Yellow dust swirled through the sky, dancing unchecked over the rutted dirt road.
Lin He coughed repeatedly as the foul wind choked him, hastily raising his sleeve to cover his mouth and nose.
Beside him, his wife, Su Qiuran, sat in a wheelchair with her eyes closed, resting.
...Well, perhaps she had just gotten sand in her eyes.
"Eleventh young master-no, I suppose I should call you Brother Lin now."
Ahead of them, beside a gray-canopied carriage drawn by a spirit horse of inferior bloodline.
Lin Fu, the potbellied steward of the Lin Household, narrowed his triangular eyes slightly and dusted off his hands with a smile that never reached his eyes.
"Emerald Mountain Village may be a little remote, but at least it has mountains at its back and water nearby. The lineage put a great deal of thought into settling you and your wife here."
"Mortals ought to live mortal lives. Farm a little, raise a few chickens, and live out your days in peace. That's a blessing we cultivators licking blood off the edges of blades couldn't get even if we begged for it."
Lin He adjusted the bundle slipping off his shoulder and inwardly rolled his eyes so hard they could have reached the heavens.
A blessing? You call this a blessing?
Everywhere he looked in this dump of a village, all he saw were thatched huts and mud-brick houses.
The old locust tree at the village entrance stood withered in the wind. A few skeletal stray dogs lay beneath it with their tongues hanging out, too weak to even bark twice.
A gust blew over, carrying not only yellow dust but also the stench of cow dung that had been fermenting for who knew how long.
Are you sure this isn't the cultivation world's slum?
Yet none of this showed on Lin He's face. He mustered a somewhat ingratiating smile and nodded repeatedly. "You're right, Steward Fu. I could never repay the lineage's kindness. I'll always remember it. It's just..."
He rubbed his hands together, his gaze drifting, seemingly casually, toward the bulging Storage Bag at Lin Fu's waist.
"It's just that, according to the lineage rules, sons born of concubines who establish separate households and are sent to mortal lands because they lack spirit root aptitude should receive fifty low-grade spirit stones as a settlement allowance. Perhaps you could..."
Lin Fu's expression immediately chilled, the false smile on his face vanishing without a trace.
He gave a heavy snort, pulled a shriveled coarse-cloth purse from his sleeve, and casually tossed it at Lin He's feet like a piece of trash.
"Eleventh young master, I'm afraid you haven't grasped your situation." Lin Fu's voice carried undisguised contempt and impatience.
"Do you think you're still playing the young master in the Lin Household's grand residence? Fifty low-grade spirit stones? You're a mortal without a scrap of cultivation. Do you want to attract evil cultivators to murder you for your wealth by carrying that many spirit stones? I'm thinking of your safety!"
"There are five hundred copper coins and two pieces of silver in that bag. That's enough for you and your wife to buy a few mu of poor farmland in Emerald Mountain Village and live out the rest of your lives in peace. You need to learn to be content!"
With that, Lin Fu seemed to find even another glance at Lin He ill luck. He turned, planted a foot on the carriage step, and nimbly ducked inside.
"All right, my errand is finished. I should return and report to the household. You two stay here and properly 'enjoy' the pastoral scenery. Hyah!"
The driver raised his whip and cracked it sharply in the air. The inferior-blooded spirit horse neighed and pulled the carriage away in a cloud of dust, which once again plastered Lin He from head to toe.
"Cough, cough... Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey!"
Spitting sand out of his mouth, Lin He bent down and picked up the dust-covered purse. It was so light that even the clear clinking of metal was pitifully scarce.
In this cultivation world, fifty low-grade spirit stones were enough to keep a mortal family clothed in silk and dining on delicacies for several years.
And what I actually got was five hundred copper coins and two pieces of silver? Lin Fu skimmed way too much! Even plucking feathers off every passing goose doesn't go this far. He's stewed the whole damn goose!
Weighing his pitiful possessions in his hand, Lin He sighed helplessly.
He turned to look at his wife, who had remained quietly behind him all this time.
Su Qiuran sat in a somewhat battered wooden wheelchair. She wore a plain ruqun washed nearly white, without any jeweled hairpins or ornaments. Her long black hair was casually pinned behind her head with a wooden hairpin.
Now, her pale face, whose delicate beauty could not be concealed, was also smeared with yellow dust.
Their eyes met.
There was no mingled grief and fury, no railing against heaven and blaming others.
Their gazes held a deep helplessness that belonged to the two of them alone, along with a hint of... absurdity?
"He just left?" Su Qiuran dusted off her skirt, her clear voice carrying a touch of languor.
"Of course he left. What, were we supposed to keep him for dinner?" Lin He tucked the shriveled purse into his robes and gave a bitter laugh.
