The smell hit him first.
It wasn't the sterile scent of a hospital or the stale recycled air of an office. It was thick, pungent, and earthy—a mixture of wet soil, animal dung, and the sharp tang of burning firewood.
Li Wei tried to inhale deeply, but his chest felt heavy, constricted by a dull, aching pain. He forced his eyes open.
Above him was not a white ceiling or a glowing computer screen. It was a roof of dark, rough-hewn timber, blackened by years of smoke. The light filtering through the gaps was dim and gray.
"Where... am I?"
His voice was a dry rasp, scraping against his throat.
"Wei'er! You're awake?!"
A woman's voice, sharp with panic yet trembling with relief, cut through the haze. Footsteps scrambled across a packed-dirt floor, and suddenly, a face loomed over him.
It was a woman in her late thirties, though she looked older. Her skin was bronzed and weathered by the sun, her hands rough and cracked from labor. But her eyes—her eyes were filled with a warmth so intense it made his heart stutter.
"Don't scare your mother like that! You fainted in the field and slept for half the day!" She reached out, her calloused palm pressing against his forehead. "No fever... thank the heavens."
Mother?
Li Wei froze. A rush of disorientation surged through him, followed immediately by a torrent of memories that weren't his.
*Li Wei. Eighteen years old. Third son of the Li family in Willow Village.*
*Desperately poor. Hungry. Overworked.*
He remembered the endless stretch of rice paddies, the burning sun, the ache in his back. He remembered the landlord's sneer and the weight of debt. And then... a sudden blackness while pushing a plow.
His last memory from his other life flashed before him: a spreadsheet glowing at 2:00 AM, a sharp pain in his chest, and then nothing.
"I... I didn't die?" he whispered, more to himself than to her.
The woman, his mother, Zhao Lan, frowned deeply, her brow creasing. "What nonsense are you muttering? Die? I'll box your ears if you say such unlucky things! You just haven't eaten enough. Your body is weak."
She turned quickly, shouting towards the door. "Chen'er! Get some hot water!"
Before Li Wei could process the reality of his situation, a heavy, rhythmic thudding approached. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway, blocking the light.
He had a face like carved stone—stern, unyielding, and etched with the deep lines of exhaustion. This was Li Dazhong, his father.
"If he's awake, he should get up," the man's voice was deep and gravelly. "We don't have food to waste on a man lying in bed while the sun is up. Spring plowing doesn't wait for the lazy."
There was no cruelty in his tone, only a harsh pragmatism born of survival. In this world, idleness meant starvation.
"I'm fine, Father," Li Wei said instinctively. The words felt strange on his tongue, yet familiar.
Li Dazhong grunted, his eyes scanning his son's face for a moment before he turned away. "Then eat and come out. The south field needs clearing." He walked away, his strides long and purposeful.
Silence lingered in the small, dim room. The walls were made of packed earth, the furniture sparse—a wooden bed, a wobbly table, and a tattered mat.
Zhao Lan sighed softly, helping him sit up. "Don't mind your father. He's just worried about the rent... You pushed yourself too hard, Wei'er. You aren't built like your brothers. You need to be careful."
Li Wei looked at her hands as she adjusted his shirt. They were the hands of a laborer, scarred and stained. He looked down at his own hands—thin, bony, and stained with dirt.
This wasn't a dream. This was real. And it was a life of poverty.
From outside, the laughter of children echoed, followed by a chaotic clamor.
"Third Brother woke up? Is he dead or not?"
"He's alive, you brat!"
A young boy, no older than ten, darted into the room. He was thin, his ribs visible through a loose hemp shirt, but his eyes were bright and intelligent, sparkling with mischief.
This was Li Chen, the youngest of the family, the hope for the future.
"You scared everyone," the boy said, grinning widely, revealing a missing tooth. "Father said if you died, we'd save three bowls of grain a month. But Mother cried, so I guess you're worth the grain."
Zhao Lan slapped the back of his head lightly. "Chen'er! Don't say such things! Go get your brother some water!"
Li Wei couldn't help but smile faintly. This family... they were harsh, blunt, and poor, but there was a thread of warmth here, a bond he had lacked in his previous lonely life.
*Previous life.*
He was a 35-year-old office worker who died of overwork. A man who spent his nights watching videos of vast grasslands, galloping horses, and herdsmen living free under the sky. A life he had only ever dreamed of.
And now, here he was.
Suddenly, a soft chime echoed in the depths of his mind, distinct from the noise of the room.
