An opening!
Li Xuan's heart raced, and his palms grew slightly sweaty.
He slowly took down the battered mulberry-wood bow and nocked a relatively straight arrow.
The bow was stiff, its rough wood digging into his hand.
He strained with all his might, the muscles in his arms and shoulders tightening and trembling, barely managing to draw it halfway.
The bowstring gave a faint groan under the strain.
The distance was less than twenty paces, yet it felt impossibly far.
He tried hard to recall the three-point alignment method his father had occasionally taught the body's original owner.
The arrowhead wavered slightly as he tried to line it up with the side of the rabbit's neck.
The rabbit seemed to sense something amiss and stopped nibbling.
Its ears stood straight up, and its glossy black eyes scanned its surroundings warily.
I can't wait!
Li Xuan knew that if he waited any longer, he might lose his chance altogether.
He held his last breath and released his fingers!
"Twang!"
A dull yet loud vibration of the bowstring rang through the relatively quiet woods.
It startled several birds nearby into flight.
The arrow left the string, wobbling along its course.
Both its speed and force were clearly insufficient, and it skimmed just above the rabbit's back.
It sheared off a small tuft of grayish-yellow fur and buried itself deep in the trunk of a tree behind it, its tail still quivering.
Startled, the rabbit's fur bristled all over. Its hind-leg muscles contracted sharply as it prepared to dart into the bushes ahead!
But its luck seemed exceptionally bad, for that panic-stricken leap.
Took it straight toward a low but unusually dense tangle of thorny vines!
"Squeak!"
One of the rabbit's hind legs and half its body instantly became entangled in the thorny vines!
It let out a short, piercing cry and began struggling madly, but the supple vines only wound tighter.
The thorns tore through its fur and skin, drawing tiny beads of blood.
Li Xuan shouted inwardly, Heaven is on my side!
He forgot his aching arms and the disappointment of missing his first shot.
Almost fumbling in his haste, he pulled out a second arrow and drew the bow again!
This time, because the target was trapped in place, struggling desperately.
He steadied himself a little, took a deep breath, and endured his muscles' protests.
He drew the bow nearly seventy percent of the way back, keeping the arrowhead firmly trained on that struggling grayish-yellow shape.
Twang!
The second arrow flew out, still lacking accuracy.
It carried the stiffness peculiar to a beginner.
Fortunately, the distance was short enough.
And the trapped rabbit's movements were restricted.
Carrying all his hope and strength, this arrow plunged hard into the rabbit's flank!
"Whimper..."
The rabbit gave a muffled cry, and the force of its struggles abruptly weakened.
Its four legs kicked a few times before gradually going limp.
Only its belly still rose and fell faintly, and soon even that stopped.
Panting heavily, Li Xuan lowered the bow.
Both his arms felt so sore and numb that he could barely lift them.
His heart hammered in his chest, pounding so hard that his eardrums rang.
He waited a while, making sure the rabbit no longer moved, before dragging his somewhat shaky legs over.
The rabbit was dead, its eyes still half-open. Around the arrow lodged in its belly.
Dark red blood slowly soaked its grayish-yellow fur.
A faint smell of blood and the rabbit's distinctive gamy odor spread through the air.
"Wait, why is there another one?"
Li Xuan had just lifted the rabbit when he noticed another lying nearby, with no blood on its body.
"Uh... did it crash into something and die?"
He stared dumbfounded, finally concluding that the rabbits must have been a pair. He had been so focused on one that the other must have fled blindly in panic and killed itself by crashing into a stump.
"What a pair of ill-fated lovebirds! Hahaha! Is this beginner's luck at hunting?"
At the same time, as his fingers touched the rabbit's still-warm body, soft yet beginning to stiffen, something strange suddenly happened!
A gentle current of warmth, distinctly different from the coolness of the mountain forest.
Abruptly surged through his fingertips and swiftly flowed through every limb and bone, dispelling some of his fatigue.
At the same time, a barely perceptible pale blue-green glow, carrying a sense of nimbleness, floated up from the rabbit.
And vanished into the space between his eyebrows as swiftly as lightning.
