Chapter 1

"Ding—- Found host, system implanting..." Emily felt a sudden surge of pain in her head and passed out.

The crisp and melodious chirping of birds and the murmuring of the river woke Emily up. She slowly opened her eyes.

Instead of the familiar pink ceiling of her room, she saw the azure sky. Emily pushed herself up with her hands, suddenly realizing she had been lying in a grassy patch by the riverside.

Looking at the distant mountain peaks, the clear river water, and hearing the continuous bird chirping along with occasional unknown beast calls from afar, Emily was dumbfounded.

Was she dreaming? She pinched herself hard, tears welling up in her eyes from the pain.

This wasn't a dream!

What was going on? Where was she?

Wasn't she just in her room, fiddling with the small golden hoe she had just brought back from the antique market? How did she end up in the wilderness?

Emily surveyed the terrain and decided to follow the path along the riverbank downstream to find someone to ask where she was.

Rubbing her still sore head, she took a deep breath of the fresh air, stepping on the uneven path with many pebbles. Suddenly, she remembered the faint words she heard before passing out: "Found host? System? Implanting?"

Time travel? No way!

Hmm, no, it couldn't be! It must be her imagination from reading too many novels, driving her crazy!

The sun was gradually rising, and Emily's legs felt weak from walking. She hadn't encountered any signs of human presence yet. Sweating profusely and feeling parched, her lips starting to crack.

Suddenly, Emily heard faint voices.

"Is anyone there? Help!" Emily shouted loudly towards the source of the sound.

It was summertime, and the grass was somewhat tall. The sound seemed to come from a small grove. Emily hesitated, afraid to walk through the grass and possibly encounter snakes.

The voices stopped, but there was no other movement. Emily was worried that the person hadn't heard her, so she continued to call out, "Hello? Please help me! I'm lost!"

This time, she heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the sound. She felt relieved, thinking she could finally leave this never-ending riverside path.

However, two minutes later, she regretted calling for help!

Seeing several men emerge from the grove, each wielding a wooden club, Emily felt her hair stand on end.

Could someone explain to her why these men, with their dark complexion and towering muscular bodies, were only wearing loincloths?

Their hair was uniformly loose, except for the tallest man who wore a grass-made headband that somewhat tamed his long locks.

One of them carried a wooden club, with a few rabbits and wild chickens hanging from each end. Two others carried a black... boar?! It hung upside down from a thick wooden stick.

Oh God, could someone tell her this feeling of time-space dislocation was just her imagination?

Wait, were they returning from hunting?!

Why were their conversations so incomprehensible, leaving Emily unable to understand a single word?

And why did they all look at her with predatory eyes and pounce towards her as soon as they saw her?

Ah! Mom, this place is so scary! I want to go home!

Emily was so frightened that she just wanted to run away, but her trembling legs involuntarily moved backward.

Suddenly, the tallest man among the group turned around and shouted at the others, who, though reluctant, stopped.

Unfortunately... Emily was also terrified by this shout, and she kept backing away until she fell into the river with a splash.

The river wasn't deep, and Emily was lucky not to be injured. She quickly stood up.

She noticed that the eyes of the men in front of her were glued to her like wolves. She involuntarily looked down—her white short-sleeved shirt was soaked, and the color of her black bra could be faintly seen.

She screamed and instinctively crossed her arms over her chest.

The tallest man walked forward, glared at the other men, and shouted something that Emily couldn't understand. He then jumped into the river and reached out to Emily.

Although she couldn't understand what he was saying?

But his eyes were too intense, and Emily screamed and slapped his hand away, "Ah—get away! Help! Can anyone help me?"

The man muttered something in a low voice, much gentler than his previous shout. As soon as the man finished speaking, the men on the shore all revealed their white teeth and laughed rhythmically, raising their wooden sticks in unison, as if... cheering for the man in the river?

That scene reminded her of cannibal tribes she had seen on TV, with similar excited gestures before eating human flesh. She... she... was too thin, all bones and no meat, could they not eat her?

Seeing Emily on the verge of tears, the man's eyes showed a hint of confusion. He whispered something that only the two of them could hear, then lifted her up and walked toward the shore.

But she couldn't understand a word he said.

Emma, who will save her?

Emily kept pounding on the man's shoulders and chest, but it was like hitting a rock, and the man didn't react at all. Instead, she ended up hurting her own hands.

Her throat was hoarse, her hands too painful to move, and Emily stopped struggling—save energy for a chance to escape later!

Seeing the woman in his arms quiet down and obediently lean against him, the man's throat overflowed with a joyful chuckle, which frightened Emily again, and the man stopped laughing, but his lips remained upturned.

Gradually, more people were encountered on the road, and Emily kept hearing people greet the man beside her. All the greetings contained the pronunciation of the word "Mo," and she guessed the man's name was "Mo."

"Mo, gibberish..." Suddenly, a sharp soprano voice came, and except for the first one, which still had the pronunciation of "Mo," Emily couldn't understand a single word, but this was the first woman she had encountered since waking up.

Although she couldn't understand what the woman was saying, she understood the anger in her voice!

Could it be that this woman was one of the very few in the cannibal tribe who hadn't lost her conscience?

Her eyes lit up hopefully as she turned her head to look, and she saw a tall and muscular woman, similarly disheveled, wearing an animal skin skirt, and with a piece of animal skin covering her chest, angrily pointing at Emily.

Emily instantly felt that this woman had come to her aid with a drawn sword. Her eyes brightened...

Emily nodded repeatedly, "Yeah, yeah, even though I look a little whiter than you guys, we're actually all of the same race, descended from the same ancestors! If you eat me, isn't it like eating your own kind?"

As this long string of words came out, Emily suddenly realized that they couldn't understand what she was saying either. She quickly shut her mouth, looking at the woman opposite her with some trepidation yet hope.

