The taste of bile clung to the back of Han Li's throat as he leaned over and dry-heaved into the mud.
The old farmer's body he'd inherited — Lin Xun, they said — was skin and bones, barely held together by gristle and stubbornness. But even through the dizziness and aching joints, Han Li knew one thing:
This wasn't Earth.
He stumbled out of the hut, barefoot, clothed in rough hemp that stank of rot and sweat. The rain had stopped sometime in the night, leaving the village coated in mist. Cracked fences. Muddy animal pens. Thatched roofs leaking like sieves. Chickens clucked and pigs snorted, unfazed by the strangeness of another soul occupying a man's body.
Down the slope, a barefoot girl chased a goose with a stick. Further on, old women sat under a tree weaving baskets, their chatter rough and accented.
> "Another spirit possession?"
"More like rotbrain. Lin Xun always was a halfwit."
The words stabbed, but Han Li ignored them. This wasn't the time to pick fights with gossiping grannies. He needed information.
He found it in the form of an old man chopping firewood outside a clay-walled home. Bent with age, beard to his chest, but eyes still sharp.
Han Li forced a smile. "Uncle... may I ask... what land is this?"
The man squinted. "Lost your wits again, Xun? This is Rainleaf Village, base of the Cloudveil Mountains. We're in the outer provinces of the Qinglong Empire, spirit bless it."
Qinglong Empire. Cloudveil Mountains.
None of it registered. But the man wasn't done.
"You best not be talking nonsense to the elders. They'll think you've gone devil-touched and throw you in the pig pit again."
Han Li swallowed hard. "And... cultivation?"
The axe paused mid-air.
"Bah. Only fools chase that path," the man spat to the side. "Qi? Sects? Flying swords and immortality? That's for lords and monsters. You think a dung-scraper like you's gonna reach the Dao?"
Cultivation was real.
That was all Han Li needed to know.
---
Later that day
The ache behind his eyes grew worse as the memories trickled in — not from his old life, but Lin Xun's. Sparse, blurry things. Starving winters. A dead mother. A father gutted by wolves. Beatings from the village head's son. And yet... a strange peace too.
He was a nobody here. Forgotten. Weak. Perfect cover.
By nightfall, he sat cross-legged inside the hut again. Candle flickering. Dirt floor still damp.
> "If cultivation's real, I need to start now. Can't waste time."
He tried it. Reaching for qi — whatever that meant. Just like he'd seen in novels.
Inhale through the nose, focus on the dantian. Picture the energy moving. Swirling. Gathering—
Pain.
A sharp, stabbing heat burned through his chest like a poker shoved through flesh.
He gasped and clutched his sides, sweat pouring.
Meridians. They're blocked.
Lin Xun's body wasn't just frail. It was crippled for cultivation.
But then... how did this body survive so long?
Han Li opened his eyes, breathing hard. Something buzzed faintly at the edge of his awareness. Like a dormant thread... waiting.
In the days that followed, Han Li learned fast.
Rainleaf was one of dozens of peasant villages that paid tribute to Stone Lantern Sect, the minor sect that ruled this stretch of the outer province. Once a year, they sent tax collectors and qi-tested children.
None from Rainleaf had passed in twenty years.
Life was brutal. Boys hauled dung. Girls carried firewood. Marriages were arranged by grain weight. Everyone feared bandits more than beasts, and more than half the village still prayed to river spirits.
But beneath all of it, Han Li felt something bubbling.
Desire. Yearning. Hunger.
Men wanted strength. Women wanted safety. Children wanted dreams. It was all here. Emotional energy. Stirring. Moving.
On the third night, he had a dream.
A silver lotus spun in the void. It pulsed with slow, throbbing heat.
> "Feed me," it whispered, in a voice that was neither male nor female.
"You are the root. Let your desires bloom."
He woke up soaked in sweat, his lower half uncomfortably tight beneath the hemp sheet. The dream had shifted halfway into something else — vague touches, soft moans, a shadowed woman straddling his lap.
> "This body's been celibate too long…"
But it wasn't just lust.
Something responded inside him. A pull. A presence.
It wanted more than qi.
It wanted passion. Will. Contact.
Han Li stared at the ceiling. "Not just cultivation. This... this might be a system."
He'd know for sure soon enough.
---
As dawn broke, a child's scream echoed through the village.
Han Li shot to his feet and ran barefoot into the mist.
At the riverbank, a boy lay blue-lipped and still. The villagers crowded, wailing.
"No pulse," someone sobbed. "He fell in and drowned!"
But Han Li didn't hesitate.
Modern knowledge. A second chance.
He dropped to his knees, rolled up his sleeves, and began CPR.
> "Live, dammit. I won't let another person die on me."
And above him — unseen by all — a faint golden icon flickered into existence in the air.
[+1 Root Energy: Emotional Surge Detected]