As my eyes opened up a wave of information was quickly drilled into my head about my current situation, and to say it was bad was an understatement.
Basically since I decided to not want to go through the process of growing up my body was on autopilot through the process of my childhood, it was definitely me but since I made that decision I didn't live through it all personally.
I was a born in 178AD and grew up in the city of Youbeiping in the northeast where most of the Gongsun Family members live at under the rule of a man known as Liu Yu, a third cousin to the Emperor of the time Liu Hong and thus was given several commandaries to govern over.
Those early years were harsh for the country as China under went a massive famine crisis soon after I was born, but luckily Youbeiping was a trade city along with a trade port where fish could be gained form the North Eastern Chinese sea so food wasn't a problem for where we lived, not to mention we come from a long line of warriors that helped defend China's Northern boarder and as such neither the main family, or the branch family I was from, faced starvation.
But by the time I was six years old the Yellow Turban Uprising began and thus war began to be fought not to far away, my older cousin, Gongsun Zan went with the armies of Liu Yan and marched west and southward where the forces of Liu Bei and his oathsworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Bao along with aid from their teacher Lu Zhi they combined their forces and put down the rebellion.
However in light of this their was heavy corruption in the royal court, the Ten Eunchs who basically ruled China with the Emperor only being a figure head at best and their puppet at worst.
What happened was Lu Zhi and Liu Bei's forces had to give up their acquired lands back to the Han Empire, Lu Zhi was forced back to the capital to which he later died at during the attack of Dong Zhuo, and Gongsun Zan despite all his merits didn't get anything for the war besides a rather paltry sum of gold while Liu Yu took all the lands he conquered and only gave him and our family Youbeiping to call our own in 189 when I was eleven.
Outraged the following year he declared war on Dong Zhou and the now puppet Han empire that was under his rule along with the many other Warlords of China after he had forcibly taken the child emperor under his control only to be killed the very same year by Lu Bu and causing chaos to erupt all around China.
As for me I had just decided that I wanted to travel the world and see the sights on my own, I was trained since a young age by my parents in the ways of combat and I was even considered a prodigy in the ways of combat.
But while traveling around the mountainous regions of the Dong and Pengcheng provinces which were south of the Yangtze River in the middle/eastern side of China being a few provinces south of Youbeiping area to give a bit of perspective as to where I was at.
And I was warned that Bandits had taken this region of mountains for their own, but my stupid NPC self was unfazed because my father made me fight and kill a few bandits he had captured when I was ten so I brushed the warnings off and continued my journey.
Then you can guess what happened next right? Well I was attack by a group of bandits, it was a small group of around twenty and my NPC self dealt with them no problem, and thinking groups would only attack me in this size I acted like I wasn't worried at all.
Then a few days in a full regiment of over a hundred bandits attacked me, but since this was a somewhat Dynasty Warriors inspired world setting, I was able to fight them off without issue and keep going forward no problems.
But my NPC self being unaware of what has become of the areas here in the mountains I decided to visit one of the famous Confucius Temple of Pengcheng only to realize to late that it was actually a bandit stronghold to which I was outnumbered a thousand to one and not being as powerful as Lu Bu who could deal with this on his own I surrendered.
And now here I am, in a cage, with all my belongings except for the clothes on my back stolen from me waiting to see what was going to happen to me, and all on my 14th birthday no less when I regained control of my body and went from NPC Gongsun Xuanyang to Player Gongsun Xuanyang.
'At least there feeding me, if only what I barely need for food and water' I think to myself as I look outside my cage.
They didn't restrain me as they must assume my strength is to strong for mere ropes to restrain me and since they lack the chains to bind me they have several armed bandits keeping watch of me.
This situation was bad, but the system says I'm only in a minor life threatening situation as it stands right now, meaning if I don't do anything they won't kill me, probably because they want my family to pay the ransom money to buy my freedom, but it will take at least a few days by boat before they can reach Behai to the East and make way west into the Pengcheng Mountains to buy my freedom.
It's been two days since I was captured, and really I didn't like what they have done with this temple, it wasn't ransacked, or at least if it was they have cleaned it up as it's now a base of operations for them.
"Well boys! Look at what we caught ourselves today! A fine young lass from the Yan Family!" A burly brute said with a laugh as he carried a tied up woman over his shoulder.
'Wait, I know that girl! That's Cai Yan! One of the Three Kingdoms most legendary Poet and artist of this period of time, I knew that she would eventually get captured by bandits but I didn't expect it would the bandits of Pengcheng that would capture her, and this isn't history's Cai Yan but specifically her Dynasty Warrior Counterpart.' I think to myself as she was thrown into the cage next to mine, but luckily this Bandits are piss poor and the Cages are made out of bamboo compared to iron.
(Dynasty Warriors Cai Yan)
"Heheheheh, you guys don't think the bosses would mind us having a little fun with her, right guys?" The brute said with a disgusting grin on his face as he was already picturing himself having his way with the young woman.
*Woosh*
But before he could even try to have his way with her a hand axe was thrown with such precision and force it cleaved into the back of the bandits skull, killing him instantly as his body crumpled to the ground.
'Shit' seeing that made me sweat a little, but from all the stuff NPC me went through I wasn't freaking out like I thought I would at the sight of seeing someone get killed as I turned to see two women wearing bandit garb begin walking forward as they approached us while the more rugged of the two went and grabbed the axe and used the dead man's shirt to wipe off the blood.
"I think I have to repeat this to you idiots every single time now don't I? Now, what did I say to you all?" She asked before every single bandit stood at attention.
"Don't touch the merchandise Boss!" They shouted out as she nodded with a pleased look on her face.
"Good, now then, take this body and feed it to the wolves or however you wish just get it out of my sight." She said before a couple bandits carried the large dead man out and away from this bandit temple.
'Well fantastic, now I know what group of bandits I ended up getting captured by, none other than Zheng Jiang and Lu Jiang the two Bandit Queens.'
(Zheng Jiang)
(Lu Jiang)