Three Kingdoms Prologue

February 9th.

"Huh?"

Time stopped.

I had been staring blankly as Jeong-mi swallowed a pill and headed inside, and Hye-yun was frozen mid-embrace, still smiling against me.

"Dimensional experience? Moderate difficulty?"

Something about it felt off. But if I kept coasting through the situation as it stood, I had a feeling I'd regret it five years from now. I hesitated for a moment.

What kind of place is it?

Silence. Jini, who normally jumped in to explain everything unprompted, gave no answer.

A brief moment of deliberation.

I had to go.

Aliens. That word kept gnawing at the back of my mind, leaving a persistent unease.

"Dimensional experience."

I spoke the words, thinking of Ga Hu's dimensional experience.

Ah. So Jini really did put a safety lock in place — she was actually confirming it.

I nodded.

"Yes."

In that instant, my consciousness slipped away. And then information poured into my head.

This is…? Survive for nineteen years?

Who the hell is Hermaphroditos? I've heard of Loki… was that Greek mythology?

When I came to, I couldn't even open my eyes. Something was holding me upside down, smacking my backside over and over.

Slap. Slap.

"He's not breathing."

An old woman's voice. From how close it sounded, she was the one hitting me. The pressure was so stifling I couldn't open my eyes, couldn't even make out a face.

I must have been born as a baby.

No — more like I'd taken over the body of a child who had died. The "survive nineteen years" instruction probably meant living in this world until I reached adulthood.

"Fetch the physician!"

A young woman's voice this time, thick with urgency. And it was breaking, on the edge of tears — it made my chest ache.

I'm not breathing. Right now.

Then something clogged my airway with a crushing tightness, and I forced myself to cough.

"Khak… khak… cough—"

The old woman's voice rang out again — a high, triumphant pitch. Then the young woman burst into tears, and the whole racket of high-pitched female voices was so damn noisy I couldn't stand it.

"He's breathing!!"

"Heaven and earth, thank you!"

My head throbbed. My ass was on fire. And with those shrill women's voices ringing from every direction, I blacked out all over again.

"Ahn…"

Five years had passed since I fell into this world — this ancient world.

Born in the year 165, and already it was 170…

I stared blankly at the two little girls sparring with spears right in front of me.

Ha… I have to admit it by now. This place… is the Three Kingdoms era.

When I was born into this world, I was shocked three times over. In truth, all three were tightly intertwined.

The first shock was realizing I had landed in an ancient world. I figured that out on the third day after birth, and the moment I did, I was thrown into complete disarray.

"Ahn~ I'm your mother."

"I'm your father."

"…"

From the moment I was born, the old woman, my mother, and the maids — or so I assumed — all spoke Chinese. Chinese, pouring into my ears.

Fine. Being born in China is possible.

I vaguely planned to grow up a bit and then make my way to Korea. Dimensional experience or not, my image of China was terrible. The Korea-China War had been a nightmare, and relations with China were still at rock bottom.

I spun those plans while I couldn't open my eyes for two days — nursing, sleeping, running happy little fantasies, nursing again, over and over. Then the moment I opened my eyes, I knew something was wrong.

How? Don't tell me this is the past — the ancient past?

Logically speaking, dimensional experiences already made no sense. But I'd already been born into a child's body.

But ancient?

"Waaah!!!"

The gut instinct that this was ancient. To deny it, I desperately searched for anything modern. Ancient wooden house architecture.

Right — China still has plenty of old houses. Don't give up hope.

Ancient clothing.

Huh? Silk robes? Maybe I was born somewhere like a traditional village. I don't know yet.

I clung to denial with everything I had, but the clothes alone were suspicious. These weren't cheongsams — they were the real Chinese historical costumes you only saw in period dramas, and I'd never heard of Chinese people wearing that as everyday clothes.

Ancient food. Well, I was on breast milk, so I couldn't judge that. And food was something I could solve through the Dimensional Shop without anyone seeing, so I let it go.

Then the man who had called himself "I'm your father" walked in carrying a bamboo slip, and on the third day of my life, I gave up about ninety percent of the hope.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The shock was so great my appetite vanished entirely, but they forced the breast on me anyway. I thought my racing mind would keep me awake, but sleep crashed over me regardless.

Damn it. How am I supposed to live like this? For nineteen years, no less.

Of course I had no appetite. My abnormal reactions had a man who looked like a physician coming and going for three days, and at the tears of the woman who seemed to be my mother, I had to start acting like a healthy baby again.

Nineteen years in a place this uncomfortable? Prison would have been better.

The second shock came when I realized this was the world of the Three Kingdoms.

From the bamboo slips alone, I figured it had to be at least before 300 AD. Spring and Autumn? Han? Wei-Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties? I didn't know Chinese history that deeply. I tried to pin down the era from the names I overheard, but even that was hard.

Xiang Yu, Liu Bang?

At least I'd heard plenty about those two from my parents. So I figured it was after the Han dynasty — but the problem was I didn't know a single figure from the Western Han, Eastern Han, or the Wei-Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties periods.

Around the time I turned two, I started piecing things together one by one and learned this was the Eastern Han. When the sly little girl next door said her name was Jo Un, I was still only half-convinced. Same village, same birthday even. Jo Un — a name far too familiar. Even hearing that name, I couldn't immediately be sure this was the Three Kingdoms era.

Because Jo Un was a girl.

But as I passed one year and approached two, I overheard my parents talking about the Proscription of the Partisans — and that was when I became certain this was the Three Kingdoms. Only then did I start letting go of my doubts about the girl next door being that Jo Un, and the conviction grew stronger by the day.

