"The ninth year of the Yuanxi reign, Ying Province suffered a great drought. The autumn harvest yielded a mere twenty to thirty percent. The winter was exceptionally harsh, and many people and livestock froze to death." — *Qinghe County Chronicles*.
THUD!
THUD...
In the woods on the southern slope of Baitou Mountain, a boy of fifteen or sixteen, clad in a tattered, padded cotton jacket, was desperately swinging a hoe, hacking at the ground.
The ground was frozen solid, hard as rock. After a long struggle, he had only managed to carve out a small pit less than half a meter deep.
A few pinecones were scattered inside the pit.
"Found them!"
The boy bent down to pick up the pinecones, brushed off the loose dirt, and preciously tucked them inside his jacket.
As he raised the hoe again, a sudden wave of dizziness washed over him.
He quickly braced himself with the hoe, resting his chin on the handle as he took a long moment to recover.
"I've endured more hardship in one month of this life than in my entire previous one!"
Zhao Lin sighed, his breath fogging into a white cloud that blurred the world before him.
He was, in fact, from another world.
In his past life, he'd been an ordinary office worker living a simple, unremarkable life. He wasn't into sports or gaming—his only hobby was reading novels.
He never imagined he'd wake up one day to find he had inexplicably transmigrated into this world.
The original owner of this body was also named Zhao Lin, an ordinary farmer's son from Three Families Village on Baitou Mountain. A month ago, he had caught a cold and passed away.
Unlike many of his fellow transmigrators, Zhao Lin wasn't an orphan. He had both his parents and an older brother.
But his family was destitute. His mother was blind. Last year, his father was gored by a wild boar while gathering herbs in the mountains. Though he'd miraculously survived the punctured lung, the injury had left him a chronic invalid, unable to work.
His older brother, Zhao Shan, ten years his senior, had been the family's pillar of support. But because of this year's poor harvest, he couldn't pay the autumn grain tax. Three days ago, he was taken by government officials to work it off as forced labor.
And so, the entire burden of the family fell squarely on his shoulders.
Barely recovered from his own serious illness and seeing the family's food supply dwindling, Zhao Lin had grabbed a hoe and gone into the mountains to search for food.
'Ying Province isn't supposed to be part of the Northern Border, so why is it this cold?'
Zhao Lin thought, rubbing his red, frozen hands together.
When he first transmigrated, he had thought he'd arrived in the late Ming Dynasty, right in the middle of the Little Ice Age.
But the name of the dynasty and the reign titles didn't match. The current dynasty was called the Great Yue—one he'd never heard of—and its customs and culture were also completely unfamiliar.
Even though it wasn't the late Ming, the situation was hardly any better.
Never having enough to eat, a home with nothing but four bare walls—that was the perfect picture of his life now.
'First, just focus on surviving!'
Shaking off the thought, Zhao Lin went back to swinging his hoe and digging at the frozen earth.
Earlier, when he'd first entered the mountains, he had spotted a squirrel in the snow. He gave chase for a few steps, but the squirrel vanished, leading him to unexpectedly discover a burrow.
Zhao Lin suspected this was the squirrel's cache of winter food, so he decided to dig it up. As it turned out, his guess was spot on.
After digging for more than an hour, he finally uncovered a small pile of pinecones at the bottom of the burrow, along with several hundred kernels of grain and beans, and a few wild fruits that hadn't yet rotted.
"This little fella really knew how to hoard!"
Zhao Lin was gratified; this would be enough food to last his family for two days.
He glanced around to make sure he was alone, then took out the cloth sack he'd brought with him and loaded his prize inside.
He sifted through the soil one last time to ensure not a single grain was missed, then tied the sack to his waist, hiding it under his old cotton jacket.
He glanced up at the sky, then carefully retraced his steps back the way he came.
The heavy snow now blanketed the landscape, smoothing over deep gullies and treacherous ravines, rendering them invisible. One wrong step meant plunging into a hidden trap, leading to death from the fall or the freezing cold.
He'd heard that Zhang Niu'Er from a neighboring village had lost his life falling into one of those snow-covered pits.
...
Three Families Village lay at the southern foot of Baitou Mountain, a sparse settlement of a hundred-odd households.
As Zhao Lin returned to the village, he saw a dozen or so people—men and women, old and young—gathered at the entrance, whispering amongst themselves.
"Young Zhao, have you heard what happened at Hu Laowu's?"
As he passed the crowd, his neighbor Liu Dazhu called out to him.
"What happened to Hu Laowu?"
Zhao Lin glanced toward the eastern end of the village, faintly hearing the sound of crying.
Hu Laowu was a village hunter. Last year, he had married a widow from the east village, and two months ago she had given birth to a pair of big, healthy twin boys for him.
Twins were a rare sight in these times. The original Zhao Lin had even gone with his father specifically to see them.
Liu Dazhu lowered his voice. "His parents went into the mountain kilns."
Zhao Lin was stunned, thinking he must have misheard. "What did you say?"
"Hu Laowu's parents went into the mountain kilns yesterday. They were found this morning, frozen to death in each other's arms."
