1 New Life

(Modern-day)

Meng Ho was walking down the street enjoying his day, he recently found out his score for a recent exam he had just taken, he needed to get at least an 80% and his score was 89%, looks like the studying he did wasn't wasted, anyone who didn't pass the exam automatically failed the class and would need to retake it the next semester.

In a happy mood, he decided that he would go out and treat himself, walking down to the local shopping mall to treat himself to a meal, perhaps he would go a bit crazy and reward himself with a new video game.

(couple hours later)

Full-on chicken and carrying a new release game he was making his way home when he suddenly heard a growling noise behind him! turning around he noticed three dogs standing right behind him looking fierce, they looked like they hadn't eaten in weeks and had deranged looks in their eyes.

That was when he remembered that he had just eaten a bunch of chicken! he probably smelt amazing right now! and having just finished eating he still had a layer of grease on himself from all the food that he had just eaten.

The next few moments were a brutal fight for survival for the Meng Ho! rushed suddenly by the small pack of dogs! he hesitated, they each pounced on him, sinking their fangs deep into his skin! as they struggled, they pulled flesh off of his body!

In a state of shock, he couldn't believe what was happening to himself, failing to realize the dogs were lunging once again at him, he was pushed to the ground! the dogs mauling him in any way they could.

He struggled on the ground kicking and punching the starving dogs, trying to fend them off the best that he could. Soon his body was covered with blood and he started to feel lightheaded, he see the blood slowly leaking from the many bite wounds that he had.

With a sudden burst of strength, he stood up screaming! fighting the dog off, he managed to grab one of them, raising the dog high into the air! he started smashing it into a tree! over and over again he smashed the dog until it finally stopped moving.

With the other two dogs still latched onto his body attempting to pull him back to the ground, he kick one away and then mounted the other, forcing it to the ground! he wailed on the animal! his fist caving in the dog's skull from the repeated punches.

The last dog once again pounced on him, the pair struggling on the ground, Meng Ho managed to get behind the beast as they struggled, as he wrapped his arms around its neck he started to squeeze as hard as he could! what felt like forever the dog's struggles slowly started to calm down, then the dog went limp. Not wanting to take any chances he continued to choke the dog long after it had stopped struggling.

In his entire life, he has never once been in a fight, and today of all days he would have to fight a life and death battle! against a bunch of crazed dogs. Badly hurt and feeling lightheaded his body slowly fell to the ground.

"N-No, I can't die here..."

"HELP! ANYBODY! PLEASE!!!", shouted Meng.

He had used the last of his strength yelling and now could only helplessly lay on the ground, his blood could still be seen slowly leaving his body from the many bite wounds.

(Ancient China, 253 B.C)

Meng opened his eyes and observed the area around him, he was laying down on an old dirty blanket next to a shack. Looking at his hands he could tell that something was wrong with his body, his hands were too small to be his. (5 years old)

Out of nowhere, he howled in pain as a wave of memories entered his brain, the memories of this body were painfully mixing with the memories of his past life. Unable to handle the pain he passed out.

Waking up later in the day, he found that he could remember this body past memories, he was a young boy named Meng, his mother had died of illness when he was still a baby, his father worked his best to provide for him but was forced to enlist in the military when the last war broke out, many men from his village were forced to join the military, and for two long years, the families left behind never heard a word from them.

For two years the old Meng was only able to live thanks to the kindness of the local villagers, and finally, after those two long years the men from the village could be seen coming home! the villagers happy with their return came out to greet them. When the men left the village their were hundreds of them from all over the area, now less than twenty had returned, Meng's father wasn't amongst them.

From his memories, he knew that the boy had waited all day along with a few other children, hoping that their fathers would still return, he recalled that among the many children there were two that stood out to him.

Although they were a lot younger than when he had read about them, he could still recognize their faces, they were the children's versions of Shin and Hyou. He remembered what happened next as well, the village leader came and talked to the young children, he had talked with various adults from other villages and had managed to find couples that would be willing to raise some! of them.

Half the children gathered here were able to find new homes, sadly a lot of men from the local villages had died and many families couldn't afford to feed any new mouths, they were struggling to feed their own children.

Meng could only helplessly stay behind as the lucky children found new homes, next he saw that Shin, Hyou, and the village leader talking, he listened as they walked away, it seems that Shins and Hyous fathers had once helped save the Village leader when bandits had attacked him, he clearly intended to look after the young boys.

