The two black calves, christened 'Onyx' and 'Shadow' by Xiaoshan, were bundles of potential wrapped in awkward, growing bodies. Their arrival shifted the Lin family's focus from intensive cropping to pasture management. The 'Pasture Management & Rotational Grazing' knowledge unfolded in Lin Yan's mind like a map. It spoke of rest periods for grass, of preventing overgrazing, of using animal impact to stimulate growth rather than destroy it.
Their one mu of cultivated land was insufficient. The wooded margin cleared by the pigs and goats was rough, uneven, and only partially covered with the volunteer grasses and the slowly spreading stonecrop. It could not sustain two growing steers.
The solution, hinted at by Qiao Yuelan, was land rental. Willow Creek had a system of common pasture, but its best sections were informally controlled by families with larger herds. There were, however, several patches of marginal, sloping land on the village's eastern edge, owned by absentee landlords—minor gentry from the prefectural town who saw them as worthless. The Village Head managed the leases for a fee.
A week after the calves arrived, Lin Yan went to see Li. He found the Village Head reviewing tax records, his expression sour.
"More livestock, Lin Yan?" Li said without looking up. "Your one mu must be very productive."
"It is, Village Head, thanks to your earlier forbearance," Lin Yan said, deploying careful politeness. "The livestock, however, require more space. I understand there are leasable plots on the eastern slopes. The 'Three Brothers' fields."
Li finally looked up, a calculating gleam in his eye. The 'Three Brothers' were three adjacent, terraced but badly eroded mu on a south-facing slope. They were notorious for thin soil and poor yields, leased only sporadically to desperate farmers who quickly gave up. The annual rent was low—five coppers per mu per year—but the yield was often lower.
"Those fields are a curse," Li stated. "You would waste your coin."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps they need a different approach than millet. I wish to lease them for one year. All three." Nine mu total. Combined with their original plot, it would give them the ten mu the system required for Tier 3, and grazing space for the cattle.
Li studied him, seeing not the frail boy of a year past, but a young man with a disconcertingly steady gaze. "Fifteen coppers per year, for all three. Paid in advance. No guarantee of water access; the stream is seasonal there."
It was a gamble. Fifteen coppers was most of their remaining cash buffer. But it was also an opportunity to manage a significant piece of land, to apply their principles on a larger scale.
"We will take it," Lin Yan said.
The lease was drawn up. Lin Yan paid the fifteen coppers from their dwindling store, leaving them with a mere three coppers for emergencies. The pressure was back, but of a different kind. This was not debt pressure; it was investment pressure.
The family toured their new holdings the next day. The Three Brothers fields were, as described, a sorry sight. Erosion had carved shallow gullies down the slopes. The soil was a pale, stony shale, supporting only tough, wiry grasses and thistles. But they were south-facing, catching full sun. And at the bottom of the gentle slope, a seasonal stream bed showed signs of having held water recently.
"It's worse than ours was," Lin Qiang muttered, kicking a clod that disintegrated into dust.
"But bigger," Lin Gang said, ever pragmatic, looking at the expanse. "Room."
Lin Yan knelt, picking up a handful of the poor soil. He looked up the slope to where the stonecrop thrived on the rocky outcrop at the edge of their own land. Resilience. That was the lesson. They wouldn't fight this soil to grow wheat. They would heal it, and use it for what it was good for: pasture.
"We'll fence it," he declared. "Not a wicker fence. A post-and-rail boundary, just to mark it. Then, we do three things. First, we seed the worst gullies with a mix of clover and this…" he walked to the edge and plucked a piece of the spreading stonecrop. "We take cuttings. It holds soil. It's a start. Second, we plan a simple irrigation ditch from the stream bed to the upper terrace, to catch and hold spring rains. Third, we rotate the calves, the goats, and eventually the pigs up here. Their manure, their very hooves, will help break the crust and work in what little organic matter we can bring."
It was a plan built on observation and mimicry of nature. They would be shepherds of erosion control, not conquerors of infertile ground.
The work was monumental. Fencing nine mu with proper posts and rails required timber. They had to trade labor with Old Teng's brother, helping him clear a field in exchange for the right to take certain straight, young trees from his woodlot. Hauling the logs, setting the posts, splitting rails—it consumed two weeks of dawn-to-dusk labor for every able-bodied member of the family. Even Wang Shi and Xiaoshan helped, carrying water and tool-sharpening stones.
As they worked, the stonecrop cuttings, stuck into the crumbling sides of the gullies, simply sat there. They didn't die, but they didn't visibly grow either. They just… persisted. It was frustrating.
One evening, as Lin Yan massaged his aching shoulders, Qiao Yuelan rode up. She dismounted, surveyed the massive fencing project with wide eyes. "You leased the Three Brothers?"
