Harano didn't know how much of a burden perilla oil was for farming families. After Yayoi left, he kept the lamp burning, squandering oil as if it were nothing.
First, it was just eight in the evening—even though he'd spent all day climbing mountains and was exhausted, he still couldn't sleep; second, given the current situation, his psychological pressure was enormous, he simply couldn't fall asleep.
Suddenly transported to the Japan Warring States Period, what should he do now?
What should he do with himself?
Right now, it's about the year 1550 or 1551 AD. Huaxia should be under the rule of the Great Ming, but which emperor is on the throne? Is his mission in crossing over supposed to be fighting the Manchus, saving Huaxia civilization?
Drawing on his solid high school history knowledge, Harano counted on his fingers for a long time, figuring it was probably the "Clean-household" Emperor Jiajing ruling now. Well... Jiajing reigned over forty years, then came the Longqing Emperor, reigned six or seven years, after that was Emperor Wanli, who ruled almost fifty years, and after Wanli there was Emperor Chongzhen, who lasted about ten years too...
Once he got to this point he couldn't calculate any further; there were still nearly a hundred years and four or five generations to go before the Manchu conquest. If he lived as long as Peng Zu, maybe he could make it—Peng Zu lived eight hundred years, though that used the "Little Jiazi" calendar: sixty days as a year, so he actually lived about a hundred thirty or forty years. Maybe he could last that long?
But even if he lived that long, fighting for the Ming against the Manchus at over a hundred years old... That would be a bit ridiculous!
So, should he go back and raise the red flag?
Mid-Ming Dynasty commoners apparently still lived decently, could barely fill their bellies, and after that there was the Zhang Juzheng reform, which eased class tensions a bit. Plus, given the current level of productivity, there was no working class yet—could you raise the red flag with only subsistence-level farmers and old-school intellectuals?
Doesn't feel like the right time, no foundation, the odds of success are slim, much higher odds of being called a demon and getting executed.
Then go back to the Great Ming, become a rich landlord, make huge money, then spread scientific theories and kick off an industrial revolution? Bit risky. You can't break without destruction; feudal dynasties probably can't handle the progress of science and technology, you'd surely face all sorts of open and hidden dangers, and it's unlikely to be as smooth as in those isekai novels.
If he died, maybe all those scientific theories would just benefit European countries, making China even worse off later. But it seems there's no other way—if he has to go down this path while treading carefully...
How to get back to the Great Ming? Just the straight-line distance is over two thousand kilometers...
And it's not like he can buy a plane ticket and be back in China in three and a half hours now.
Harano mulled things over for a while and the more he thought, the harder it seemed.
Given the transport and living conditions of this era, hitting the road solo—even with antibiotics, so illness isn't as big a fear—endless bumping around and water-soil acclimation could still kill him. Not to mention the Muromachi Shogunate had basically lost control of the country, and many peasants on land were half-bandit, half-farmer. The seas were even worse, packed with pirates and water thieves; he might not even make it to Southern Kyushu before being hacked up for soba noodles or turned into wonton filling.
Even if he was insanely lucky and made it to Southern Kyushu without a hitch, this seems still the "Kanhe Trade" period. Getting himself onto a tribute ship to the Great Ming would be a problem. This was a lucrative business—people fought to the blood every year for a spot. As a rootless foreigner, how could he get aboard an official ship?
Maybe China-Japan trade had already been cut off by now, so there wasn't even a legal way to go to the Great Ming...
Maybe try sneaking in with smugglers, but Zhu Yuanzhang's Yellow Register and Household Defense Law weren't for show—Mandarin and Ming Dynasty Chinese probably differ a lot. What if he couldn't communicate and was mistaken for a Wokou pirate and got decapitated...
No gambling on luck. That "overseas stranger" trick that's all the rage in web novels just wouldn't work. If you had no household registration or travel pass, anyone trying to blend into coastal areas would absolutely be reported—not a soul would dare take in some "overseas stranger", lest collective punishment wipe out their entire household, assets seized at best, officially labeled as colluding with pirates with the whole family enslaved at worst.
Right, he didn't have money for a boat ticket either—no way pirates or smugglers would take card payments. Even if they did, personal safety would be nonexistent. Anyone thick enough to board that kind of ship—well, what kind of people do you think pirates are? If you boarded, you'd get your ass split open halfway through and wish you were dead!
Going solo was already hell mode. Add in an unconscious, chubby, rather handsome, completely defenseless idiot son, and the difficulty went up by a factor of ten.
No matter how you sliced it, this was hell difficulty!
Harano mulled and mulled, and realized he was basically trapped in Japan, and to top it off, he was broke. Aside from his idiot son, he had no gold, no silver, not even a single copper coin.
Reality was utterly hopeless.
But he had endured plenty since childhood, and his nature was tough. Soon he forcibly squashed down all those fear, depression type negative emotions.
Sixty-four hexagrams in Zhou Yi, first is Qian—the opening line is, "As heaven moves with strength, the gentleman should strive for self-improvement."
Is being afraid going to keep you from getting beaten up? Can being depressed turn things around?
It never works out like that!
People in this world—fear, weakness, and depression are all useless. Only by facing hardship head-on and striving for self-improvement can you survive.
No matter how hard it is, you still have to keep living. Only by living is there hope. Maybe someday, when the mountain mist rises again, he can carry his idiot son home to the modern world.