**[Ranch Development System Activated]**
Li Wei froze. His breath hitched.
*"...System?"*
A calm, genderless voice resonated within his consciousness.
**[Host condition met. Vital signs stabilized. Beginning guidance system.]**
**[Primary Goal: Build a sustainable ranch ecosystem.]**
**[Current Status: Impoverished Peasant.]**
**[Reward Mechanism: Knowledge unlocks based on progress. No direct item drops. Success depends on Host's labor and management.]**
Li Wei's heart began to race, pounding against his ribs.
A system.
In his past life, he had read countless novels about this. But as he scanned the translucent blue screen that only he could see, he realized the nature of this gift. It wasn't giving him gold. It wasn't giving him magical powers.
**[Beginner Gift: Basic Poultry Raising Knowledge Unlocked.]**
**[Beginner Gift: Grassland Ecology Basics Unlocked.]**
Knowledge. It was giving him knowledge.
"A ranch..." he whispered.
He looked out the small, paper-covered window. He couldn't see it, but he knew what lay beyond. Dry, stubborn farmland. Rocky soil. A village squeezed by taxes and indifference.
But if he looked further... there were the hills. The wild, uncultivated lands that the wealthy ignored.
"Li Wei," he muttered to himself, "you wanted a ranch? You got it. But you have to build it from the dirt up."
He clenched his fist. The weakness of the body was still there, but the fatigue in his mind had vanished, replaced by a sudden, burning clarity.
"I can change this," he thought. "I can change everything."
***
**The Li Family Courtyard**
The main room of the Li household was crowded. It was lunchtime, the most important gathering of the day.
The Li family was large. Li Dazhong sat at the head of the long, scarred table. Beside him sat Zhao Lan.
To his left sat the Eldest Brother, Li Qiang, a man of few words with a permanent tan. Next to him was his wife, Wang Shi, who was nursing a baby. Further down sat the Second Brother, Li Jun, and his wife, Liu Shi. Li Jun was picking his teeth, looking bored.
Then came Li Wei, still feeling a bit unsteady. Beside him sat his sisters: Li Mei, sixteen, with a gentle, quiet demeanor, and Li Hua, fourteen, who was staring at the food with intense focus.
At the very end sat little Li Chen.
The food was simple. A large pot of thin porridge, made with water far more than rice. A few plates of pickled vegetables, yellowing and salty. A small dish of blackened buns.
The atmosphere was heavy. The clang of wooden chopsticks against bowls was the only sound.
Finally, Li Qiang broke the silence. "Father, I spoke to the Steward at the manor today."
Li Dazhong didn't look up. "And?"
"The rent... it's going up," Li Qiang said, his voice low. "Ten percent. They say the drought last year hurt the harvest, so the Magistrate raised the land tax. The landlord is passing it to us."
The table fell into a suffocating silence. Even Li Hua stopped eating.
"Ten percent?" Second Brother Li Jun sighed loudly, throwing his chopsticks down. "How are we supposed to pay that? We're already eating grass! If this continues, we won't survive the winter. Maybe we should sell some of the mountain land."
"Selling land is cutting our own flesh," Li Dazhong snapped, his eyes flashing. "We hold the land. We starve on our feet, not on our knees."
"But Father," Liu Shi, the second sister-in-law, muttered, "we have nothing. Chen'er needs to study. The girls need dowries. Wei'er needs a wife..."
Li Wei listened quietly. The reality of this world was stark. In this Empire, the gap between the rich and poor was a chasm. For a peasant family like the Lis, a ten percent rent hike was a death sentence.
The only way out was the Imperial Examination. If Li Chen could pass, the family would have a scholar, an official, and they could rise above the mud. But studying required money—money for books, money for a tutor, money for the journey to the prefecture city. Money they didn't have.
He looked at his little brother. Li Chen was staring at the table, his small hands clenched in his lap. He knew the burden on his shoulders.
Li Wei took a deep breath. He had decided to stay quiet, to observe, but he couldn't watch this despair.
"What if," Li Wei spoke up, his voice clear and steady, "we earn money another way?"
The chatter stopped. Everyone turned to look at him.
Li Dazhong frowned. "Another way? We are farmers. We farm. Do you expect us to become merchants? We have no capital."
"I'm not talking about trading goods," Li Wei said. He met his father's gaze. "I want to raise livestock."
A moment of stunned silence.
Then, Second Brother Li Jun snorted. "Livestock? We can barely feed ourselves, and you want to feed animals? We have one old ox for the whole family, and it's half-dead."
