"The Prehistoric Survival Manual: Written by an Engineer"
The sky smelled different.
When Li Xiu opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was not the sky’s brightness or the canopy of unfamiliar leaves above him, but the scent—earthy, humid, sharp like crushed bark and smoke.
Then came the pain.
A dull ache pulsed behind his temples, like someone had struck him with a rock. He sat up groggily, wincing as dizziness made his vision swim.
His hands were small.
His arms—thin. His feet bare, caked with dried mud.
He looked down at his body. It was… wrong.
Too small. Too light. Like the limbs of a malnourished child.
And then, the memories hit.
Not his memories.
Not all at once, but in fragments—mud huts and fire pits, cold streams and stone knives. A hunting spear too heavy to lift. A group of children laughing and shouting, calling him names in a tongue that he somehow understood.
“Mu,” they called him.
“Grass-Eater.”
“Idiot.”
“The one who spits meat.”
Li Xiu clutched his head, panting.
This wasn’t a dream.
He had died. Or perhaps not quite died—but his body was gone. Left behind in some sterile lab, slumped over a desk cluttered with microgrid diagrams and empty coffee cups. And now, somehow, he had awoken in this world—no, in this body.
The village was already awake. Smoke curled from cooking fires, and the scent of roasted meat drifted from the central pit. Women with painted faces stirred thick broth in stone pots. Men returned from the morning hunt dragging the carcass of something that looked like a cross between a deer and a boar, its tusks nearly as long as a man’s arm.
A tall man—broad-shouldered, dark-eyed—spotted him and sneered.
“Mu,” he barked, tossing something at his feet. A hunk of half-raw meat.
“Eat, before the dogs do it for you.”
Li Xiu stared at the meat, throat dry.
It stank. He could see flies already gathering at the edges, and the fat was still twitching from leftover nerve reflexes. His stomach turned.
He remembered, vaguely, that Mu—the original owner of this body—had always refused meat. Or more precisely, his body had refused it. Sensitive digestion. Vomiting. Nausea. The tribe believed it was weakness. Uselessness. A soul not worth calling back from the womb.
But the original Mu hadn’t been able to explain it.
Li Xiu could.
He understood the importance of balance, of nutrition, of edible plants rich in minerals. He remembered how certain roots could be dried into powder, how leaves could be used to prevent infection.
But in this world, none of that mattered.
Meat was the food of warriors.
Meat was the gift of the gods.
Chewing leaves? That was for deer. Or worse, for idiots like him.
Still, hunger gnawed at him.
He turned from the meat and wandered toward the outer edge of the village, where the moss grew thick and the children rarely played. He crouched by a familiar patch of herbs—low-growing stalks with broad, silvery leaves.
He recognized the scent: wild yarrow.
Good for digestion. Slightly bitter. Edible.
He plucked a handful and chewed thoughtfully, ignoring the whispers that followed him.
“There goes the grass-boy again.”
“Is he even human?”
“He must be cursed.”
Li Xiu didn’t reply.
He sat on a flat stone beside the creek, watching the water ripple past, chewing slowly.
His mind, though disoriented, remained sharp.
This body might be young, small, and weak—but it had survived. For years. Alone in a tribe that mocked it. Somehow, Mu had lived with nothing but plants and scraps, instincts, and a strange sense of calm.
And now, Li Xiu had inherited all that.
He looked down at his stained hands, then at the huts in the distance, smoke curling against the morning sky.
This wasn’t the life he had planned.
But maybe… just maybe…
It was a life he could rebuild.
Not through hunting. Not through violence or brute strength. But through something far more enduring.
Knowledge.
And if all he had, for now, were weeds and roots and a brain full of engineering theory—
Then so be it.
The idiot boy who ate grass would
