Dawn had barely broken, and a few thin wisps of cooking smoke still drifted above the village.
Li Xuan was jolted awake by stifled sobbing and the dull clatter of pots and bowls being slammed around.
It was his sister-in-law Wang, her voice thick with tears and resentment:
"...We can't go on living like this! The rice jar's empty, we still don't have money for Father's medicine, and yesterday that third son stole our last few eggs and went into town. He must have gone to see that Xu Family vixen again! Sooner or later, he'll ruin this family!"
"Keep your voice down..."
His eldest brother, Li Zhong, tried to soothe her in a muffled voice laden with exhaustion.
Then came his father Li Shan's heavy coughing and sighing:
"Ah... It's my fault. My fault for spoiling him rotten... Cough, cough..."
Li Xuan lay on the cold earthen bed, morning light filtering through the torn window paper and illuminating the dust dancing in the air.
The original owner's disgraceful memories tangled and tore against his transmigrated consciousness, making his temples throb.
He was the third son of the Li family.
Above him was an honest, guileless eldest brother, Li Zhong.
A shrewd, capable sister-in-law, Wang, whom life's burdens had nearly crushed.
And a younger sister, Li Xiuer, who had just turned fifteen but was dark-skinned, scrawny, and perpetually underfed.
Their mother had died giving birth to Xiuer, and the second son had disappeared several years ago. Their father, Li Shan, had once been the family's pillar, a skilled hunter renowned throughout the surrounding villages.
But six months ago, Li Shan had gone hunting for a fine fox pelt so his beloved youngest son could use it to win over Miss Xu in town.
He had chased his quarry deep into the mountains, broken his leg in a fall, and been left with a lasting ailment. He could no longer venture into the mountains.
And the original Li Xuan?
Spoiled since childhood, he was frail and unable to endure hardship, yet had picked up all the habits of the town's street thugs.
He thought mountain families were shabby, his father useless, and his eldest brother spineless.
All he wanted was to attach himself to the daughter of Shopkeeper Xu, who ran the town's general store. He believed she was his "ideal match."
The harder life became at home, the more ways he devised to squeeze money out of his family to please Miss Xu.
He answered his father and brother's advice with blows or curses.
He sneered at his sister-in-law's complaints and cared nothing for his younger sister's plight.
A few days ago, he really had stolen eggs and gone into town.
Unfortunately, a shop assistant had chased him away before he could even approach the Xu Family's back gate.
Furious and frustrated, the original owner had come home and collapsed into bed.
That night, he had developed a high fever. When he awoke again, the soul inside that shell had changed.
The arguments and sighs outside pierced Li Xuan's heart like needles.
Not because he felt ashamed on the original owner's behalf, but because the plight of these good people, dragged down by him, filled Li Xuan with stifled frustration and a fierce, ugly anger.
"Third Brother, Father says it's time to get up."
A timid little head peeked around the battered door.
It was the original owner's younger sister, Li Xiuer.
She was already fifteen.
Yet she looked little different from a half-grown child.
Life here is far too hard! None of them get enough to eat, and on top of that, they had the original owner-a rat dropping spoiling the whole pot...
"Tell Father I'll be right up."
His gaze settled above Li Xiuer's head, where extremely faint lettering appeared, visible only to him:
[Li Xiuer] Physique: 0.7 (sickly) Dexterity: 0.7
"Huh?! What is this?!"
Li Xuan was badly startled. Later, he discovered that it wasn't limited to people.
People walking around the village, the dogs they kept, even animals scurrying past...
All had similar markers above their heads, though most were very simple.
For instance, the rats slipping through a hole at the base of the wall usually had [Physique 0.1-0.2, Dexterity 1.5-2.0].
His own marker read:
[Li Xuan] Physique: 0.9 (slightly weaker than an ordinary person) Dexterity: 1.0 [Equipment] None [Available points: 0]
"Isn't this the stat allocation panel from a game I played in my previous life?"
Li Xuan's favorite hunting game in his previous life had featured a "hunting panel"!
Just as the name suggested!
Points were the core of its "hunting stat allocation."
They could be earned by completing certain tasks.
Translated into reality, that probably meant killing prey or eating meat to obtain nutrients.
