New Spring dawned not with celebration, but with a bone-deep, collective exhaustion that was somehow sweeter than any festival. The one hundred copper coins were gone, delivered to Village Head Li's strongbox. The Lin family's physical coffers were empty, scraped down to the wood. But as they stood in their thriving, green mu on the first morning of the new season, the air itself felt different. It was no longer borrowed time; it was earned time. A season they had purchased with sweat, silver, and stubbornness.
The Bluestem grass, as they'd come to call it, was the immediate priority. Its seed heads had ripened from green to a pale, silvery-gold, nodding heavily on their slender stalks. This was their first true harvest—not of food, but of potential. Of a future asset they had discovered and nurtured themselves.
Lin Yan gathered the family at the patch, which formed a soft, bluish border between their cultivated field and the wild. "We need every seed," he said, his voice low with reverence. "We harvest the heads carefully, by hand. We don't shake them. We'll thresh them indoors on a cloth."
They worked with a gentle, almost ceremonial care. Lin Xiaohui and Wang Shi, their fingers nimble, used small sickles to snip the seed heads, letting them fall into broad, shallow baskets. Lin Yan and Lin Dashan followed, tying the cut stalks into bundles to be dried later as coarse fodder. The children, Tie Zhu and Shitou, were given the solemn duty of holding the baskets steady, their small faces serious.
It was a small harvest—perhaps enough seed to cover a tenth of an acre if sown thinly. But it was theirs. A distinct, possibly superior strain of forage grass they had identified, protected, and now propagated.
[Quest: 'The First Harvest' completed.]
[Reward: 'Seed Purification & Storage' knowledge unlocked. 20 System Points.]
New knowledge flowed into Lin Yan: winnowing techniques using the wind and shallow trays, methods to separate chaff using static from a wool cloth, the importance of absolute dryness and storage in sealed, pest-proof containers. They spent the afternoon indoors, winnowing the precious seeds on a large, flat basket, letting the breeze from the door carry away the dust and light chaff. The purified seeds were a modest heap, a pale gold dusting in the bottom of a small, newly lime-washed pot. They sealed it with a waxed cloth and placed it on the shelf beside the Debt Bowl—a new kind of treasure.
The 130 System Points hummed with potential, but Lin Yan held them close. The next Tier unlock at 300 points felt distant, and the current Shop offerings were either purchased or not immediately critical. He was learning the system's rhythm: it rewarded decisive action and strategic planning, not impulsive spending.
The pigs, Spot and Splotch, were now substantial creatures, their playful shoving matches shaking their sturdy pen. Their appetites were a governing force of the household. The rotational clearing of the wooded margin continued, the pigs turning the scrubby undergrowth into a rough, tilled earth. It was slow, but it was land reclamation that fed itself.
One morning, a week after New Spring, Lin Yan found Spot listless. The normally voracious pig was ignoring a pile of freshly chopped cover crop. His snout was dry, his breathing seemed shallow. A bolt of alarm shot through Lin Yan. He called for Lin Qiang, whose observational skills were sharp.
"His eyes are runny," Qiang noted, kneeling in the pen. He placed a hand on the pig's side. "He feels warm. Very warm."
The 'Basic Swine Husbandry' knowledge surfaced: fever, loss of appetite, respiratory signs. Could be swine fever, a death sentence. Or pneumonia. Or a severe parasitic infection. Without a proper veterinarian, diagnosis was guesswork.
"We need to isolate him," Lin Yan said, fighting down panic. "And we need to try the general principles: reduce fever, support his strength."
They created a separate, smaller enclosure within the pen, a sick bay. They made a cooling mud wallow for Spot. Wang Shi prepared a thin gruel of their precious barley, mixed with minced garlic and wild ginger from their foraging—a crude analogue of the poultry tonic. They used a hollow reed to drip water and the gruel into his mouth.
For three days, the family's focus narrowed to the ailing pig. The Debt Bowl, the bluestem seeds, the egg sales—all faded into the background. This was a crisis of their most valuable physical asset. If Spot died, they lost half their future meat, manure, and the labor of clearing land. More than that, it would feel like a betrayal of the trust the animal had placed in them.
