According to Lorin's requirements, the best grain to carry to other dimensions should be active, meaning it's better to bring wheat instead of flour, and rice seeds instead of processed rice. However, these items are not something you'd typically find in regular stores. Huang Xuan didn't dare delay—who knew if Lorin might change his mind at the last minute?
First, he rented two nearby warehouses through Li Shengang, then headed to his mother's company, where he dragged Secretary Lou to a meeting room and said, "Brother Lou, I need a favor. Help me get dozens of tons of grain."
"Grain?" Lou Ping looked puzzled. He was holding meeting notes, already thinking about whom to delegate the work to, and asked, "Why do you need grain?"
"Don't ask. I'm asking for your help," Huang Xuan replied, slightly impatient. "If it's convenient for you, can you run this errand for me?" Huang Xuan clasped his hands in a pleading gesture, and Lou Ping, unable to refuse, said, "Alright, just wait a moment while I delegate my work."
"Sure, I'll wait here." Huang Xuan sat on the sofa.
Lou Ping was someone who couldn't tell one grain from another, let alone differentiate between rice, millet, or wheat. However, he had his ways. Without needing Huang Xuan's input, within half a day, he called and said, "Huang Xuan, your request is a bit unusual. I asked a few friends, and they suggested seed grain. It's a bit expensive, though."
"Expensive is fine," Huang Xuan, anxious, quickly agreed. "I need 100 tons. Please make sure it's good quality and get it delivered quickly."
"No problem, it'll take a maximum of three days," Lou Ping replied, feeling pleased with how smoothly things were going. He felt that his relationship with the company heir had just gotten closer. He added happily, "I found two companies that can do it at 6,800 yuan per ton. Is that alright?"
Three days felt too long for Huang Xuan. Rubbing his neck, he decisively said, "Let's make it 7,000 yuan per ton and have them rush it. Deliver it directly to the warehouse by noon tomorrow. How does that sound?"
After a brief pause, during which Lou Ping seemed to be discussing with others, he replied, "They said that's fine. They'll start shipping tonight."
"Great. I'll wait for your good news." Huang Xuan then gave the warehouse address and reminded, "Brother Lou, please make sure the grain is genuine. Quality over quantity."
Lou Ping assured him repeatedly, and only then did Huang Xuan hang up the phone and start packing his bags.
He packed plain clothes, avoiding anything too fashionable. He left behind his watch and necklace, and even had the butler buy him a pair of cloth shoes, which he promptly put on. Looking in the mirror, he saw a plain gray shirt and fabric pants, making him look timeless. He thought it over and added a pack of aspirin and cold medicine to his bag, carefully scraping off the labels with a knife.
After a restless night, Huang Xuan rose early the next morning, grabbed his small bag, and rushed into the backyard pavilion. He found the teleportation area and stepped in. A flash of white light later, he was back at the base.
The featureless white room was the same, but Huang Xuan's mindset was entirely different. Carrying his small bag like a visiting guest, he eagerly looked around. "Lorin, has the grain arrived? Are we ready to go?"
"It has been delivered," Lorin confirmed. "Shall we depart now?"
"Absolutely." Huang Xuan could barely contain his excitement, waving his arms enthusiastically. "Let's go!"
The base trembled slightly, and Huang Xuan vanished into the air, leaving behind the metallic sounds of buttons and zippers that Lorin, conserving energy, left behind.
Huang Xuan, unaware that his pants were now missing buttons, gleefully looked around. The dimensional passage was as vibrant and colorful as ever, dazzling in its brilliance.
It was hard to tell how much time had passed before his vision blurred, and the kaleidoscope of the passage gave way to a rural landscape. Lorin's hollow voice announced, "P154T1061937W4348, arrival."
Huang Xuan's legs felt weak as he stepped forward to survey his surroundings. He appeared to be on a small hill, with smoke rising in the distance. The sky was clear, the streams were babbling, and the hill was covered in lush greenery. The trees were ordinary, and there was no sign of organized planting, yet the greenery felt so natural and harmonious—something artificial landscapes could never achieve.
"The grain has been transported here and is temporarily stored within the passage. However, it cannot remain there for more than three days," Lorin informed him. Ideally, Lorin could have transported the supplies at the exact moment needed, but due to the base's current limitations, the grain had to be transported all at once. The grain could be stored temporarily at the passage's entrance, which was only possible now, in the aftermath of the temporal disturbance. During the heyday of dimensional exchange, there would have been no room for such storage at the entrance.
