It was the winter of the fifteenth year of Dezheng in Great Liang. Qinghe County, Qinglin County, Huanglin Town, Zhao Family Village.
The morning light, like fine golden sand, streamed through the cracks in the thatched roof. Wu Guohua opened his eyes; it was already dawn.
The thatch wove a broken net before his eyes, each blade of grass clearly discernible—this was the abnormal clarity brought by hunger.
Beside him, his six-year-old younger brother, Wu Guoqiang, was curled up like a small shrimp, while his two-year-old younger sister, Wu Guofen, breathed with an open mouth. All three small faces were a similar waxy yellow, like wilting vegetable leaves in winter.
"Guohua, time to get up," his mother, Zhang Chunfang's voice drifted in from outside, accompanied by the grating sound of a wooden spoon scraping the bottom of an iron pot and the rhythm of splashing water.
Wu Guohua moved his body carefully, like a cautious cat. The straw on the earthen bed creaked softly beneath him.
His younger brother smacked his lips in his dream, and his younger sister frowned and turned over. He held his breath until he was sure the two children hadn't been woken, then stepped barefoot onto the cold ground.
The calluses on his feet had long made him numb to the ground's roughness, but the chill of early autumn still made him shiver.
When he pushed open the weathered wooden door, the door hinge let out a creak like an old person's joints.
The morning mist, like a thin veil, enveloped the yard, and the figures of his mother, Zhang Chunfang, and Second Aunt, Li Juhua, were faintly visible within it.
She was hunched over, busy at the so-called "stove"—which was nothing more than three severely weathered bluestones piled into a triangle, with a jagged-edged iron pot resting on top. The pot had a noticeable crack at the bottom, crudely patched with mud.
"It's your turn to fetch water today," his mother said without raising her head.
Her thin, bony fingers were pinching a handful of dry bitter lettuce, the edges of the leaves curled and blackened as if burned by fire. Her movements were precise and economical, not even discarding the oldest yellow leaves.
Wu Guohua nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
He walked to the corner of the wall, where two wooden buckets stood. The wood grain on the bucket walls had long been blurred by water, and the handle of one bucket had been repeatedly reinforced with straw rope.
As he lifted them, he felt the familiar rough texture against his palms; the splinters had already formed a kind of tacit understanding with his skin.
Stepping out of the courtyard gate, he saw his Grandfather Wu Jiulong sitting on the threshold like a statue.
The man, in his early forties, had a back hunched like a taut bow, and his deeply furrowed face was ingrained with dirt that couldn't be washed away.
He held the brass pipe that was never far from him, and the low-quality tobacco in the pouch emitted a pungent odor.
Smoke swirled before him, making his cloudy eyes seem even more unfathomable.
"Grandfather," Wu Guohua's voice was as soft as a falling leaf.
"Hmm," Grandfather exhaled two plumes of white smoke from his nostrils, his eyes narrowed into a slit, "Take the small path to fetch water. Don't let the Zhao Family people see you."
As he spoke, the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth turned downwards, as if he had tasted something bitter.
Wu Guohua felt his heart suddenly clench, as if gripped by an invisible hand.
The Zhao Family—this surname in the village was like an emperor's given name; just mentioning it made people unconsciously lower their voices.
They monopolized the only sweet water well in Zhao Family Village, its wellhead neatly built with bluestone, and a winch set up over the opening.
The Wu Family, on the other hand, were outsiders who had fled here more than ten years ago. After settling down, they had always been ostracized by the villagers and further suppressed by the landlord Zhao Zhilin's family.
They could only secretly go to the river to fetch water late at night, or use the salty well that even livestock disdained.
Wu Guohua walked along the overgrown path, the morning dew wetting his patched trousers. In the mist, his figure appeared and disappeared, like a wandering ghost.
The eight-year-old child was only the size of a six or seven-year-old, with an overly large head perched on his thin neck, looking like a bamboo skewer with a potato on top.
Memories of his past life lingered—he had been a postgraduate student in agronomy from Xia Country on Blue Star, tinkering with precision instruments in the laboratory, analyzing various soil samples.