Lin Yan spent hours sitting by the enclosure, watching the pig's labored breathing. He remembered the ox, the calm connection he'd forged. He tried to project the same steadiness now, humming softly, resting a hand on the pig's hot flank. "Fight," he whispered. "We need you to fight."
On the fourth day, Spot's fever broke. He drank water on his own. On the fifth, he nibbled at some chopped clover. The relief was a physical weight lifted from the homestead. The crisis had passed. It left Spot thinner, weaker, but alive. And it left the family with another harsh lesson: their margins were so thin that a single animal's illness could threaten their entire economic structure. They needed more resilience, more animals to spread the risk, or better preventative medicine.
The 'Poultry Tonic Recipe' had worked for the chickens. Could a similar principle work for pigs? He lacked the knowledge. The system Shop didn't offer a swine tonic. He would have to experiment, to ask Mei Xiang, to observe.
As Spot recovered, the herb garden project moved from theory to practice. The packet of lavender seeds from Qiao Yuelan felt like a contract with the future. They prepared a small, raised bed near the south wall of the hut, using the best soil from the pigs' rooting pits, mixed with sand for drainage. Lin Yan, using the new 'Basic Herb Lore' knowledge, planted the tiny lavender seeds with precise spacing. He also designated a separate patch for the medicinal herbs they already used—dandelion, wild garlic, the 'mountain mint' oregano. This was the beginning of their apothecary garden, a step towards the 'herb-fed' premium eggs and potentially a new trade good.
The egg sales continued, the steady plink of coppers returning to the Debt Bowl a comforting sound. They were up to twenty-three coppers since New Spring. A snail's pace. The summer harvest installment of one hundred and fifty coppers loomed like a distant but fast-approaching storm.
Then, a complication arose from an unexpected direction.
Young Zhao, the suspected egg thief, was found badly beaten one morning in a ditch near the western path. His arm was broken, his face a mess of bruises. He claimed he'd fallen from a tree. No one believed him. Whispers in the village said it was the work of bandits, or a personal dispute gone wrong. But a darker, quieter rumor also circulated: that the Lin family, known to be clever and now with a formidable-looking eldest brother and a loyal, strong friend in Er Niu, had meted out their own justice.
The rumor reached them through a tight-lipped Mei Xiang. "People are saying you're not as meek as you look. That you protect what's yours. Some are impressed. Some are… wary."
It was a dangerous perception. They couldn't afford to be seen as violent or vengeful. But they also couldn't afford to be seen as easy targets.
Lin Dashan called a family meeting. "We did not do this," he stated flatly. "We will not claim credit for violence we did not commit. But we will not correct the rumors too loudly either. Let them think what they will about our strength. But in our actions, we show only hard work and fair trade."
It was a delicate balance. The beating of Zhao, whoever was responsible, had incidentally made their fence seem taller, their gate seem stronger.
A few days later, Old Teng, the pig seller, came to visit. He inspected Spot and Splotch with a critical eye, grunting at their growth despite the recent illness. "Heard you had some trouble with thieves. And other things." His gaze was direct.
"We mind our own business, Master Teng," Lin Yan replied carefully.
"Hmph. Good." Old Teng spat. "A man's stock is his own. But a man also needs to know his neighbors." He paused. "I have a proposition. My brother in the next valley has a pair of young goats he needs to sell. Nanny and billy. Good for clearing brush, giving milk. More manageable than pigs for a small holding. I could broker the trade. For a fee."
Goats. Milk, cheese, meat, brush clearing, and more manure. Another diversification. Another mouth to feed. But also, another layer of resilience. And goats were less feed-intensive than pigs, able to thrive on browse the pigs and chickens wouldn't touch.
"What would he want?" Lin Yan asked, his mind already calculating.
"He needs good rope. Strong, long hemp rope. For a new well he's digging. Also… some of that grass seed you're so proud of. A pot of it."
