"What happened to the man of your house?"
"Reporting to you, sir, he is still bedridden."
"When do you plan to pay your household taxes?"
"Rest assured, sir, we absolutely will not miss the final deadline."
In the darkness, Chen Sanshi heard a conversation between a man and a woman.
The man was aggressive and overbearing; the woman was swallowing her grievances and seeking to placate him.
"Hiss..."
He laboriously forced open his eyelids. What met his eyes was an utterly unfamiliar environment.
Where was this?
Hadn't I been working overtime?
"Hiss..."
Chen Sanshi's head suddenly throbbed with agony. A tide of memories that did not belong to him surged into his mind, forcing him to accept a fact.
I transmigrated?
This place was called Poyang County, a remote border county of the Great Sheng Dynasty.
The original owner had lived in Yanbian Village outside the County Town. He was a full-time, impoverished scholar. His family had relied on his father's hunting to make a living, and life had been passable enough.
Until half a year ago, when his father went into the mountains overnight and never returned.
With the family's pillar gone, and the original owner having failed the child examination, the double blow had finally laid him low with a serious illness.
That was when Chen Sanshi had transmigrated here.
"Ah, Shi Ge'er, you're awake!"
A woman entered carrying a bowl of medicine. The sight of the boy awake filled her with delight.
She hurried to the bedside at a jog. Her already ill-fitting clothes shook fiercely as she ran, as though two rabbits were tumbling about inside.
This woman was Gu Xinlan.
She was the child bride his father had bought when the original owner was still very young.
She had always cared for the original owner like an older sister. Even after his father died and he fell ill, she never abandoned him.
But...
The original owner apparently looked down on this sister of his immensely.
Because she was descended from criminal commoners, banished to the frontier. She had nearly been sold into a brothel and belonged to the lowest, most despised class.
Meanwhile, the original owner thought highly of himself. He believed that one day he would earn scholarly honors, marry the daughter of a wealthy household, and become a dragon-riding son-in-law. He believed she was unworthy of him, and ordinarily treated her entirely as a servant.
"Shi Ge'er, how are you feeling?"
Gu Xinlan sat down beside the bed and placed a hand against the boy's forehead. She gave a surprised little gasp. "You're not burning up anymore?"
Chen Sanshi sat up and tried moving his body. Other than some weakness, there was nothing seriously wrong. The illness had vanished completely along with his transmigration.
"The Bodhisattva truly blessed us."
Gu Xinlan's joy was plain to see. "Shi Ge'er, drink your medicine first. I'll go make you something to eat."
Watching the millstones that seemed ready to burst forth as she walked away, Chen Sanshi spent ten minutes digesting his circumstances.
"Since I'm here, I might as well make the best of it."
He had always adapted quickly to his surroundings. Since he had come to this world, he had to find a way to live well.
He lifted the bitter medicine and drained it in one gulp, then headed to the next room.
He saw Gu Xinlan with nearly her whole body plunged into the rice jar, leaving only her millstones stuck outside as she struggled to scoop out food from within.
After fussing about for quite some time, she only managed to ladle out a small handful of millet.
Ever since the original owner's father had died, the family had lost its source of income. Then the original owner had fallen ill not long ago, completely draining their savings. They were now truly at the end of their rope, with neither ammunition nor provisions left.
"Was that tax official here to collect the autumn tax just now?"
Chen Sanshi stood behind Lan Jie'er. "How much?"
"Three taels of silver," Gu Xinlan answered.
"Three taels?"
Chen Sanshi sucked in a sharp breath. "Did they count Father in too?"
"Yes."
Gu Xinlan nodded softly. "The petty official collecting taxes said that since they hadn't found Father's corpse, he couldn't be considered dead. His household registration couldn't be canceled, so his taxes still had to be paid as usual. The hunting tax couldn't be shorted either."
Chen Sanshi cursed inwardly.
The Great Sheng Dynasty's exorbitant taxes and levies were already severe. With wars breaking out frequently across the land in recent years, taxes had continued to rise.
"Shi Ge'er, don't worry."
Worry filled Gu Xinlan's eyes, though her words were comforting. "I recently found work at a tailor's shop. Along with washing clothes for others, I should be able to scrape together at least some of it."
Clearly, the original owner had been completely supported by the household.
Even after his father died, he had refused to seek another livelihood. He would rather make Lan Jie'er work herself to the bone.
"Why not take a look at whether you're cut out for it..."
