Wind and Snow Breaking Temple

The wind and snow poured in through the holes in the roof of the dilapidated temple like knives.

Li Xuan woke up in the cold, his first thought being: Why is this damn air conditioner broken?

He tried to raise his hand to rub his eyes, but his arm felt as heavy as lead.

He forced his eyes open, and instead of the moldy ceiling of his rental apartment, he saw a crooked, cobweb-covered rotten beam.

Hiss--

Suddenly, a pain like shattered glass piercing his brain struck him.

It took a long while for him to recover.

Two sets of memories.

One belonged to the twenty-seven-year-old Li Xuan, a pathetic programmer who worked overtime until 3 AM last night, felt a sudden sharp pain in his chest, and his vision went black.

The other belonged to the seventeen-year-old Li Xuan, a refugee from the Northern Territory. His parents had died of the plague last year, and he had followed the fleeing crowds south. Three days ago, he had been abandoned in this abandoned earth temple to die due to a high fever.

The two sets of memories jumbled together, making it impossible to tell which was a dream.

But the physical pain was real.

A dull ache throbbed in his left leg, which had been broken by panicked refugees during the exodus. His throat felt as dry as sandpaper, and every breath burned.

He lay on a pile of grass in the corner. The straw beneath him was damp and moldy, emitting a mixed stench of urine and decay.

Looking around, he could vaguely see a dozen huddled figures in the dim light of the weak bonfire in the center of the temple.

Each was wrapped in tattered rags, motionless like corpses awaiting burial.

At the temple entrance, three people sat around a fire, roasting something.

The aroma drifted over, and a chorus of swallowed saliva echoed through the temple, but no one dared to approach.

Li Xuan tried to move his fingers, his arm...

Gritting his teeth, he summoned all his strength to push himself up, leaning his upper body against the cold, earthen wall behind him.

This simple action made his vision blur, and cold sweat soaked through his thin clothes.

"Awake?"

A hoarse voice suddenly came from beside him. An old man, wrapped in scraps of sackcloth, with white hair and wrinkles as deep as ravines on his face, was looking at him with cloudy eyes.

"Water..." Li Xuan squeezed out the words.

The old man shook his head and pointed to a broken clay pot in the center of the temple. "The water was distributed this morning. We won't get more until tonight."

Li Xuan followed his gaze. A small, thin child squatted by the pot, constantly licking the inside of the clay wall with his tongue.

Hunger and thirst gripped his throat like two hands.

He began to force himself to calm down, closing his eyes to sort through the fragments of memory.

The Great Yan Dynasty, a severe drought in the three prefectures of the Northern Territory, followed by a plague, and then the barbarians descending from the north to plunder.

The original body's family had fled south with the refugee tide. His parents had died on the road, and he had followed the group alone, reaching the territory of Black Stone City.

The city gates were closed, and refugees were not allowed in, forcing them to survive in the wilderness outside the city.

This earth temple was occupied by a refugee leader named Zhang the Cripple, who commanded about a dozen relatively strong men and controlled over fifty refugees in the vicinity.

Zhang the Cripple's rules were simple: work for food, and the seriously ill or useless were thrown out to fend for themselves.

The original body had been digging for wild vegetables yesterday while suffering from a high fever, and today...

Li Xuan opened his eyes and looked at the three men roasting meat at the temple entrance.

Almost simultaneously, one of the burly men stood up, carrying a wooden club as thick as a wrist, and walked towards them.

The sound of his footsteps was exceptionally clear in the silent temple. All the refugees flinched, trying to make themselves smaller.

The burly man stopped in front of Li Xuan and nudged his shoulder with the club.

"Can you still move?"

The burly man was in his thirties, with a scar on his face and cold eyes that regarded Li Xuan like a corpse.

"Yes," Li Xuan rasped.

"If you can move, you'll go dig ash root on the north slope tomorrow," the burly man said, tapping the ground with his club. "If you don't dig up three jin, you'll be thrown out too." He then turned and left.

Li Xuan stared at his retreating back until the burly man sat back down by the fire and continued to turn the roasted meat.

The piece of meat was not large, dark and black, looking like a rat or some other small beast.

Calm, I must remain calm.

High fever, leg injury, hunger, cold, and tomorrow's work quota.

Any one of them could be fatal.

He needed water, food, medicine, and...

His vision suddenly blurred.

Li Xuan thought it was a vision problem caused by the high fever. He blinked.

The blur didn't disappear; instead, it condensed into a hazy, grayish-white, semi-transparent halo suspended in the center of his vision.

The halo gradually stabilized, outlining a status panel.

[Li Xuan]

[Strength: 0.6]

[Agility: 0.5]

[Stamina: 0.7]

[Spirit: 1.4]

[Cultivation Method: None]

[Potential: 0.00]

Li Xuan froze.

Hallucination? Feverish delirium?

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.

The panel was still there.

He turned his head to look elsewhere—the walls, the bonfire, the refugees.

The panel remained suspended directly in front of his vision, moving with his gaze but always maintaining its relative position.

Strength, Agility, Stamina, Spirit... attribute values?

This body was extremely weak, but Stamina was still 0.7? Perhaps a normal person would be 1?

Spirit at 1.4... was that mental strength? Maybe it was because he transmigrated and merged with two sets of memories?

Li Xuan leaned against the wall, his chest rising and falling slightly. The cold and the fever made his thoughts sluggish, but he didn't stop thinking.

This panel was his only anomaly.

Perhaps, it was also his only hope.

How to obtain "Potential"? How to get a "Cultivation Method"? Could his attributes... be improved?

He stared at the panel, his gaze falling on [Stamina: 0.7].

If he could improve his physique, would the fever subside? Would his leg injury improve?

But his Potential was 0; how could he acquire Potential?

"Cough... cough cough!"

A violent coughing fit erupted beside him; it was the white-haired old man.

He curled into a ball, coughing his lungs out. At the end of his coughing, he spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm, which splattered onto the pile of straw.

The surrounding refugees silently shuffled further away. A Burly Man by the bonfire turned his head and cursed, "If the old geezer wants to die, go die somewhere else!"

The old man panted, slowly calming down, and lay back on the straw, staring blankly at the roof.

The wind outside the temple grew fiercer. Snowflakes swirled in through the broken window, landing on Li Xuan's face, cold... bone-chillingly cold!

Li Xuan knew he was standing on the edge of a cliff.

Tomorrow, if he couldn't dig up three pounds of ash root, or if he dug enough but collapsed from exhaustion, or if his fever worsened and he directly fainted.

All of these would lead to the same end: being thrown out of the temple and left to freeze to death in the snow.

He had to... survive!

He needed potential points!!

The wind and snow howled like countless ghosts wailing outside the temple.