They had no hemp rope. But they had labor and a reputation for odd skills. "We have no rope. But we can make it, if we have the hemp. Or we can trade labor for rope from the Zhang estate's stores. And we can spare a small pot of the bluestem seed."
It was a complex, three-way barter. It took Lin Yan two days to negotiate. In the end, they agreed: The Lin family would provide Old Teng's brother with three large coils of good hemp rope (to be obtained by Lin Gang working for five days at the Zhang estate's hemp field) and a pottery cup's worth of bluestem grass seed. In return, they would receive the two young goats. Old Teng would take a kid from the first litter as his broker's fee.
It was a forward-thinking deal, trading future labor and future grass for immediate livestock. It also deepened their connections within the village's economic web.
Lin Gang began his labor at the Zhang estate. The work was hard but fair. He returned each evening with news. The Zhang's head steward had noted their industry. "He asked about our cover crop," Lin Gang reported, eating his evening porridge. "Said it was the greenest thing he's seen this spring. Asked if it was a 'frontier seed' we'd gotten from travelers."
Interest from the largest landholder in the area was significant. It was both an opportunity and a risk.
A week later, the goats arrived. They were a handsome pair: a sleek, brown nanny with intelligent yellow eyes and a smaller, more skittish billy with twisted horns. They were housed in a hastily expanded section of the pigs' wooded clearing, separated by a strong hurdle fence. The goats immediately set to work nibbling at the leaves and bark of the regrowth, their vertical pupils scanning their new domain.
The Lin family's menagerie was growing: chickens, pigs, now goats. The homestead was alive with sounds—clucks, grunts, bleats, the rustle of foraging, the scrape of tools. It was no longer a silent struggle against poverty; it was a noisy, messy, vibrant hive of life.
One evening, as Lin Yan was adding the day's three egg-coppers to the Debt Bowl (now holding forty-six), a system notification appeared, different from the quest completions.
[Passive Skill Development: 'Integrated Systems Management' (Novice).]
[Host is successfully managing multiple, interdependent life forms (Poultry, Swine, Caprine) with limited resources. Synergies identified: Manure cycling, forage complementarity, pest control (poultry eating insects stirred up by pigs). Efficiency rating: Low, but improving.]
[Reward: 15 System Points.]
[Points Total: 145/100.]
It was acknowledging the holistic approach. He wasn't just raising animals; he was building an ecosystem. A crude, fragile one, but a system nonetheless.
The final thread of the season came from the lavender seeds. The first tiny, silvery-green seedlings broke through the soil of their herb bed. They were frail, vulnerable things. Lin Yan found himself checking them several times a day, shading them from the harsh afternoon sun with a screen of reeds, whispering encouragement like he had to the ox and the sick pig.
They represented a connection to a world beyond Willow Creek, to a woman named Qiao Yuelan who traveled and knew things. They represented a step up the value chain—from basic calories to specialized, luxury-adjacent goods.
Standing in the twilight, surrounded by the smells of animals, fresh earth, and the faint, clean scent of the lavender seedlings, Lin Yan took stock. They had survived the winter. They had met the first debt installment. They had expanded their livestock. They had harvested their first unique seed. They had planted herbs for a future trade.
They were still desperately poor. The summer debt payment was a tidal wave on the horizon. But they were no longer just a family in a hut. They were a ranch, in embryo. A complex, living entity with chickens that laid, pigs that rooted, goats that browsed, grass that promised, and herbs that whispered of distant markets.
The price of his mother's silver hairpins had bought more than time. It had bought them a vision of what they could become. And as Lin Yan looked at the lavender, so small and yet so full of potential, he knew every future coin, every drop of sweat, every harvested seed, was going to be invested in making that vision real.
The first harvest was not of grain, but of grass and hope. And it was enough, for now, to feed the dream for one more day.
[System Note: Livestock diversification achieved. Integrated systems management initiated. Host is moving beyond subsistence towards systematic production. The foundation is becoming an interconnected web. Maintain balance.]