Since, with current conditions, taking his idiot son directly back to the Great Ming was unrealistic and there was a 99% chance of dying en route, Harano immediately began checking his resources and changed his first goal to survival: make sure they could live safely, then worry about everything else.
He opened his hiking bag and began pulling things out.
One set of quick-dry clothes, one bottle of sports drink, one bottle of purified water, one pack of compressed biscuits, two Snickers bars, one bottle of dental gum, two large power banks, one pack of garbage bags, a small coil of rescue rope, a mini flashlight, one box of carbon fiber fishing line, an electric stick, a flare gun, one first aid kit.
The first aid kit contained: one small pack of Band-Aids, one can of Yunnan Baiyao spray, a packet of fast hemostatic powder, one roll of antiseptic bandages, one can of insect repellent, a small pack of sunburn masks, a small bottle of loratadine, one vial of epinephrine, one plate each of painkillers, antibiotics, and antipyretics, a pack of cooling gel patches, a pack of alcohol wipes.
In addition, he and his idiot son each had a smartphone, two leather wallets (containing a few banknotes, Suica cards, credit cards, membership cards), and just under half a pack of wet wipes.
This stuff would be more than enough for a short hiking trip, but for a time of chaos, it was barely adequate.
After checking everything, Harano weighed each item's usefulness. He found few useful ones, not much that could be exchanged for money, and even less that was really valuable—at best, it could ease an immediate crisis...
Still, being able to ease an immediate crisis was enough. No need to worry too much about money—if he couldn't make money with knowledge from a future era, that was impossible. The real issue was how to establish himself now and how to keep both their lives safe in this turmoil.
Personal safety came first.
His gaze swept over the medicines in the first aid kit; being a doctor might not be a bad idea—people generally didn't want to kill doctors.
On the contrary, most people liked befriending doctors, just as the Japanese Ancient Chronicles say: in life you need three kinds of friends—one, a Wise Man; two, a benefactor; three, a doctor.
With that aura, he could drop his risk of dying by at least 80% during troubled times.
Only, these medicines were in short supply—even sparing, they'd treat seven or eight people at most.
So should he treat dying noble Samurai especially?
Should he roam the war-torn land with his idiot son, seeking them out?
Harano ran through all sorts of scenarios and shot them all down, until he suddenly recalled something, hurriedly reached for his phone, and powered it on—after realizing he had almost certainly traveled through time, he'd turned it off. It was now showing just over 70% battery left.
Of course, the phone still had no signal, and those apps like the bus schedule were useless now. It couldn't even really be used as a map; after all, nearly five hundred years had passed, who knows how many times the rivers had changed course, hills probably leveled—the reference value had plummeted. At that moment, he remembered a book in his reader app.
His gaze flashed past trash books like My Girlfriend is a Villainess and Absolute Number One—which were absolutely no help now. Those guys might be isekai-d to Japan too, but at least it was the modern era—if they couldn't hack it, they could still work construction and not starve, just your garden-variety, beginner-level time travel. His situation was way worse—never mind food, they weren't even safe, and he had to care for an idiot son, with a real chance they'd get wiped out together.
His eyes finally landed on Barefoot Doctor's Manual. That was the life-saving book he needed.
He used to ask for book recs in the reading group, and once he saw people discussing the "three sacred books of time travel". Someone kindly uploaded the ebook for everyone to check out. He got curious and downloaded it for a look.
He'd glanced over Civilian Military Training Manual and Friends of Dual-Use Military and Civilian Talent, but they were no use to him. He'd never imagined he'd actually time travel one day—he peeked to satisfy his curiosity, then deleted them. But because he liked hiking, he found the Chinese medicine part of the Barefoot Doctor's Manual quite interesting, so he kept it in his reader anyways.
Now, this book was literally saving his life, in every sense.
This miracle book was unlike traditional Western medicine training—it didn't start with anatomy, pathology, or pharmacology, but focused on specific problems, simplified everything, and used the plainest language and most practical solutions to popularize disease diagnosis and treatment. It covered everything from basic observation, questioning, and pulse-taking, to acupuncture techniques, from gathering and preparing herbal medicine to hands-on Western surgery, laying it out so that "as long as you can read, you can be a barefoot doctor, able to quickly diagnose and treat 99% of common diseases."
This was a miracle book that saved hundreds of millions, and now Harano was banking on it to stay alive.
Thank you, ancestors. Thank you so much!
After checking it, Harano turned his phone off. Phone plus two large power banks would only last the phone seven to ten days on energy-saving mode. No point wasting battery—better hurry and copy the book down later.
Of course, this was the crystallization of the sages' wisdom, with formulas contributed by nearly a hundred top traditional Chinese medicine doctors. It absolutely couldn't be leaked into medieval Japan—he had to keep it secret.
He could copy it in pinyin; as long as his idiot son stayed unconscious, he'd be the only one in the world able to understand it. Even if he died, nobody need worry.
With his heart settled and the plan roughly set, Harano's fatigue gradually caught up with him. He draped his jacket over Meng Ziqi, covered himself with the quick-dry shirt, curled up into a ball, and slowly drifted off.
Let's hope idiot son wakes up naturally tomorrow!
Let's hope the mountain mists rise tomorrow and we can return to the modern world!