Who could have imagined it?
Just half a month ago, he, Lin He, had still been a programmer on Blue Star, writing code and fixing bugs in a cubicle every day, driven by product managers to the point of wanting to tear out all his hair.
His daily routine had consisted of working overtime, eating takeout, and working more overtime.
His only spiritual solace had been pulling out his phone during paid toilet breaks to read a couple of chapters of satisfying fantasy cultivation novels, imagining that one day he too could ride a flying sword on the wind and slay demons between heaven and earth.
And the result?
After staying up for three straight nights to meet a project deadline, a sharp pain had struck his chest, and he had collapsed headfirst onto his keyboard.
When he opened his eyes again, he had transmigrated into this cultivation world called the "Cangming Realm."
By all rights, a transmigrator ought to have a golden finger, either a system or an old grandpa.
Lin He had been overjoyed, thinking he would finally defy heaven, change his fate, and become a Long Aotian. Reality, however, had delivered a vicious slap across his face.
The original owner of the body he had transmigrated into had also been called Lin He, a concubine-born son of the Lin Household, a cultivation aristocratic clan. He ranked eleventh, which sounded rather impressive, but his actual standing was lower than that of one of the Lin Household's spirit hounds.
Why? Because he was a complete and utter waste, without a spirit root, unable to cultivate-a mortal through and through!
In this cultivation lineage where the strong devoured the weak, keeping no freeloaders was an ironclad rule.
Lin He's bargain-bin father, the current head of the Lin Household, was a cold-blooded cultivator who valued only profit and cultivation.
Ever since Lin He's birth mother had died of illness years ago, that household-head father had never given his mortal son another proper look. Lin He had searched his memories for ages, only to discover that he could barely remember what his own father looked like.
Thus, in accordance with the household rules, when Lin He reached the age to marry and establish himself, the Lin Household's higher-ups waved their hands: a marriage alliance! A separate household! Get out!
Marrying a useless concubine-born son into the Su Household, another cultivation aristocratic clan, would not only dispose of the lineage's burden but also secure a little commercial benefit from the Su Household along the way.
And the partner in that marriage alliance was Su Qiuran, sitting before him in her wheelchair.
At the thought, Lin He's gaze toward Su Qiuran could not help softening with a little more sympathy for a fellow sufferer.
Su Qiuran's background was even more miserable than his.
She had also been a corporate beast of burden on Blue Star. According to her, in her previous life she had been a miserable copywriter at a new media company, forced every day to write viral articles with over a hundred thousand views. She, too, had died from unpaid overtime, suddenly dropping dead at her computer.
After transmigrating, she had become a concubine-born daughter of the Su Household.
Both her parents were dead, and she had been raised from childhood under the care of her sharp-tongued, mean-spirited eldest uncle's wife. Worse still, this body had been born with disabled legs and likewise lacked a spirit root.
In the Su Household, even the servants dared to bully a disabled mortal. In the depths of winter, she had still been forced to sit in her wheelchair washing clothes and doing needlework for the young masters and misses who possessed cultivation.
Her fingers had frozen red and broken out in sores, earning her barely enough for a hot meal.
Two workers whose paths had never crossed, squeezed dry by capitalists in modern society, had thus been bundled together like discarded trash by two cold-hearted cultivation lineages in another world.
Before their wedding, the two of them had never even met.
The wedding a few days earlier had simply been the most slapdash affair Lin He had experienced in either of his lives.
There had been no guests, no banquet, not even anyone to officiate.
The Lin Household had casually assigned a few servants to paste up two "double happiness" characters and light a pair of red candles in Lin He's drafty little courtyard.
The Su Household had been even more direct: they had carried Su Qiuran over in a battered sedan chair, dumped her in the courtyard, and considered the matter finished.
In that shabby bridal chamber, Lin He had lifted Su Qiuran's red veil.
The two had stared blankly at each other.
To ease his own embarrassment, Lin He had casually muttered a complaint. "This wedding isn't even as grand as the raffle at the company's annual party. At least you could win a participation prize there."
Su Qiuran, sitting in her wheelchair, had first frozen, then her eyes had instantly lit up as she tentatively replied, "Hachimi?"
Lin He had jolted all over and blurted out, "North-South mung beans?!"
"For realsies or for fakesies?"
"Brave little lamb?!"
"Holy shit!?"
"Holy shit!?"
Good grief!
That scene of fellow countrymen recognizing each other could have been described as drums and gongs thundering, firecrackers exploding, red flags fluttering, and seas of people... except there had been absolutely none of that.
But the excitement in their hearts had been even greater than if they had won ten million in the lottery.
When fellow countrymen met, both their eyes brimmed with tears!