"Third Brother, you hit your head?" Li Hua, the younger sister, giggled, though her eyes were worried. "You fainted and woke up a rich landlord?"
Li Wei ignored them. He looked at his father. "Not big animals. Not yet. Chickens."
"Chickens?" Wang Shi, the eldest sister-in-law, asked. "We have a few hens. They barely lay enough eggs for us to eat."
"I want to buy more," Li Wei said calmly. "I want to raise a flock. Dozens of them. And I know how to make them grow fast and lay eggs regularly."
"You know how?" Li Dazhong asked, skepticism etched on his face. "You, who have never held a hoe correctly?"
Li Wei didn't flinch. He tapped his temple. "I... I learned some things from a wandering Taoist priest in my dream while I was unconscious."
It was the best excuse he could come up with on the spot. In this world, dreams and omens were taken seriously.
"A Taoist priest?" Zhao Lan's eyes widened. "Wei'er, was it an immortal?"
Li Wei nodded slightly. "He taught me about... breeding and feeding. I can't explain it, Father, but I know it will work."
He reached into his waistband, pulling out a small, grimy cloth pouch. He untied the knot and poured out a pile of copper coins onto the table. There were perhaps thirty or forty of them.
"This is my savings," Li Wei said. "I saved it from the odd jobs I did last year. It's not much, but it's enough to buy twenty chicks and some grain."
The family stared at the copper coins. It wasn't a fortune, but to a family this poor, it was a significant sum. They hadn't realized the quiet, sickly third son had hidden away so much.
Li Dazhong stared at the coins, then at his son. He saw a determination in Li Wei's eyes he had never seen before. A steadiness.
"You want to risk your own money?" Li Dazhong asked slowly.
"It's my life," Li Wei said. "If I lose it, I won't ask the family for a single copper to replace it. I'll work the fields twice as hard to pay you back for the feed. But if I succeed... I want to buy the wasteland by the West River."
The West River wasteland. It was a plot of rocky, uneven ground that no one wanted. It was prone to flooding and useless for farming rice.
"You want the wasteland?" Li Jun laughed. "You are crazy."
"If I succeed with the chickens, I want that land," Li Wei repeated firmly. "And I want the family to support me. Just a small corner of the yard for now."
Silence stretched across the table. The wind outside whistled through the cracks in the wall.
Finally, Li Dazhong picked up a piece of blackened bun and dipped it in the porridge.
"Fine," he said gruffly, not looking at Li Wei. "You have three months. If you waste this money and bring debt to this family, you will be the one to answer to the landlord. Do what you want."
It was permission.
Li Wei let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Thank you, Father."
***
**Nightfall**
The Li household settled into the rhythm of the night. The fire was banked, the lamps extinguished to save oil.
Li Wei lay on his hard bed, staring into the darkness. The snores of his brothers and the quiet breathing of his parents filled the room. It was a sound he was growing to love—the sound of life.
He closed his eyes, focusing inward.
**[System Interface Active]**
**Host:** Li Wei
**Current Funds:** 38 Copper Coins
**Current Project:** None
**Unlocked Knowledge:**
1. **Brooding Management (Chickens):** *Temperature control, humidity management, and feeding schedules for chicks.*
2. **Basic Forage Grass Identification:** *Identifying wild grasses with high nutritional value.*
**[Quest Issued: First Flock]**
*Objective: Purchase and raise 20 chicks to maturity.*
*Reward: Basic Poultry Disease Prevention Knowledge.*
It wasn't a game. There were no shortcuts. The system was essentially a library, a teacher. It gave him the textbook, but he had to do the work.
"Eighteen years old," he whispered. "I have time."
He thought about the West River wasteland. In the system's knowledge base, he had seen a glimpse of what could be done. That 'useless' land could be turned into pasture. But first, he needed the chickens to prove he could manage life.
He would start small. Very small.
Tomorrow, he would go to the market in the town. He would buy chicks. Not just any chicks—he would use the system's knowledge to pick the healthiest ones the merchants overlooked.
And then... he would begin the long, hard road to the sky.
Li Wei turned onto his side, a rare smile touching his lips. For the first time in two lifetimes, he didn't dread the morning. He welcomed it.
"Let's build a ranch," he thought, drifting off to sleep. "One cow at a time."
Outside, under the vast, silent gaze of the Empire's sky, the wind rustled through the fields of Willow Village, carrying with it the scent of rain and the promise of change.