The first breath he took was shallow—thin, ragged, as if his lungs had forgotten how to draw air.
He opened his eyes to a ceiling of dark wooden beams, their edges softened by the flickering light of a paper lantern. The scent of ink, damp straw, and medicinal herbs clung to the air. His body trembled. Every joint ached. His skin felt too tight, his bones too light, as though he had been poured into a vessel not made for him.
He tried to sit up. Pain bloomed in his chest like a slow fire. He collapsed back onto the bedding, gasping.
Footsteps approached. A young man in simple robes appeared at his side, eyes wide with relief and awe.
"Master Guo," the man whispered. "You've returned."
Guo?
The name echoed in his skull like a dropped stone in a well. He tried to speak, but his throat was dry, his tongue heavy. The man helped him sip warm water from a ceramic cup. It tasted of ginseng and ash.
"You've been unconscious for three days," the man said. "The fever nearly took you. Lord Cao sent word twice."
Lord Cao.
The name struck him like lightning. Cao Cao. Chancellor of the Han. Warlord. Architect of empire.
And Guo Jia… the brilliant strategist who died too young.
He had read about him. Studied him. Admired him.
But that was history.
This was breath. Pain. Flesh.
He looked down at his hands—slender, pale, trembling. Not his hands. Not the ones that had typed reports, drawn battle simulations, or held coffee mugs in late-night war rooms. These were the hands of a scholar. A sickly one.
He closed his eyes.
This isn't possible.
But the pain was real. The weight of the blanket. The smell of the room. The sound of distant bells tolling in the city.
He wasn't dreaming.
He was Guo Jia.
And Guo Jia was alive.
He lay still for hours, listening.
The room breathed with him—wood creaking, wind brushing against the paper windows, the faint murmur of voices beyond the corridor. His senses were sharper than they had ever been, yet his thoughts moved like molasses. Every time he tried to grasp a coherent idea, it slipped through his fingers like water.
He was alive. That much was certain.
But whose life was this?
He had no memory of dying. One moment, he had been in his apartment, hunched over a desk cluttered with books, maps, and a half-eaten meal. The next, he was here—trapped in a body that wasn't his, in a world that smelled of ink and war.
The servant—no, attendant—had called him "Master Guo." And not just any Guo. Guo Jia. The ghost of a name from history books. The man who had whispered strategies into the ears of emperors and warlords, only to die before his vision could be realized.
He tried to recall the details. Guo Jia had been a recluse, a sickly genius who emerged from obscurity to serve Cao Cao. He had predicted the fall of Yuan Shao, advised on the conquest of the north, and died just before the Battle of Red Cliffs. Some historians believed that if Guo Jia had lived, the Three Kingdoms might never have formed.
And now, somehow, he was here. In that body. In that moment before history fractured.
He should have been terrified. But instead, he felt… hollow. As if something essential had been left behind in the crossing. His name. His past. His self.
He didn't even know what he had looked like before.
Was he dead?
Or had he been erased?
A soft knock at the door broke his reverie.
The attendant returned, carrying a folded robe and a basin of warm water. "Master Guo, the physician says you may sit up today. Shall I assist you?"
He nodded.
The young man helped him rise, propping him up with pillows. The pain was still there, but duller now, like an echo. He dipped a cloth into the basin and wiped his face, surprised by the unfamiliar contours of his own cheekbones.
In the polished bronze mirror beside the bed, he saw himself for the first time.
A pale face, sharp and elegant. High cheekbones, narrow eyes, lips tinged with blue. Hair long and unkempt, tied loosely with a faded ribbon. He looked like a ghost—fragile, beautiful, and already halfway gone.
So this was Guo Jia.
He stared at the reflection, searching for traces of the man he had been. There were none. No familiar scars, no familiar gaze. Only the weight of history pressing down on a face that was no longer his.
He turned away.
Later that evening, a letter arrived.
It was sealed with black wax, the mark of Cao Cao's household. The attendant placed it in his hands with reverence.
He broke the seal with trembling fingers.
> "To my most trusted adviser,
> The court is restless in your absence. The ministers bicker like children, and the generals sharpen their blades without direction. I await your recovery.
> —Cao Mengde"
He read the words again. Trusted adviser. Already?
Had Guo Jia's reputation preceded him even here? Or had the man he now inhabited already earned that trust?
He folded the letter carefully and placed it beside the bed.
So this was real. This was happening.
He was in the past. In the body of a man who would die in less than a decade. In a world teetering on the edge of collapse.
And yet, he had been given a chance.
A chance to rewrite the ending.
But first, he had to survive.