The high-mobility military rescue vehicle raced along the rugged mountain road when a massive boulder fell ahead, causing Han Lei to instinctively jerk the steering wheel, sending the rescue vehicle plummeting off a cliff—
After a swirling chaos and intense jolts, with a "bang," the rescue vehicle finally crashed heavily onto a clearing in the mountain forest.
In the midst of the thick smell of dust, Han Lei struggled to open her eyes; the world was still spinning.
Han Lei felt dizzy, her ears buzzing loudly.
She steadied herself, reached up to adjust the helmet that had been knocked askew, and took several deep breaths, trying to calm her churning stomach.
"What bad luck!"
Han Lei muttered as she opened the car door, leaning against the hood, bewilderedly surveying the surroundings.
Then, she pulled out her phone, attempting to call for help from nearby teammates on a mission.
Suddenly, from within the dense forest ahead, the sound of a fight echoed, growing nearer.
"Has the mission been exposed?"
Han Lei muttered as she crouched to hide, her right hand instinctively reaching for the pistol at her waist.
After a moment, three men burst out from the forest.
They were dressed in ancient armor, covered in dust, fighting while retreating, flailing their longswords wildly in defense, seemingly having lost their composure.
Then, dozens of rugged-looking men wearing foreign attire chased out from the forest, brandishing shiny curved sabers.
The clash of metal rang out as longswords met curved sabers.
"Prince, watch out!" a cry of alarm.
Dozens of arrows shot out, with the three armored men striving to fend them off.
However, there were too many arrows, and two of the men were hit, their already injured bodies now bleeding profusely.
"Prince?" Han Lei's heart skipped a beat.
This is a war zone; how can there be a film crew filming nearby?
The mission briefing didn't mention this, did it?
Seeing the scene before her, Han Lei's brain short-circuited. Her mouth hung agape, eyes widened, her face painted in camouflage contorting in shock.
"Prince, you're injured. We'll hold them off; you go first."
Then, the man with an arrow in his left arm roared, shoving the man with a leg wound fiercely away, turning back into the fray with a look of fierce determination.
Just as Han Lei stood there stunned, the man with the leg wound staggered over towards the rescue vehicle, collapsing beside it.
Han Lei's pupils contracted, quickly drawing her pistol at the man, ready to shoot at any moment.
The man looked up, and Han Lei saw a bronzed face; before she could take a closer look, she smelled the faint scent of blood in the air.
"Real blood? Not acting?" Han Lei's mouth twitched as she murmured.
The man hadn't replied yet when an arrow shot rapidly towards Han Lei.
Sensing danger, Han Lei's military instincts kicked in; she sidestepped and fired a shot.
The pistol, equipped with a silencer, made a very faint "click," and the first person in the group of pursuers was shot in the neck, collapsing abruptly.
"Click! Click!"
Han Lei fired two more shots, and two pursuers fell without warning, chest armor pierced with two bloody holes.
The fierce fight halted abruptly, and the surroundings went silent; both sides stared bewilderedly at the three suddenly fallen men.
They had no idea how those three had fallen during the fight; some only saw blood flowing from three holes.
Only the Prince, closest to Han Lei, heard the faint clicking sound.
He looked in horror at Han Lei's gun with its dark muzzle, not knowing what it was.
But, being a prince, his reaction was astonishing; in just a moment, he regained composure, turning the favorable situation to his advantage.
"Our reinforcements have arrived, charge!"
The Prince shouted with effort, clutching the wound on his leg, struggling to stand and continue fighting.
The Prince's two guards heard that reinforcements had arrived and their morale soared immediately; they raised their swords and charged. The more numerous pursuers responded a beat too late and were caught off guard, suffering heavy casualties.
Seeing them fighting again, Han Lei finally glanced at the arrows stuck in the nearby tree trunk.
Earlier, those people dressed as foreigners had dared to shoot arrows at her; in anger, Han Lei fired two more shots, taking down two more.
Seeing more people fall, those pursuers dressed as foreigners ignored the counterattack from the two guards, stopped their assault, and turned to look at Han Lei in horror.
They finally realized that the person wearing the helmet, dressed in camouflage, with a face painted in variegated colors, was the reinforcements the Prince spoke of.
"What are you staring at? Want to eat some lead?" Han Lei glared at them displeased.
Han Lei hailed from Jiangnan; despite her fierce expression, her voice was soft and gentle, with no deterrent force.
The pursuers glanced at their own fallen comrades, then exchanged glances, babbled in their language, and quickly fled, leaving the Prince and the two guards behind.