"We did."
"They call them the 'Hungry Fields.'"
"They are. But hunger can be taught new appetites." He showed her the stonecrop cuttings. "Like this. It doesn't do much, but it doesn't die."
She examined one. "Its roots are shallow but wide. A net. It will take time to knit. But it will hold." She looked at him. "You think like a healer. Not just of animals, but of land."
Her approval warmed him more than the fading sun.
She had come on business. She took delivery of their first batch of "herb-garden" eggs—two dozen, each one a deeper brown than usual. She also collected the first, modest harvest of lavender buds, drying them in a shallow basket she'd brought. The payment was in silver—a small, broken piece worth twenty coppers. It was their first significant non-copper currency, and it came from their value-added produce, not just raw bulk.
"The eggs are for a client whose wife is with child," she explained. "The lavender is for my master's calming sachets. There is demand." She paused. "The garrison butcher, Gao. He asked me if you would have more of that 'grass-finished' pork by autumn. The Deputy Minister Zhao inquired after it."
The market was whispering their name. The 'Establish the Brand' quest glowed with progress.
With the fencing finally complete, they moved the two calves and the goats to the largest of the Three Brothers fields. The animals, confused at first by the vastness, soon began to graze on the thin grasses, their movements slow and deliberate. Just their presence changed the feel of the place. It was no longer abandoned; it was occupied.
Lin Yan initiated the irrigation project—a simple diversion dam of stones and logs in the stream bed, and a shallow ditch leading to the upper terrace. It wouldn't provide constant water, but it would capture the next rain.
Then, the first test came. A sudden, violent summer thunderstorm rolled over the hills. Rain fell in torrents, hammering the earth. The family huddled in their hut, listening to the roar. Lin Yan's thoughts were on the Three Brothers, on the raw gullies, on their stonecrop cuttings.
At dawn, the sky cleared. They rushed to their leased land. The scene was mixed. The new irrigation ditch had overflowed, but it had channeled a significant amount of water onto the upper terrace, which was now a muddy lake—water held in place, not immediately lost. The lower gullies had eroded further, washing away some of their early seeding efforts.
But where they had placed the stonecrop cuttings along the gully edges, the soil held. The fleshy plants were now clean and glistening, their leaves plump with water, their roots visibly gripping the wet earth. They had done their job. It was a small victory, but a profound one.
The system chimed.
[Hidden Milestone: 'Land Healing Initiated.' Erosion control measures implemented with observed positive effect.]
[Reward: 'Basic Hydrology & Earthworks' knowledge unlocked. 25 System Points.]
[Points Total: 205/300.]
New understanding of water flow, drainage, and simple terracing techniques settled into his mind. They could improve their ditch. They could build check dams in the gullies.
As they surveyed the damage and the success, Lin Dashan put a hand on Lin Yan's shoulder. "We bought these fields with coin, son. But we will pay for them with sweat and patience. I see that now."
It was the heart of the lesson. The stonecrop didn't try to be a towering pine. It simply held the ground it was given, with relentless, quiet tenacity. That was their model.
The summer wore on. The calves grew. The Bluestem grass on their home mu was cut for a second hay crop, its yield even better than the first. They delivered the promised twenty bundles to the Zhang estate, and sold another ten to a passing horse trader at a premium price—their first independent hay sale.
The Lin Family brand was slowly gaining substance: it stood for smoked pork with a unique flavor, for deep-yolked herb-fed eggs, for resilient Bluestem hay, and now, for the audacious project of healing the Hungry Fields.
One evening, as they sat outside their hut, the scent of lavender and warm hay in the air, Lin Yan looked at his family. They were thinner than they should be, their clothes still patched, their hands calloused and scarred. But their eyes were no longer hollow. They were focused, looking out at their original thriving mu and the vast, challenging promise of the Three Brothers.
They had leased a curse. But in the stubborn green of the stonecrop holding the line against the rain, Lin Yan saw their future. They would not out-muscle the poor land. They would out-patient it, out-smart it, and in time, out-heart it.
The foundation had expanded far beyond their fence. It now encompassed nine rocky mu of hope, rooted in the simple, unbreakable lesson of a little succulent that refused to let go.
[System Note: Land asset base significantly expanded via lease. Erosion control and pasture management initiated. 'Lin Family' brand attributes diversifying (meat, eggs, hay, land stewardship). Host is demonstrating scalable application of core principles.]
[Quest: 'Establish the Brand' – PROGRESSING. New market channels (herbalist, horse trader) established.]
[Tier 3 Progress: Land under management: 10 mu ✓. Brand establishment: In Progress.]