A car accident had thrown him into this time and space. He had thought knowledge could change destiny, but here, even a bowl of thick porridge was a luxury.
The small river shimmered in the morning light, like a silver ribbon. A few women were already washing clothes on the bank, the sound of their strong arms pounding garments on the stone slabs carrying far.
Seeing Wu Guohua, their laughter abruptly ceased, like chickens whose necks had been wrung.
One plump woman nudged her companion with her elbow, jutted her chin in his direction, and shot him a gaze as sharp as a knife.
Wu Guohua lowered his head, letting his overly long bangs obscure his eyes.
He walked to the downstream section, where the water flowed slowly like an aging person, and the surface was covered with floating dead branches and foam, appearing an unhealthy grayish-yellow.
He squatted down, carefully scooped two half-buckets of water, gently pushing aside the floating debris.
When he straightened up, a sharp pain immediately shot through his shoulder—this body was too weak to even bear this much weight.
The return journey seemed endless. The carrying pole pressed against his shoulder blade, and every step felt like needles pricking him.
He had to stop frequently to switch shoulders, and the water in the buckets sloshed with his movements, occasionally splashing out and wetting his straw sandals.
Sweat trickled down his temples, gathered into drops on his chin, and finally splattered onto the dry dirt road, instantly absorbed.
When he staggered into the courtyard gate, the sun had already climbed above the treetops.
His father, Wu Wenbin, and his Second Uncle, Wu Wenzhang, and Third Uncle, Wu Wenwu, were organizing farm tools, the shovels and hoes clanging crisply.
His father looked up at him, his brows furrowed into a "Sichuan" (river) character.
"Too slow," his father's voice was like coarse sandpaper, "Your brother is already awake."
Wu Guohua pressed his lips together, silently pouring the water into the large cylinder next to the stove.
The glaze at the bottom of the cylinder was already mottled, leaving only a thin layer of water that shimmered faintly in the sunlight. The whole family had conserved water last night—this realization tightened his throat.
At breakfast, a large family of over ten people sat around a low wooden table. His Grandmother He Xiaoqin and Third Aunt Cai Liuer were distributing food.
Each person had a coarse pottery bowl in front of them, containing wheat bran porridge so thin it could reflect a face, with a few bitter lettuce leaves floating like small boats.
Wu Guohua held the bowl with both hands, sipping in small mouthfuls, feeling the stinging sensation of the coarse wheat bran scraping his throat. This feeling was so familiar that he could already tell the wheat bran was ground coarser today than yesterday.
Beside him, several younger siblings had already wolfed down their portions, the sound of their Adam's apples bobbing up and down clearly audible.
Grandfather Wu Jiulong and Grandmother He Xiaoqin had three sons, but eight grandchildren.
The eldest, Wu Wenbin, and his wife, Zhang Chunfang, had two sons and one daughter: Wu Guohua, Wu Guoqiang, and Wu Guofen.
The second, Wu Wenzhang, and his wife, Li Juhua, had two sons and one daughter: Wu Guoqiong, Wu Guozhi, and Wu Guofeng.
The third, Wu Wenwu, though only seventeen, had also had a son and a daughter with his wife, Cai Liuer: Wu Guolin and Wu Guoyan.
Among the eight grandchildren, Wu Guohua was eight, Wu Guoqiang and Wu Guoqiong were six, Wu Guozhi and Wu Guolin were four, Wu Guofen and Wu Guofeng were two, and Wu Guoyan was only ten months old.
Wu Guoqiang stared longingly at the half-bowl of porridge left in his sister Guofen's bowl, his tongue unconsciously licking his chapped lips.
"Don't snatch your sister's," his mother gently admonished, her voice carrying a weary tenderness. She scooped some of the porridge from her own bowl to Guohua, a movement so natural it seemed to have been repeated thousands of times.
Wu Guohua watched this scene, a sour feeling rising in his stomach.
Memories of his past life surged like a tide—the dazzling array of food shelves in supermarkets, the endless stream of food pictures on food delivery apps, the half-eaten lunchboxes casually discarded in the laboratory.
