O Maior Puxa-Saco da Dinastia Ming

In the capital during the Ming era, most families lived in separate households, and the sprawling communal courtyards so common in later times were rare.

Only the poorest, most desperate households, with no means to care about living conditions, were forced to crowd together in such places.

In the second month of the thirty-ninth year of the Jiajing reign, a lingering spring chill still hung over the capital. That afternoon, several sudden claps of spring thunder had startled many people.

In one of the large shared courtyards near Xuanwu Gate, in Cheng'en Lane, a fifteen-year-old boy named Bai Yu was standing beneath the great elm at the courtyard entrance, amusing himself at someone else's expense.

While he was using words to flirt outrageously with the second daughter of the mason family, he was suddenly struck by lightning and collapsed on the spot.

No one else knew that at the moment of the strike, a soul from five hundred years in the future had crossed over and taken possession of this local youth, Bai Yu.

East of Cheng'en Lane, across a drainage ditch, stood the elephant stables of the Taming Elephant Office, where Bai Yu's father, Bai He, worked.

Dozens of elephants were kept there, and the grounds were larger than those of an ordinary government office. These animals were required for court ceremonies and the emperor's imperial procession.

Yet Emperor Jiajing had long since ceased attending court or making tours for more than twenty years, leaving these elephants as the true winners in life