A clichéd time travel

PS: I'm a newbie, so please forgive any mistakes, omissions, or inaccuracies in my research, esteemed seniors! I prostrate myself in gratitude!!!

Also: Hand over your brains!!!

.......

At seven in the morning, in the Demon Capital, the streets and alleys were already bustling.

The entire city had awakened.

Pedestrians came and went like weaving threads, and traffic surged.

This was an ordinary day, and everyone was accustomed to the morning rush hour congestion.

Zhao Dongchuan rode an electric scooter, wearing a helmet, navigating through the traffic. (Friendly reminder: Wear a helmet when riding!!!)

He rode his little electric scooter, wearing headphones, listening to Jay Chou's 'The Seventh Chapter of the Night' while humming the tune.

Today was the day Zhao Dongchuan reported to his new company.

All the way, Zhao Dongchuan's heart was filled with anticipation. Uh, anticipation for what???? Thinking of the new company's curvaceous and 'fiercely cute' receptionist, he couldn't help but speed up.

A traffic light ahead was red.

Zhao Dongchuan stopped with the crowd.

He watched the traffic light count down, preparing to sprint for a good position!!!

Suddenly, Zhao Dongchuan felt the light from the traffic light become exceptionally dazzling, with a whoosh!!!

Immediately followed by the sound of screeching brakes!!!

Zzz! Zzz! Zzz!

Zhao Dongchuan only felt his vision go black...

In a blur, the last thing he saw was the 'fiercely cute' receptionist waving at him, and then he completely lost consciousness.

After an unknown amount of time, Zhao Dongchuan vaguely felt a splitting headache.

After a period of adjustment, Zhao Dongchuan slowly began to regain consciousness.

Slowly opening his eyes, his vision was blurry as he looked at a shadow in front of him. He felt as if there was a figure talking to him. The figure gradually became clear, and the voice also became distinct.

"Child, are you awake?"

In front of him was an old man dressed as a typical northern Shaanxi farmer, wearing a patched, dusty gray garment of an unclear style, clutching an old dry tobacco pipe, puffing away.

Zhao Dongchuan opened his eyes and looked around, finding himself lying on a heated brick bed, wearing tattered, dusty clothes. The walls all around were made of earth, seemingly in a dirt cave dwelling.

There was almost no furniture in the room, only a thermos and a small, wobbly table, truly a home with nothing but bare walls.

Zhao Dongchuan didn't react for a moment, looking at everything in a daze. The old man saw that he wasn't speaking, and as if knowing he didn't want to speak, he silently accompanied him, rambling on to himself.

From the old man's mouth, Zhao Dongchuan learned that the old man had found him unconscious by the roadside while returning home from work in the morning, and had carried him back to his house.

In those years, material goods were scarce, and everyone struggled to eat their fill. It wasn't uncommon for people to faint from hunger on the road. The old man, with his rich experience, knew with a touch and a look that this child had fainted from hunger.

Listening to the old man's narration, a bewildered Zhao Dongchuan's mind slowly began to play many first-person scenes like a movie. It was then that he realized he had actually... transmigrated, and into a TV series he had watched before, "ordinary world." The owner of this body was also named Zhao Dongchuan, and the old man in front of him was Sun Yuhou of Shuangshui Village.

He had actually become a member of the transmigration army!!!

To think that he, Zhao Dongchuan, was a "social animal" from a village in Jiangxi Province.

His parents were the first generation of migrant workers in the Demon Capital, and after graduating from university, Zhao Dongchuan naturally became a second-generation migrant worker in the Demon Capital.

From childhood, Zhao Dongchuan had always been ordinary, in primary school, middle school, and university, always hovering around average in class, attending a third-rate major at a third-rate school in a certain province.

There was no so-called youth; only those with good looks or good grades had youth. A 'loser' was just an extra, a backdrop, watching others show off their affection!!!

He never expected that one day he would actually transmigrate. It truly echoed what netizens often complained about: "The poor rely on transmigration, the rich rely on technology!"

Zhao Dongchuan reined in his wandering thoughts, bringing his attention back to the present. After processing the information in his mind, he also learned about the original body's background.

The original body was named Zhao Dongchuan, an educated youth who had been sent to the countryside. He was eighteen this year, having graduated from middle school. Due to a special period, the college entrance examination was canceled, so he couldn't go to university. There weren't enough jobs in the city, so he idled at home, hanging out with his cronies all day.

His family feared he would go astray, so they had no choice but to respond to the national call, joining the large group of educated youths going to the countryside and being assigned to Shigejie Commune, arranged in Shuangshui Village.

Having grown up in the city and never experienced hardship, and unwilling to humble himself to learn farming from the farmers, he was lazy and gluttonous, earning few work points. He often didn't eat enough, and his body grew thinner day by day. Finally, on this day, he starved to death by the roadside, and then Zhao Dongchuan took advantage of the void, came to life, and was eventually carried home by Old Man Sun.

Whether it was soul possession and rebirth, or borrowing a corpse to return a soul, all of this was impossible to verify.

Old Man Sun Yuhou's home was not far from his. This small, broken cave dwelling was an unused cave in the village, unfit for habitation. The village had slightly renovated it, making it barely livable, and it was used to house educated youths in the village. Currently, he was the only educated youth in the village, living there alone.

Zhao Dongchuan silently sorted out his thoughts and said to Old Man Sun Yuhou:

"Thank you, Uncle Sun. It's a good thing I ran into you; otherwise, I would have frozen to death out here, and no one would have known."

Old Man Sun took a puff of his dry tobacco and said, "Child, you're exaggerating. If I didn't help you, someone else would have."

As he spoke, Old Man Sun hesitated, felt inside his clothes, took out a piece of yellow corn bread wrapped in paper, and handed it to Zhao Dongchuan, saying, "Child, eat this to fill your stomach."

Although Zhao Dongchuan had only recently transmigrated, he had already realized the importance of food in these times. Although he had never eaten this kind of yellow corn bread, it didn't stop his body's honest feedback from telling him he desperately needed to eat to survive.

Zhao Dongchuan silently took the bread, saying, "Thank you, Uncle Sun!"

Old Man Sun sighed softly, his dark face showing a hint of helplessness mixed with some numbness, and said, "You rest well. I'm going now; I still have things to do at home." With that, he got up and left.

Zhao Dongchuan watched Old Man Sun's receding figure, momentarily speechless and silent.

Zhao Dongchuan took a bite of the bread; it was a bit dry and hard to swallow, but the hunger in his body compelled him to eagerly eat it to soothe his rumbling stomach.

He ate it bite by bite, and despite it making his throat very dry, he finished it quickly.

After resting for a while, feeling much recovered, Zhao Dongchuan got up and moved his body. Once he had stretched and felt there were no problems or lingering disabilities, he sat on the heated brick bed and began to ponder.

The most urgent matter at hand was: since he, Zhao Dongchuan, had joined the transmigration army, where was the standard 'golden finger' that protagonists of transmigration to another world usually had?

Why hadn't he found any trace of it? The answer to this question would directly determine whether his future survival would be in easy mode or hell mode.