common in cities, but the village’s small convenience store didn’t sell them; one had to go to town or order them online for delivery. It wasn’t that the students had never tasted cantaloupe, but they had it rarely, and they certainly couldn’t just order takeout anytime they wanted like city kids.

Last semester, Wen Yan had ordered several cantaloupes online and had them delivered to the town. The students had eagerly volunteered to help him fetch them, and in the end, a student’s parent hauled them back. Wen Yan originally intended to share some with the children in his class and keep two for himself, but when the rest of the school’s children heard there was food, they all crowded around after class to join the excitement. Too embarrassed to hoard them, he sliced up every single melon so everyone could have a bite.

Hua Niuniu was a foodie, and the sweetness of that slice of melon from last time was undoubtedly lingering in her dream.

Wen Yan smiled knowingly as he read, but when his eyes reached the comment below, his smile instantly froze.

【How could such a vine ever exist? Stop dreaming. Besides, is your family a landlord? If not, how are you going to pay rent if you go around planting random things? This village of yours is so small and poor; your family must not have much money. You’d be better off marrying into a decent family after graduating from junior primary school to help support your household. And another thing: is this place a private school? Why does such a tiny village have a schoolhouse? What is package delivery? What is a supermarket? Am I still among the living or what? Could it be that I’m dead, and this is the underworld? Do people still have to study in the underworld???】

In the Republic of China, junior primary school referred to the first through fourth grades of primary education.

This time, the handwriting was indeed far less messy. But setting aside Shen Po pretending to understand things and giving nonsensical feedback at first, by the end, he had simply scribbled down all of his own confusions since arriving here.

He still thought he was sleepwalking through the netherworld!

The dream in the second essay was much more mainstream: the student wrote that they wanted to become a scientist and develop controlled nuclear fusion.

The child had likely picked up the term last week when Wen Yan explained current events to them. Knowing what the words were without understanding what they meant, the primary schooler had simply thrown it into the essay without having any clue what controlled nuclear fusion actually was.

Naturally, Shen Po had even less idea what controlled nuclear fusion was, so he had written out a long, rambling string of complaints and confusion underneath.

The third essay, the fourth essay… it was the exact same story.

Since he could not erase these remarks, Wen Yan could only hurry through each essay and plan to go over them during class critique, deciding he would simply confiscate the compositions instead of returning them to the students.

By the time he finished, he did not have much time left. Wen Yan could only squeeze in a quick glance at his phone while washing up.

A glance was all it took for Wen Yan to nearly swallow his toothpaste.

Somehow, Shen Po had discovered his phone last night. Not knowing how to use it, he had accidentally triggered facial recognition and unlocked it, only to open a messaging app, tap around aimlessly, and spam Wen Yan’s buddy with hundreds of stickers and gibberish.

When his friend woke up this morning to find his phone bombarded, he asked Wen Yan what kind of crazy fit he was throwing.

Wen Yan: “…”

He hastily checked his phone. Fortunately, Shen Po had not sent anything to group chats or unfamiliar contacts, having only harassed his college roommate.

Wen Yan had no choice but to make up a casual excuse, claiming he had gotten a cat, forgotten to lock his screen before going to bed, and the cat had randomly tapped all over it.

Buddy: 【Last time you said you were working yourself half to death every day. Where’d you find the leisure to keep a cat?】

Wen Yan: 【…It’s not mine. A stray wandering around.】

Having cleaned up the mess, Wen Yan felt mentally exhausted before the day had even properly begun.

Thankfully, he had not set up facial recognition payments on his shopping apps, or he might have woken up to find a mountain of purchased goods.

Throughout the entire day, Wen Yan spent his breaks during classes wondering what to do tonight.

There was virtually no entertainment out here, so Young Master Shen was bound to be bored out of his mind. He had to find some distraction to catch his attention.

Online gaming? The cellular signal was poor and dropped constantly, requiring mobile data. Wen Yan was not worried that Shen Po would not know how to play; he was worried that once Shen Po learned, he would burn through the entire month’s data allowance overnight.

Online shopping? That was out of the question too. Wen Yan knew his meager savings could not possibly survive Young Master Shen’s squandering.

His college roommate probably did not have to work this morning, as he kept chattering on about random nonsense. Just as Wen Yan thought about ending the conversation with this chatterbox, a flash of inspiration hit him, sparking a great idea.

Didn’t Shen Po love to complain and comment? Judging by how much he had written everywhere, he had to be a restless chatterbox himself. In that case, why not register a Weibo account for him so he could leave comments and engage in verbal battles with strangers? Forget two or three in the morning; even all night long, there were plenty of people online ready to argue with him. Besides, the platform was full of news, which would naturally help him learn about what had happened over the decades without Wen Yan having to waste his breath explaining it all.

Right, plus free platforms like Zhihu^[2] and Xiaohongshu^[3]. He could register several for him, letting the man immerse himself completely in the world of the smartphone so he would not have time to cause trouble.

Considering that Pinyin^[4] was only invented after the founding of the country, the only input method Shen Po could use was handwriting. Wen Yan carefully wrote down instructions explaining how to operate the phone, how to type, how to post comments, and so forth.

Fearing that Shen Po might harass his WeChat contacts again or send something inappropriate, Wen Yan logged out of all his messaging apps before going to bed. Without the passwords, Shen Po naturally would not be able to log back in.

With everything prepared, Wen Yan felt he could finally get a good night’s rest and experience that grand Shanghai in his “dreams.”

He was even somewhat looking forward to what Shen Po would post on those platforms, and what the man would do upon seeing the detailed operating guide for the phone.