The rims of Liu Dazhu's eyes grew red as he spoke.
Zhao Lin was stunned silent for a long moment.
At the base of a cliff on a ridge of Baitou Mountain stood a dozen cave-like kilns. Shaped like large earthenware pots, the locals called them the "Death-Abandonment Kilns."
It was said that during times of war or famine, when life became impossible, the elderly who could no longer work would move into these kilns on their own to lessen the burden on their families.
Their families would bring them one meal a day, and with each meal, they would also bring a few bricks. After ten days or half a month, the entrance to the kiln would be sealed shut...
Zhao Lin had always thought the Death-Abandonment Kilns were just a legend; he never imagined it happening for real, right before his eyes.
He felt a lump form in his throat. An image flashed in his mind: the two elders holding their grandsons, smiling from ear to ear.
"Why? Didn't they just have grandsons?"
Liu Dazhu shook his head. "Hu Laowu's wife has bad legs and can't do heavy labor. With two new boys in the family, how could he possibly feed six mouths all by himself?"
Zhao Lin still found it hard to believe. "No matter how hard it gets, you can survive the winter eating grass roots and tree bark. Why would they choose to die?"
"Next spring, the head tax is due. His parents count as two heads. Was Hu Laowu supposed to get dragged off to forced labor, too?"
Liu Dazhu dropped his gaze, not looking at him. "Besides... his parents were almost sixty."
Zhao Lin gripped his hoe, his knuckles turning white. "So you're supposed to die at sixty?"
Liu Dazhu sighed. "If they don't die, the children will!"
Zhao Lin was silent for a long moment. He glanced in the direction of his own home, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper, before finally cursing, "This damned world!"
...
"Is that you, Lin'Er?"
When Zhao Lin got home, a woman in her fifties emerged from the kitchen, steadying herself on the doorframe and peering toward him with vacant eyes.
This woman was Zhao Lin's mother in this life. Her eyes used to be fine, but in her youth, she did sewing and mending work for others. To save lamp oil, she often worked in the dark, and the years of strain had ruined her sight.
"It's me, Mom," Zhao Lin answered, walking over to take his mother's hand.
"I found a squirrel's cache in the mountains. It had a lot of winter food stored inside."
He said this as he passed the cloth sack into his mother's hands.
"My Lin'Er is so resourceful!"
The wrinkles on Mrs. Zhao's face smoothed into a smile as she gently caressed Zhao Lin's forehead. "You're just getting over your sickness. You didn't tire yourself out, did you?"
Zhao Lin smiled. "Not tired, just hungry."
"Come and eat," his father said, emerging from the inner room with his back slightly hunched.
The three of them sat around the table. Each had a bowl of watery gruel, with a small dish of pickled vegetables and a few pieces of hairy taro in the center. In front of Zhao Lin, there was also a dark flour steamed bun.
Zhao Lin picked up the steamed bun and broke it in half. "Mom, Dad, you have some too."
His father waved his hand. "Your mother and I ate at noon. We'll just have some gruel."
His mother added, "Don't give it to us, Lin'Er. We just stay at home and don't move around much. We're not hungry."
Zhao Lin sighed inwardly. Knowing he couldn't convince them, he lowered his head and began to eat.
Throughout the meal, the two elders were in low spirits and didn't speak much. Zhao Lin guessed they must have heard about Hu Laowu's family, and he couldn't help but feel a little worried.
'I just hope they don't get any ideas.'
When he had first transmigrated, he hadn't felt any deep affection for this life's family.
But during the half-month he was bedridden, his family had taken turns caring for him. His older brother took on odd jobs to support the family, his mother tended to him at his bedside, and his father bustled about with various chores...
Their affection was all around him. His mindset slowly changed, and now he truly considered himself a part of the family.
Reborn into such a poor family, Zhao Lin had carefully considered how to use his modern knowledge to change his family's financial situation.
However, based on the information he had gathered, it wouldn't be easy.
First, the path of a scholar was closed to him.
The Great Yue dynasty didn't use the imperial examination system. Instead, their talent selection process was similar to the recommendation system of the Han and Jin dynasties: great clans and aristocratic families would recommend individuals of virtue and renown to serve as officials.
To put it bluntly, it was all about your background. That path was hopeless.
The same principle applied to doing business.
Without the backing of the government, a powerful clan, or a gang, you couldn't get anything started.
Besides, he had no starting capital.
As for inventing things like soap or white sugar, those were not things that a commoner just trying to get by, like himself, could meddle in.
"That Zhou Laowang must have lost his mind, wanting to slaughter a perfectly good plow ox."
"He's just trying to scrape together the bride price..."
Hearing his parents' conversation, Zhao Lin looked up and asked, "Slaughtering a plow ox? Isn't that forbidden by the government?"
"Zhou Laowang's ox is old and has a lot of health problems, so the authorities gave their approval," his father explained, his expression turning a bit grim, perhaps because he was reminded of his own situation.
"Slaughtering an ox..."
As Zhao Lin murmured the words, an idea struck him like a bolt of lightning.