[Points +5] [Acquired: Archery Mastery (extremely unpracticed 0/5 → 1/5)] [Acquired trait: Wild Rabbit Agility (white)] [Wild Rabbit Agility (white): Slightly improves bodily coordination and subtle evasive ability, allowing lighter, swifter movement through complex terrain. (active)]
It really works!
Not just points, but traits that take effect immediately!
Most importantly, I even acquired an [Archery Mastery] skill!
"It really is exactly like that game interface. So that means I can spend points now. Shall I try?"
Li Xuan fought down the wild joy in his heart.
He immediately tried activating one of his newly acquired available points and putting it into Physique.
[Physique: 0.9 → 1.0]
In an instant, a thick current of warmth welled up from deep within his body.
It washed through his aching muscles and bones.
It was hardly a transformation that remade him from the bones outward, but he could clearly feel the difference.
Much of the persistent, hollow weakness in his body dissipated, and his breathing grew easier.
The soreness in his arms also eased by thirty or forty percent.
Most importantly, as the "Wild Rabbit Agility" trait took effect.
He tried moving his feet and felt that his body really did seem a little lighter.
His awareness of the fallen leaves and protruding roots underfoot sharpened, too, and his steps no longer lurched unevenly.
It works! It really works!
[Available points: 4]
"The rest..."
Li Xuan had originally intended to put all the points into his attributes first. After all, this body was rather frail.
But he immediately discovered...
[Li Xuan] Physique: 1.0 (slightly weaker than an ordinary person) Dexterity: 1.0 [Once an attribute exceeds 1.0, each subsequent increase of 0.1 requires 5 points]
"What the hell!"
Li Xuan was a little dumbfounded.
He had only just begun, and the required points had already increased so much?
"But an increase of 0.1 looks tiny. Why do I feel so much stronger?"
He had no choice.
"Put all four remaining points into 'Archery Mastery.'"
Hum-!
It was as though an invisible string had been lightly plucked in his mind, producing an increasingly clear vibration.
That rang out.
Then four gentle yet powerful currents of warmth flowed, not throughout his limbs and bones, but directly into his arms and shoulders.
Especially the fingers, wrist, and forearm of his right hand, which drew the string, along with the deltoid and latissimus dorsi muscles on his left side, which steadied the bow.
He felt as though he could simulate the entire process of nocking an arrow and drawing a bow in empty air:
How to plant both feet firmly on the ground and lean his center of gravity slightly forward.
How to support the bow with his left hand and feel the wind's direction, how to hook the string with his right hand and add strength from his back.
How to sight along the arrowhead and lock firmly onto the target's fatal weak point...
[Archery Mastery: extremely unpracticed (1/5) → unpracticed (0/10)] [Available points: 0]
"Fantastic! Spending points makes such an obvious difference!"
Li Xuan was immensely excited and took quite a while to calm down.
He pulled the arrow from the rabbit's body and carefully wiped the blood off on the grass beside him.
Then he examined the hind leg caught in the thorns. Its skin and flesh were torn open; no wonder it had been unable to escape.
He carefully freed the rabbit from the thorny vines, lifted it, and hefted it in his hand. It weighed roughly two and a half jin.
It was not particularly plump, but it was enough to give the whole family a substantial serving of meat that evening.
The warm carcass weighed heavily in his hand, a real, tangible gain.
He wrapped the rabbit roughly in several large leaves, tied it up, and slung it onto his back.
Glancing back at the mountain forest gradually shrouded in dusk, he felt a strange sense of reassurance well up inside him.
Even his steps on the way home were much lighter and steadier.
As he passed through the bushes, his body instinctively made more nimble movements to avoid them.
There really seemed to be a hint of a wild rabbit slipping through the grass.
When he pushed open his family's creaking courtyard gate with its peeling paint.
The sky had already gone completely dark.
The village was quiet, with only the occasional bark of a dog in the distance.
A little dim yellow lamplight seeped from his family's main room, barely illuminating a small patch of dirt by the doorway.
A cold wind blew past, and only then did he notice how thin his clothing was. He shivered.
From inside came his sister-in-law Wang's lowered voice, tinged with irritation:
"...The porridge is almost cold. That wretched third brother must be holed up in some godforsaken corner of town again, refusing to come home! If you ask me, don't save him any dinner!"
"Enough," his eldest brother Li Zhong answered in a subdued voice. "Maybe... maybe something held him up."
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