The homeless children could only helplessly watch as the others left, for the next few months they would live off of the kindness of others, eventually, they learned to steal or follow the examples of older children and do odd jobs around the villages to earn food. At night they would huddle together in between shacks to help keep themselves warm or to stay out of the rain and wind.

The old Meng was out trying to steal food when he was caught by the owner and was beaten, dragging his body back to hide in the space between the shacks he passed out, resulting in the future Meng taking over the body.

(A Few Years Later, 250 B.C)

Now eight-year-olds, Meng over the last few years had grown up with the local homeless children, having the mind of an adult, he took it upon himself to help look after the younger children, sadly a few of them hadn't made it, some got sick and died, while others got hurt and died from infection, thanks to him at least none had starved to death.

(flashback)

Since he was six years old he would do odd jobs around the village to earn a little bit of money, eventually, he was able to barely save up enough money to buy an old Hen.

Being too poor he couldn't afford to buy a rooster with it but he was able to solve that problem by sneaking into the farmers' place at night and allowing nature to take its course between his Hen and the farmers' Rooster.

Less than a month later and he had new baby chicks running around, lucky for him old Mama Hen could still kick em out, and once again she was a proud mother hen. About six months later he was seven years old, the chicks had grown up, and he now had a couple of roosters and four hens.

(End of flashback)

I'm now eight years old, with hard work I now have twenty Hens and five Roosters, there were a couple more roosters but I and my kids (the other orphans) had gotten hungry and eaten a couple, I wouldn't touch the Hens, they were worth far too much, as long as I had a couple of roosters I would be fine, any extra I could just eat.

My plan was to keep breeding the Hens until I had enough, then I would start using them to cook with, I would open up a small little shop and serve meals, I knew how to make basic chicken stock for soups and had learned some decent recipes in my past life. In couple more years I figured I'd have enough chickens to then open up my own restaurant.

For now, I could sell any of the unfertilized eggs, I could boil them and whatever I and the kids couldn't eat I could sell in town to earn a little bit of money. A boiled egg wouldn't be as fancy as what the others were selling but any passerby could quickly crack one open and eat it on the go.

I was also keeping any large feathers that fell of the hens and roosters, I would keep them all together and then sell them to local hunters to be used as fletching for their arrows. Not ideal since they are smaller than other feathers but since I had no need for them and was willing to sell them at a very cheap price that the hunters reluctantly bought them.

As I watched over kids as they play around the village I would sometimes run into Shin and Hyou working on a farm or practicing with sticks having a mock battle, occasionally I and my kids (orphans I am taking care of) would join them, we would even occasionally roam around the area and visit other villages as a small group, carrying sticks we would occasionally terrorize the other children to provoke them into having mock battles with us, occasionally we would have rock wars against the other village children as well.

It was fun times, as long as you wouldn't mind the occasional bump on the head or busted toe where a rock had landed on it, a good hit would even cause your toenail to fall off! most of the time they would grow back about a year later but sometimes they wouldn't, but we didn't mind, they were battle scars.

(248 B.C)

*Early Morning*

Waking up inside an old beaten up shack early in the morning before the sun had risen had become a routine for me, I would quickly wash myself using a large bowl filled with water and an old rag, then I would change into a clean pair of clothes which should have been folded and placed on a homemade shelf but sadly today there wasn't one there, heading outside to a homemade clothesline I found a clean set of clothes hanging there, looks like the kids forgot to bring them in last night.

Them still being kids I couldn't be too mad at them, I'm just glad that one of the girls, most likely Dai Chao, she's two years older than me (she is twelve) and is likely the only one responsible enough to at least remembered to wash them, and hang them out to dry before sleeping last night. Gathering all the hanging clothes I brought them in and folded them. Heading out back I went to a large pit that the kids had dug up, it was surrounded by wooden stakes to help keep wild animals away at night.

I hoped one day to buy some wooden boards and replace the floors and dirt walls with wooden ones, the roof right now was just made of straw, being held up by large sticks, but it kept the rain out and helped keep the area warm.

Going around I gathered all the eggs and then picked up the old hen, she wasn't laying as many eggs and heading outside, walking a good ways away from the shack I quickly ended the poor hen and went about plucking her feathers and then breaking down her body into sections, using an old chefs knife that I managed to purchase for cheap, it had been sharpened so many times that there wasn't much left to it, but still, I valued it and was putting it to good use.