The man shouted sternly at the woman, and laughter erupted from the surrounding crowd.

But as she watched the woman's increasingly angry expression, Emily subconsciously looked up at the man who had been carrying her for so long yet still held her firmly.

To her surprise, the man was smiling broadly, silently... Huh? Did she misunderstand the woman's meaning?

Why was the man smiling so brightly?

Emily looked back at the woman again, who seemed ready to explode with rage, and Emily even felt like she was about to rush over and tear her apart. She instinctively shrank into the man's arms.

The man's deep laughter emanated from his throat again.

What was he laughing about? So what if he had white teeth!

And the woman's angry roar as she rushed over, Emily was scared and buried her head tightly in the man's chest.

Emma, it's over, she completely misunderstood!

This woman wasn't refusing to eat people; she was the executioner of the cannibal tribe! She would personally kill and dismember...

In just an instant, the man easily sidestepped, and the woman missed her target. There was another burst of angry gibberish.

The man, holding Emily, scolded the woman loudly and angrily for a few words before lowering his head and looking at Emily with burning eyes, softly murmuring something that only the two of them could hear, interspersed with the gibberish of others and the woman.

Heaven, what were they talking about?

Were they discussing how to eat her? Fried, roasted, boiled, or raw?

The unknown was the most terrifying. Emily couldn't understand their words, couldn't communicate, and imagined many scenes by herself, unable to help shivering, tears streaming uncontrollably down her cheeks.

So far, she had basically been forced to accept the reality that she had indeed traveled through time.

But who else was as unfortunate as her, traveling to a place that still seemed to belong to the Stone Age, and being discussed by a group of savages about how to eat her?

The argument between the man and the woman lasted only a few minutes. The woman left in a huff, and the man continued to walk forward with Emily in his arms.

They weren't going to kill her now? Emily felt a new hope inside her. As long as they didn't kill her immediately, she still had a chance to escape.

She glanced quietly at the woman's angry departure, and saw another man in the man's group look at her with a complicated expression, calling out "An" and following the woman, and Emily had a strange thought.

Could it be that the woman was the man's partner, and he was jealous of seeing the man carrying her?

And the man chasing after her, either her brother or admirer?

Recalling the woman's angry shout, thinking she was being rescued, and expressing agreement in their incomprehensible language, the woman's reaction and the reactions of those around her made this possibility seem very likely!

Oh! Heaven! Oh oh!

If that was really the case, Emily didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

First of all, at least she wouldn't be eaten for a short time, right? This was indeed something to be happy about.

But... what would she face next?

Being taken away by men who couldn't communicate with her, and even ignoring the jealousy of her original partner, what would he do to her?

Emily's back suddenly felt cold and her heart was pounding!

She was wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, but her whole body was soaked. Being held like this by the man, inevitably having direct skin contact with him, the flames in the man's eyes and the warmth emanating from his body made Emily feel extremely uncomfortable. She tried to keep her arms away from the man as much as possible.

Emily tried her best to ignore the fact that she was being held by this man and carefully observed the environmental conditions along the way, contemplating the possibility of escape.

Slightly away from the river, on a hillside, with distant mountain peaks in view.

The houses nearby were relatively dense, all of them semi-subterranean structures from the outside. Each house looked small, with conical thatched roofs, and the parts of the walls that were exposed above ground were rounded, with some roofs directly connected to the ground. From a distance, each house looked like a cone on the ground.

But upon closer inspection, it could be seen that each roof was actually divided into two levels, with a gap of about a meter high in the middle, presumably designed for lighting and ventilation. The eaves of the upper roof were relatively wide, so if it rained, water wouldn't leak into the house.

And each house was surrounded by a deep trench, somewhat resembling the architectural style of the Neolithic people as seen in books.

It looked like a village... or rather, a tribe.

Before she could think of a way to escape, Mo had already carried her into a large rectangular house in the center of the tribe next to a small round thatched hut.

There were cheers from the other men behind them, and Emily's whole body stiffened.

Mo gently placed Emily on the pile of unknown soft grasses—oh no, it should be a bed—then walked to the door and said something to the people outside who were watching the excitement. Those people giggled and ran away.

What should she do? What should she do? She was going to be alone with this tall, burly man!

And... Emily stole a glance at a certain part of the man's body, and the animal-skin skirt was actually arched up to a terrifying degree!

Emily was even more nervous, her heart pounding!

Although inexperienced, as a modern woman of the 21st century, Emily knew exactly what that meant.

Her body, which had curled up rapidly, became even stiffer, but her mind was racing.

To talk about escape routes... It was daytime now, and the sound of wild animals on the mountain was constant. Running up the mountain would probably lead to a quicker death.

The more feasible option seemed to be avoiding the people of these primitive tribes and running to the riverbank, escaping along the river.

But it was daytime now, and this thatched hut was located right in the center of the entire tribe. Even if she wanted to escape to the riverbank, she would probably be discovered as soon as she stepped out of the door.

So... she probably had to wait until nightfall...

Emily watched as Mo used a wooden stick to close the door, and her head began to spin. Broad daylight... he... he... he was thinking of something lascivious?

What should she do? How could she escape this ordeal?

Emily glanced at the wooden stick on the stone table, rushed over, grabbed it, and held it in front of her chest, staring at Mo with a face full of vigilance.

He turned around, revealing his bright white teeth, and said a few words with a smile on his face. Although his pronunciation was simple, unfortunately Emily couldn't understand a word.

But the hoarseness in the man's voice was evident. Emily was absolutely sure that this man was out of his mind!

Ah ah ah, what should she do? Who will save her? Emily gripped the wooden stick tightly, looking at Mo with fear in her eyes.