When the pursuing soldiers had run far away, the two exhausted guards finally collapsed onto the ground.
"Huff, huff, huff..."
The two of them were gasping heavily, and one of them insisted on turning his head to look at the Prince.
"Prince, how are you?"
" I'm fine. You should both rest well first."
A large pool of blood had already formed at the Prince's feet, and he was weakly leaning against the emergency vehicle.
The prolonged mental strain and the battle, with a few against many, had left them utterly exhausted. What they needed most now was rest.
Han Lei was filled with confusion. After the three of them had more or less caught their breath, she retrieved three bottles of mineral water from the cab and distributed them.
"Who are you? Why are you dressed like this? And why are you being chased?"
Han Lei asked irritably, but her right hand always held the gun, not daring to relax her vigilance in the slightest.
Did she forget to check the calendar before going out today? How could she be so unlucky? On a normal mission, how did she end up encountering such a bizarre situation?
"Who are you?" the Prince answered with a question.
"Who am I? I'm a military medic!" Han Lei pointed to the red armband on her left arm. "Which unit are you from, and why are you dressed like this?"
While speaking, Han Lei bent down and picked up the Prince's longsword from the ground, flicking it with two fingers. The sword let out a soft humming sound.
This sword was real, with a sharpened edge; it didn't seem like something a film crew would use.
While Han Lei was examining the Prince's longsword, the Prince was bewildered by the red armband, unable to recognize a single simplified character on it.
"I am Prince Xiaoyao, Zhao Zun. These two are my trusted aides, Ping Chuan and Xiao Zhengfei." The Prince said calmly.
"What?" Han Lei thought she misheard.
Prince Xiaoyao? Trusted aides? Could there really be an ancient prince in front of her?
Could it be that she had also time-traveled?
Though Han Lei practiced medicine, she had never encountered such a bizarre situation.
A creepy thought suddenly sprang up in her mind, and she tentatively asked, "Hey! You're not those legendary spirits, are you?"
"What are spirits?" Trusted aide Xiao Zhengfei turned his head and looked at her in confusion.
"Don't understand? Then you probably aren't."
Han Lei mumbled to herself, denying it, as she glanced at the Prince's arrow-wounded leg.
Suddenly, Han Lei kicked the Prince's wound, causing him to inhale sharply.
"Hiss..."
While resting, Xiao Zhengfei quickly got up, drew his longsword towards Han Lei, and shouted angrily, "How dare you! What are you doing?"
Han Lei only felt a chill on her neck as a sharp sword intimately kissed her throat.
The sword was thin and sharp, with a point as sharp as a blade. The sword energy surged out, and it gleamed with a ghostly blood hue, a clear sign it had killed and drunk blood before.
"Hey! No, no, no."
Seeing the guard's anger, Han Lei quickly waved her hand and stepped back.
"Don't be angry. I just wanted to verify if you are real people."
She said, scratching her forehead and sighing, ignoring Xiao Zhengfei's anger, as she sat down against the emergency vehicle with a face full of frustration.
The sensation in the Prince's leg felt very real.
It seemed she had truly traveled through time.
It's completely unscientific!
To think that she, a capable female lieutenant and military medic from a special operations team, a staunch atheist, could time-travel for no apparent reason?
Despite binging on so many dramas and learning a bellyful of palace intrigue and household tactics, she'd somehow ended up traveling to some unidentified wilderness rather than becoming an empress or lady—how was she supposed to fight now?
Could it be that heaven wanted her to engage in... wilderness combat?
Oh well! She might as well consider it a vacation!
Just moments ago, she had been acting eccentrically, and now she quietly sat down, as if pondering something. Prince Xiaoyao, Zhao Zun, secretly signaled to Xiao Zhengfei, who then sheathed his longsword.
Han Lei sat alone in contemplation for quite a while, and after figuring it out, she finally leaned toward Zhao Zun and asked, "This... Prince. May I know which dynasty this is? Or rather, where are we?"
While fumbling with the bottle of mineral water in his hand, Zhao Zun weakly replied, "This is the Da Jing Dynasty! The fourth year of Da Jing, in Beiguan."
Zhao Zun's response left Han Lei without time to react, as suddenly a loud thud was heard from the side.
"Ping Chuan, Ping Chuan, what's wrong?"
Han Lei turned and saw that the trusted aide named Ping Chuan had collapsed to the ground, his lips darkened, with the unopened bottle of mineral water rolling to the side.
"Oh no, the arrow is poisoned."