The third shock was realizing that the genders of men and women had been swapped.

Jo Un of Jo-ga-chon, Jinjeong-hyeon, Sangsan-gun. There was no other child named Jo Un — but the idea that male and female genders had been reversed was so enormous I couldn't even bring myself to be sure of it.

Around that time, my father heard of a friend's death in Zhuo Commandery and went there, bringing back the man's daughter. The only ones who had survived the bandits were a four-year-old girl and one or two maids.

A little girl.

The moment I saw her, I had no choice but to accept that, in this era, the genders of at least some people had been reversed.

"Hello. I'm Jang Bi. Nice to meet you."

Hearing the name of that cute little child peeking shyly from behind my father, I was certain.

If the genders are swapped, then what? Are Diaochan and the Two Qiaos of Jiangdong men?

I'd been looking forward to seeing Diaochan and the Two Qiaos… the despair of that realization. Fortunately, last month I heard that my mother's cousin was Wang Yun, and that gave me a sliver of hope.

Because that meant Wang Yun was a man.

Crack. Crack.

Fast. Far too fast for girls who were only five years old — they swung their staves at each other with blistering speed.

An even match. There was almost no gap in skill between them. Jang Bi had inherited her family's martial arts, and Jo Un's main house ran a spear hall right here in Sangsan. Jang Bi favored cutting motions; Jo Un, by contrast, thrust more often. But with the spear arts of the Zhang family, the Zhao family, and Jo Un's mother of the Nie family all mixed together, both girls' movements were richly varied.

In the clearing on the back mountain, three of us were watching the spar: Jo Un's mother Seop Yeong, Jang Bi's maid Jang Hwa, and me.

Jang Hwa was a maid, but she was also a disciple who had learned the family martial arts from Jang Bi's father. A student raised specifically so that, if anything happened, she could pass the arts on to Jang ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Bi. Jang Hwa was faithfully carrying out that role of transmitting the Zhang family martial arts.

"Hah! Surrender, Un! You can't match my strength!"

"Hmph. You surrender. Ahn is mine today."

The two of them, hair in double buns, pressed their staves together, foreheads nearly touching, and growled at each other while the two women looking on laughed as if it were the most entertaining thing in the world.

Ugh, my head…

Chaehyang. That damn Chaehyang was the problem. It had erupted while all five of us were studying in the same room. Hearing Jini's voice for the first time in four and a half years had been a brief joy — then pure awkwardness.

At the time: Seop Yeong was nineteen, Jang Hwa eighteen, plus Jo Un and Jang Bi. All four of them got hit with Chaehyang head-on. And then the real problem — my mother came into the room to check on our studies and walked straight into it herself.

Wang Yeon, also nineteen at the time.

Seop Yeong, Jang Hwa, and Wang Yeon were all modern-standard beauties. But in this era, and in the Central Plains, their type wasn't particularly prized. At least in Jizhou and Sili, the ideal was a plump woman — the Yang Guifei look, by later standards. Maybe that was why, when I kept clinging to them out of pure attraction to their looks, Seop Yeong and Jang Hwa doted on me all the more.

I wouldn't have needed to use Chaehyang at all.

"Young master. The young lady has improved a great deal, hasn't she?"

"Yeah. Haah. I just don't have the talent."

"Ahn. Don't you worry. Your talent isn't bad at all. Those two are just unnatural."

The fencing talent that had belonged to the dead child whose body I now occupied helped to some degree — but even so, my spear work didn't reach even half of Jang Bi's or Jo Un's.

Jang Hwa came over, popped a piece of fruit into my mouth, and plopped down beside me. Not to be outdone, Seop Yeong sat on the other side and stroked my hair. She leaned in close to my ear and whispered.

"I'm almost twenty already, Ahn."

"I turned nineteen yesterday."

I blankly ignored their whispers and watched the two girls, still swinging their staves without rest even though they were exhausted.

"We're in mourning."

Mourning. Last year, my father had gone out on a trading journey and died. That was why I was wearing white mourning clothes, and why Seop Yeong and Jo Un — who had also lost their father on that same journey — were dressed in white as well.

"Ahn. Last week I saw you and Sister Yeon… doing that."

I nodded. Jang Hwa nodded along beside her, and my head started throbbing.

So she saw me with Mother. And she saw my cock too…

"Young master, I'm over nineteen. I've passed the age Master Hua Tuo spoke of."

My temples pounded. When I was born, Hua Tuo had examined me once.

— This child is born with abundant yang energy. He will come into contact with many women and will need to release his lust frequently — from the moment he produces semen, which should be about five years from now. But take care: the yin energy of women who have not yet turned nineteen that year is impure and fatal. Consider their ages carefully.

Surrounded by Seop Yeong and Jang Hwa, my skull was throbbing — but Jang Bi and Jo Un's spar seemed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have ended, so I brightened and walked toward them.

"Talk to Wang Yeon first. You two and I can discuss this later."

They both nodded quickly, smiles spreading across their faces.

"Hah… hah…"

They collapsed. The two girls, unable to settle a winner, dropped to the ground panting.

My lifelines.

This was probably another of the Constellation's blessings, but with Jo Un and Jang Bi on my side, I at least didn't have to worry about the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

"Ahn! Tell us — who won?"

Beaming, the two girls ran over and threw themselves into my arms. I hugged them both and pinched their cheeks. Soft, plump cheeks that stretched like sticky rice cakes.

"Draw. Come on. Today the three of us play. Once we move, we won't see this place anymore — let's climb the hill and look down over the village."

"Tch… fine."

"Okay, Ahn."