Huang Xuan, oblivious to the complexities involved, grinned as he continued to survey the area. "So I need to find a buyer within three days?"
"That would be a correct interpretation."
"OK." Huang Xuan was confident in his social skills, believing that as long as the grain wasn't overpriced, it should sell easily. Glancing around, he began walking toward the smoke in the distance.
Along the way, Lorin continued gathering information, occasionally chiming in:
"The dimension is in a post-temporal disturbance phase, with no signs of colonization."
...
"The current timeframe is equivalent to the standard year 1927, within the geographic region of Jiaxing, China."
Huang Xuan let out a sigh of relief. His biggest fear was being teleported to some foreign country where his broken English wouldn't do him much good. Knowing he was still in China put his mind at ease.
Information gathering was a fundamental skill for a temporal warden. Not every dimension was lucky enough to survive the temporal disturbance disaster. The dimension Huang Xuan came from still had a low-level observation base, but the current dimension, P154, had been wiped clean. After two scans, Lorin found no traces of dimensional technology, so he began feeding Huang Xuan information about this dimension.
Much like P112, P154 had developed anew after the temporal disturbance. Due to the principle of temporal similarity, the culture, geography, and other aspects of this dimension were remarkably similar to Huang Xuan's own. While the timeline might not be perfectly accurate, the high degree of temporal similarity (112154) meant that without dimensional interference, P154 could be considered a twin of P112.
Lorin used P112 as a model to predict P154. This era lacked electronic records, and while Lorin could read regular documents and even scan vast areas of the planet, all of this required significant energy. Energy was the foundation of the dimensional era—without energy, nothing could be accomplished. Therefore, Lorin had only scanned the local area, comparing it to his data bank.
Huang Xuan continued walking toward the smoke, but the rural roads were uneven, and though there was a path for vehicles, the dust kicked up by passing cars left him covered in grime. The smoke in the distance, which had seemed close, was actually several kilometers away—a journey that, in the 21st century, would have spanned several bus stops. Normally, Huang Xuan would either hail a taxi or find some other mode of transportation, but now he was forced to walk, and it felt like his legs were weighed down with lead.
"How much farther?" After walking another few dozen meters, Huang Xuan finally couldn't take it anymore and plopped down on a nearby ridge, no longer caring about his clothes.
"About a kilometer," Lorin quickly calculated and provided the answer.
Huang Xuan exhaled heavily, as if trying to expel all the exhaustion from his legs. He rubbed his legs, then stood up again. Sitting here wasn't going to help, so he pushed on, head down, trudging along. The novelty of being in a new place had worn off, leaving only the determination to reach his destination.
Perhaps to give Huang Xuan some mental encouragement, Lorin began narrating information about the current region in his trademark monotone: "We are currently in Ganpu Town, Haiyan County, Jiaxing Prefecture, Zhejiang Province, equivalent to the standard year 1927. What kind of information would you like?"
"How to make money," Huang Xuan grumbled. "At least you didn't drop me in some godforsaken wilderness, or I'd never find my way out."
Lorin didn't pick up on the sarcasm and responded, "Although the entry point is random, adjustments can be made to ensure proximity to previously possible entry points, so the chances of ending up in a wilderness are low."
"Oh?" Huang Xuan muttered, "Previously possible entry points? You mean from previous dimensional travelers?"
"Yes," Lorin confirmed before quickly adding, "The current danger level in the vicinity is rated K6. According to the records of Standard Dimension P001, the year 1927 in the standard timeline is characterized by a tendency toward large-scale conflict. The verification has already been confirmed."
"Tell me more," Huang Xuan perked up. Though he had never been interested in history class, he was now curious about his surroundings. If he was in a new era, he wanted to know what was happening.
"On April 12, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was established. On April 18, the National Government was established in Nanjing..." Lorin rattled off information like a textbook. If Huang Xuan hadn't found himself in this era, he might not have bothered to retain any of these facts. But looking at the clear skies and the pristine streams, he realized that, one way or another, he had truly stepped into a new time.
"September 9 marks the Autumn Harvest Uprising, and December 11 is the Guangzhou Uprising," Huang Xuan repeated the phrases, mulling them over. He had heard these same words from his grandfather countless times, and perhaps his father had heard them from his own grandfather. The Huang family had always been closely tied to the history and struggles of this tumultuous time.