The panel also had another very important function: skills!
"Things like chopping wood, hunting-all kinds of skills..."
Points could be used to improve skill proficiency or directly enhance physique and dexterity.
With every upgrade, his body would directly gain an intuitive understanding.
For example.
At first, increasing physique or dexterity by 0.1 might cost only one point, but it seemed to become harder the further he progressed.
Skill proficiency, meanwhile, was divided into levels, with the points required increasing sharply at each level.
Having only just transmigrated, he naturally didn't have a single point.
"I need to find a way to earn some points and see whether this works exactly like the game panel from my previous life!"
He quietly got up and pulled on the original owner's reasonably clean old cloth shirt.
It was probably the only garment in the house without patches.
He opened the door of his shabby room and crossed the main room.
Inside, Wang, who was wiping away tears, and Li Zhong, who was squatting on the floor sighing, both froze when they saw him.
Wang immediately turned away and wiped her eyes, her expression sour.
Li Zhong raised his head, his lips moving as though he wanted to say something. In the end, all that emerged was an even heavier sigh.
His father Li Shan's stifled coughing came from the east room.
Li Xuan said nothing and headed straight for the woodshed in the backyard.
The woodshed was filthy and cluttered, filled with a musty smell mingled with dry grass.
He rummaged in a corner. Sure enough, the fine bow his father Li Shan had treasured was gone. The original owner had probably squandered it long ago.
In the end, he found only an extremely battered Mulberry Shortbow. Even its body was slightly warped, and its string hung slack.
There were also a few old arrows with crooked shafts and rusty heads, along with a woodcutting blade whose edge was chipped.
When he picked up the Mulberry Wood Bow and the woodcutting blade, the equipment section finally displayed something:
[Equipment] Battered mulberry hunting bow (+0.1 physique, severely worn, weak draw) Rusty woodcutting blade (+0.1 dexterity, damaged) Poor-quality arrows x4 (crude)
Better than nothing.
"Just as I thought... Equipment can boost attributes a little! That's pretty much the same as in the game!"
Carrying this collection of junk, he also felt around in the darkness beside the kitchen stove and took the remaining half of yesterday's rock-hard wild-greens flatbread.
He quietly pushed open the courtyard gate and slipped out.
The village road was still quiet, with only cooking smoke curling up from the homes of early risers.
A few village women who were up early saw Li Xuan carrying a bow and blade.
Their faces filled with surprise and scorn as they whispered among themselves:
"Well, well, what act is the Li family's third son putting on now?"
"Off to fool around in town again, isn't he? Even carrying a broken bow to make a show of it."
"Poor old Li and his family..."
Li Xuan turned a deaf ear to them and trudged toward the woods in the lower hills behind the village.
The cold morning dew soaked his trouser legs.
With his physique of 0.9 and the original owner's meager memories of climbing mountains.
Even walking the mountain trail left him gasping for breath, his chest tight.
But he gritted his teeth and, driven by sheer stubbornness, forced his way into the woods.
He didn't venture recklessly deeper, instead roaming the relatively safe fringes where sunlight still filtered through the branches and leaves in dappled patches.
Wild rabbits and Mountain Pheasants were his only targets.
When he grew tired, he took a bite of the wild-greens flatbread, so hard it hurt his teeth.
The coarse bran scraped his throat raw.
When he grew thirsty, he found a mountain stream and drank. The water was so cold that it made him shudder.
He kept going until the sun slanted westward and the light among the trees grew soft and dim.
Just as he was about to give up and come back tomorrow.
In a sparse patch of grass ahead, dotted with berry bushes.
There came a faint, rhythmic rustling.
Li Xuan immediately held his breath and crouched low, approaching under cover of the shadows cast by tree trunks and bushes.
He spotted a wild rabbit, not particularly plump, with gray-brown fur tinged with yellow.
It was sitting upright, holding a red wild berry between its forepaws.
Its cleft mouth worked rapidly, and its ears swiveled from time to time.
It seemed reasonably alert, but the berry appeared to occupy most of its attention.
Extremely faint lettering appeared above the rabbit's head:
[Physique 0.4, Dexterity 1.6]
Before you continue