With the old Hen broken down into two breasts, wings, legs, and thighs. I had a leftover carcass that I could make good chicken stock with, strapping an old table to my back and grabbing a large pot filled with bowls and other utensils I headed out to the local market, behind me I could hear Dai running to catch up, she had been helping more and more lately.

On the outskirts of the market, away from all the fancy stalls and stores, we set up our table and got a fire started, filled the pot with water, and threw in the chicken bones.

With the sun rising now we walked around to the local produce sellers to buy some ingredients to add to our soup, and so began our epic battle with old ladies trying to talk down the prices. Having managed to get a good deal on some herbs, seasonings, and vegetables we made our way back to the table. After washing and peeling the vegetable I placed them aside and put the scraps into the soup pot, I would let that cook for the next few hours.

Cooking some eggs and vegetables I quickly headed back home to feed the kids while Dai watched the pot. There were originally eight of us but over the last few years that had risen to fifteen. It seems a skirmish had broken out on the border and some of the parents who went never returned.

Haven heard that someone in this village was willing to help orphans, the ones that couldn't find families to take care of them naturally came here or were brave or dumb enough to try to live on their own. Children wandering alone were easy prey for bandits, who would end up doing cruel things to them.

Haven fed the kids I quickly kicked them out of the house and sent them on their way to the local River. I discovered that this river bed contained a small amount of gold in it, having shown the kids how to pan for gold, they were in charge of going out each day in secret, to go panning.

Even with fifteen of them panning, they rarely found anything, occasionally they would find a few large pieces but that was rare. If only I had the money I could hire a bunch of people and open a mine, small amounts of gold were being washed into the river, so the area likely had some gold hidden deep underground, if not here, then maybe farther upstream a few hundred miles.

At first, he had dreams of saving up and starting his own mine but quickly squashed that idea, if the officials ever found out about it I'm sure that I would end up dead and the gold mine would just end up in the hands of the rich or Royalty.

Before long I returned to the table we used as a makeshift stall and separated the chicken bones from the rest of the stock, I then cooked rice and mixed in fresh vegetables and herbs with chicken stock, the soup would cook for a while, and then it would be ready to serve.

Soon it was ready and we started selling the soup, thanks to a good harvest this season, the local farmers were selling rice at a good price, the soup had more rice than usual and had plenty of vegetables.

I don't claim to be a great cook but I was still proud of my cooking, and despite the shabby little table, we still had a few loyal customers who would come sit down at the table and have a bowl each day, and chat with Dai about various topics. I don't blame them, in a few years you could tell that she would grow up to become a beautiful woman.

We were packing up for the day when the village leader came by to request the monthly taxes. Grumbling under my breath I could only hand over some money to the village leader, the chubby man wasn't as bad as some of the other village leaders and only slightly raised the taxes, so that he could pocket it himself.

From the past he remembered that the man wasn't really too bad, he would often try to help find homes for the orphaned children.

It wasn't uncommon for other village leaders to be complete tyrants that oppressed the people, Meng was lucky this one was only slightly greedy but was still a decent person, he was even on good terms with the man, as he would sometimes visit Shin and Hyou at his place, but still who enjoys losing money.

Having pact up and returned home, we once again fed the children, they found out how much they had gathered today, I then assigned them various chores to do around the place.

I then went outside with a bow and some arrows. Thanks to local hunters in the area I was able to have some arrows made from chicken feathers for free, thanks to the low prices I charged for chicken feathers the Hunters would occasionally make me a few arrows.

Feathers helped stabilize an arrow as it traveled through the air, it is far better to fire an arrow with fletching than to fire one without it, even if you have to use chicken feathers, ideally, you would want to use larger feathers from other animals, but you took what you could get.

The local hunters' thanks to me had secret supplies of feathers they could get at cheap prices and I could have arrows made to practice with.

For the next hour, I practiced shooting, then I switched to a homemade club that I had carved into the shape of a sword. It was far too thick and heavy but it was a good way to practice while building my muscles.

I am currently ten years old, I know that it isn't uncommon for young men as old as thirteen to be drafted into the military and sent off to the front lines. So I trained my archery and tried to strengthen my arms as much as I could. Lastly, I started jogging around the village until it became too dark.

I would then end the day with Dai and the rest of the kids.