Chen Sanshi was rather speechless. He could not even pass as a Xiucai scholar, yet he dreamed of passing the provincial examination someday. Was that not the fantasy of a fool?
He could not keep going like this. He had to find a way to make a living.
Otherwise, if they could not pay the taxes, the man would be sent away for corvée labor and the woman sold to a brothel. Both would suffer a fate worse than death.
"I'll cook."
Gu Xinlan busied herself.
Before long, the meal was ready.
Two bowls of millet mixed with rice husks, with not even pickled vegetables to go with them.
This was probably the last meal of grain left in the house.
Chen Sanshi noticed that his bowl contained more millet, while Gu Xinlan's bowl consisted almost entirely of rice husks.
Rice husks were the outer shells of grains such as rice, wheat, and soybeans. Rough, dry, and difficult to swallow.
In his previous life, they would basically have been feed for livestock.
"Eat, Shi Ge'er."
Gu Xinlan picked up her chopsticks and ate in tiny, forceful bites. Her fingers were visibly red, and there were small ulcerated patches around her knuckles.
That was from washing too many clothes for others.
As a woman trying to support the family, she did everything she could, short only of the grueling labor that required a man's strength.
Chen Sanshi saw it all and etched it into his heart, lowering his head to eat the hard-to-swallow rice husks.
"Shi Ge'er."
Halfway through the meal, Gu Xinlan set down her chopsticks and hesitantly spoke. "Besides the tax silver, we still owe Aunt Li two qian of silver for medical treatment.
"Otherwise... I'm only making a suggestion, but after you rest and recover for a few more days, could you look for work too? If we can't gather the tax silver before the end of the month, I heard they'll come arrest people..."
As she spoke, she secretly watched his expression, her fingers nervously picking at the corner of her clothes.
Every time she had brought this up in the past, Shi Ge'er would fly into a rage, saying things like how could a scholar possibly do manual labor.
"Eat."
Chen Sanshi shoveled food into his mouth while silently calculating the accounts in his mind.
Gu Xinlan did not dare mention it again. She quietly finished her meal, swiftly scrubbed the pot and washed the bowls, then hurried off to do women's work.
Chen Sanshi remained seated, seriously considering his options.
Ancient times were unlike modern society. Having a bit of strength did not mean one could find work.
His family had no farmland, and his studies had earned him no scholarly rank. The only thing left for him to do was hunt.
The original owner had learned a few tricks from his father as a child. He had neglected them for years, but at least the fundamentals remained. Picking them back up should not be difficult.
Besides, they had to pay the hunting tax either way. If he was paying for it, he might as well hunt.
There also happened to be an old bow left in the house.
Chen Sanshi went into the inner room and took the dust-covered longbow down from the wall.
"It should still be usable."
"But I have a bow and no arrows. I'll need to find a way to get money for some arrows."
To stay alive, the family had sold nearly all their books. The only things left that might fetch a little money were the Four Treasures of the Study, which the original owner had regarded as his lifeblood.
Without the slightest hesitation, Chen Sanshi packed up the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone and took them all away.
Though they were all inferior goods, they sold for a full two hundred Copper coins, about two qian of silver.
That was proof enough that "poor scholars, wealthy warriors" was not an absolute rule. Studying was just as much a money-burning endeavor.
With the money in hand, Chen Sanshi went to a market stall that specialized in serving hunters.
"Little Stone, you're buying arrows?"
The stall owner, Old Xu, came from a military household and had been an old acquaintance of the original owner's father. "You're planning to go into the mountains to hunt? You're not studying anymore?"
"Yes. I want to buy a few old arrows."
Chen Sanshi picked out five secondhand willow-leaf arrows from the stall. "How much?"
"Seventy coins."
Chen Sanshi bargained. "Uncle Xu, old arrows aren't worth that much. Fifty coins at most."
"Fine, fifty coins for you."
Old Xu was straightforward. "If you ask me, you should've gone into the mountains long ago. Learn seven or eight parts out of ten of your father's skills, and at least feeding yourself wouldn't be hard. Yet you insisted on reading that damned nonsense. Is becoming an official something a poor family's child can manage?"
"You're right, Uncle."
Chen Sanshi did not argue. After confirming that there was nothing wrong with the arrows, he nocked one on the bowstring and aimed it at the ground.
Suddenly, several lines of small text appeared before his eyes.
Skill: Archery (Not Initiated)
Progress: (20/100)
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