When Lu Chen clicked the "Extract" button on the mysterious file, he expected a corrupted game mod. He didn’t expect the floor of his apartment to dissolve into a cobblestone path. He stood now at the mouth of Lishi Jie —History Street.

He reached into his pocket. His smartphone was dead weight, a glass brick from a world that no longer existed. But as he looked down at his clothes, they were no longer denim and cotton, but the heavy, embroidered silk of a scholar.

To his left, a tea house buzzed with the gossip of fallen dynasties. To his right, a blacksmith hammered out blades that were destined to be unearthed by archaeologists a thousand years in his future. The sky above wasn't blue, but the color of aged parchment, swirling with the ink-strokes of events yet to be written.

The air in the narrow alley didn’t smell like the smog of the 21st century; it smelled of scorched sandalwood and damp earth.