The abundance he had taken for granted had become an unattainable dream in this world.
He put down his bowl; although the hunger in his belly still gnawed, he knew his mother and sister needed this food more.
"I'm going to check on the fields," he said, standing up, deliberately ignoring his mother's worried gaze.
His father looked at him and nodded: "You come work with us today. It's time you learned to do some work."
As he spoke, his rough hand pressed down on Wu Guohua's shoulder, the touch feeling both like encouragement and a heavy pronouncement.
Wu Guohua's heart skipped a beat. At eight years old, he was already considered half a laborer in this family.
He followed his father and two uncles towards the barren fields outside the village, and as they passed the Zhao Family's fertile land, he involuntarily slowed his steps.
The Zhao Family's wheat fields were a dazzling green, the freshly sprouted wheat seedlings as neat as if measured with a ruler, rippling in the breeze.
In the distance, the Wu Family's land looked like a patched-up rag, with sparse, yellowish clumps of dirt scattered here and there, as if they could wither and disappear at any moment.
"Don't look at others'," his father's voice came from ahead, deep like an echo from underground, "It's good enough if we can grow these."
The Wu Family's land was located on the hillside east of the village, consisting of the three most barren acres of thin land and a few sloped plots in the village. The soil layer was pitifully thin; a casual swing of a hoe would hit a rock.
Wu Guohua squatted down, grabbing a handful of dirt and rubbing it in his palm. The black soil was mixed with tiny pebbles, dry as flour, crumbling through his fingers.
"Father," he couldn't help but speak again, his voice trembling slightly from nervousness, "This winter, when we plant potatoes, can we try that sandy patch on the barren slope behind the house?"
His father's movements paused for a moment, then he continued to weed: "Sandy soil can't hold water; nothing will grow there."
His voice seemed to come from underground, "Besides, potato seeds are so precious; we can't just waste them."
"But the black soil is too sticky; potatoes don't grow big," Wu Guohua scraped the dirt from his palm with his fingernail, trying to explain, "Sandy soil has good aeration, so potatoes grow bigger…"
"What do children know!" Second Uncle Wu Wenzhang suddenly straightened up, his hoe thudding heavily onto the ground.
His tanned face was etched with impatience, and the bulging veins on his forehead looked like twisted earthworms, "Our ancestors have always planted this way; you're just full of ideas!"
Wu Guohua closed his mouth, feeling a wad of cotton stuck in his throat. For three years now, he had made the same suggestion every year, only to be met with the same refusal.
Knowledge from his past life told him that potatoes thrived in loose, sandy soil, but in this world, where people lived at the mercy of nature, ancestral experience carried more weight than any theory.
The midday sun was like a burning fireball, mercilessly scorching the earth. Wu Guohua's sweat soaked through the tattered cloth shirt on his back, leaving a dark stain on the dirt.
His palms quickly blistered, the tender skin torn by the rough hoe handle, oozing pale yellow tissue fluid. But he gritted his teeth and said nothing, only occasionally wiping the blood from his palms onto his trousers.
His grandfather's words echoed in his ears: "A child of the Wu Family must be as tenacious as wild grass to take root in this exclusive land."
"Take a break," Third Uncle Wu Wenwu suddenly handed him a worn-out water skin.
He was the youngest of the three brothers in his father's generation, only seventeen, his eye corners not yet etched with the marks of time. The water skin was made from some animal's bladder, its surface covered in cracks, crudely patched with tree sap.
Wu Guohua gratefully took it, tilting his head back and guzzling a large mouthful.
The water was scalding hot, with a strong earthy smell and the astringent taste of leather, yet in his mouth, it was sweeter than nectar.
Just as he swallowed, a sudden dizziness struck him, and a dazzling golden light flashed before his eyes, like the afterimage left after staring directly at the sun at midday.
When his vision refocused, several lines of translucent text appeared before him:
Name: Wu Guohua
Talent: Farming
Level 1 Talent (1/100): Crop survival rate increased by 100%
Wu Guohua suddenly choked, water spraying from his nostrils, stinging his eyes and making tears stream down. Was this... a Golden Finger?