After learning each other's backgrounds, neither of them felt despair at this miserable start. Instead, they felt a strange sense of relief.
No more clocking in? No more watching the boss's face? No more crawling out of bed in the middle of the night to fix bugs?
Hooray!
Split off from the family, then! Move to the village, then!
After slaving away like beasts of burden for so long, a legitimate chance to lie flat was more than they could have wished for!
Their outlook was surprisingly optimistic. Work had been so exhausting in their previous lives; they could treat this life as a vacation. Wouldn't a pastoral life be nice?
"What are you spacing out for?" Su Qiuran waved a hand in front of Lin He's eyes, interrupting his recollections.
She pointed toward his chest, a teasing curve forming at the corner of her mouth.
"Hubby, if I remember correctly, someone thumped his chest and made me a promise on our wedding night a few days ago."
Su Qiuran deliberately drew out her words, mimicking Lin He's tone from that night as she recited with feeling:
"Don't worry, honey! I'm a transmigrator, after all! According to the laws of webnovels, I'm definitely the son of destiny! Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west-don't bully a youth for being poor!"
"Once I awaken my system, I'll take you soaring to the immortal realm in minutes and trample everyone who's bullied us underfoot!"
She paused, her pretty peach-blossom eyes curving into crescents as she regarded Lin He with a half-smile.
"May I ask this son of destiny, when that steward pocketed nine-tenths of your 'starting capital' just now, why didn't you go intimidate him with that overflowing domineering presence of yours?"
"Why didn't you trample him underfoot? Hmm?"
Lin He blushed and gave two dry coughs to conceal his embarrassment.
"Ahem! Honey, that just shows you're an amateur."
Lin He hitched the bundle on his shoulder and spouted nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
"The waters of the cultivation world run deep. You can't handle them. Do you understand the gap in strength? That Lin Fu might be a damned lackey, but he's still a cultivator at the Qi Refinement Third Layer."
"I'm a mortal right now. Charging in to fight him wouldn't be hot-blooded-that'd be feeding him a kill!"
Lin He raised a finger and wagged it with great solemnity. "What's this called? A strategic retreat. Rule one of the essential cultivation playbook: turtle up! Surviving is winning!"
"Think about the male leads in those novels. Which of them didn't endure every kind of humiliation early on?"
"I'm playing the pig to eat the tiger, understand? Right now, I'm the pig. Once I've turtled through my growth phase, I'll be the hunter who's got those tigers in the bag!"
"Pfft-"
Su Qiuran rolled her eyes extravagantly and exposed him without mercy.
"Playing the pig to eat the tiger? You look like a purebred domestic pig to me. Where's your system? It's been loading for three days and hasn't even reached one percent? Want me to call someone to fix your internet?"
"Any minute now, any minute. Network lag. There's no 5G signal in the cultivation world. Cut it some slack." Lin He chuckled shamelessly.
The two stood on the dirt road at the village entrance, trading barbs. The slight gloom left by having their money skimmed away vanished like smoke in the wind amid their jokes.
Life was just ups and downs and downs and downs and downs. As long as their spirits didn't collapse, they could keep living.
"All right, enough wisecracks."
Su Qiuran glanced at the sky. The sun had already begun sinking westward.
"Since we've arrived at our 'luxury detached villa,' shouldn't we take a look inside first? After that whole carriage ride, my bones are about to fall apart."
Lin He followed her gaze.
Less than twenty meters away stood a dilapidated wooden hut.
Even calling it a wooden hut was flattering it. It was nothing more than a framework of rough logs covered with a thick layer of thatch.
The walls had been plastered with yellow mud mixed with chopped stalks, but most of it had fallen away, exposing the mottled bamboo strips underneath.
The wooden door was even more precarious, as though one puff of breath from Lin He would make it perform its final death on the spot.
The yard was quite large, but unfortunately, weeds half a person's height filled it. They could barely make out a path to set foot on.
"This villa... really has that artistic, Syrian-war-damage aesthetic." Lin He smacked his lips and offered a fair assessment.
"Less talking, clear the way!" Su Qiuran didn't turn up her nose at it.
She had lived in a rented basement without so much as a window in a big city in her previous life. At least this place had its own entrance and yard, fresh air, and no rent to pay.
Su Qiuran gripped the wooden hand rims on either side of her wheelchair and began pushing forward hard.
A kindhearted old carpenter had cobbled this wheelchair together from scrap wood for the body's original owner when she was at the Su Household.
Although the wheels turned, there was no lubrication whatsoever around the bearings. Pushing it took tremendous effort and produced an earsplitting "creak, creak" of friction.
The dirt roads of Emerald Mountain Village were also uneven, littered with loose stones and potholes. Su Qiuran struggled to push, a faint flush spreading across her already pale little face from the effort.
"Creak... creak..."
The wheelchair slowly moved forward. Lin He remained where he was, watching his wife stubbornly push the wheels, a jumble of feelings in his heart.
He knew Su Qiuran was someone who hated admitting defeat.
According to her, she had grown used to shouldering everything herself while slaving away in her previous life. After transmigrating, she hadn't given up on herself in the face of her disabled body, either. Instead, she avoided relying on others as much as possible.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
Three meters.
She was just about to reach the shabby courtyard gate.
Suddenly-
"Clack!"
A muffled sound rang out.
The wheelchair stopped abruptly. The momentum pitched Su Qiuran's body violently forward, nearly throwing her out of the chair.
"Ow!" she cried softly, bracing both hands firmly against the armrests before she managed to steady herself.
What happened?
Frowning, Su Qiuran leaned out to look beneath the wheels.
Of all places, the wooden wheel on the right had gotten stuck between a protruding, sharp-edged stone and a dried-up mud pit.
The wooden wheel was wedged fast, unable to move forward or backward.
Su Qiuran gritted her teeth, tightened her grip on the hand rims, and tried to reverse with every ounce of strength she had.
"Nngh... hng!"
The veins in her arms even bulged slightly, yet the wooden wheel seemed rooted in place, not budging an inch.
Awkward.
One moment she'd been teasing her husband for lacking a protagonist's halo; the next, she was stranded halfway there because she couldn't push her wheelchair.
That face-slapping rang out loud and clear.
An awkwardness even thicker than when Lin Fu had been present filled the air.
Two seconds later.
Su Qiuran gave up struggling.
She stiffly turned her head.
She looked at the man behind her, who stood with his bundle on his back and his arms crossed, holding back laughter as he watched the show.
"Um..."
A lovely crimson flush made a rare appearance on Su Qiuran's usually cool, teasing face.
She cleared her throat, her voice sounding almost coy.
"Hubby~"
"Mm-hmm?" Lin He raised his eyebrows, deliberately drawing out his response. "What's wrong, my strong, independent wife? Didn't you say you didn't need help and could manage on your own?"
Su Qiuran glared at him and bit her lower lip. In the end, she conceded defeat and sighed in resignation.
"Give me a push..."
"Pfft!" Lin He finally couldn't hold back his laughter.
"You're still laughing! Hurry up and help!" Her embarrassment turning to anger, Su Qiuran grabbed a weed from her skirt and threw it at Lin He.
"Hurry up and put that last remaining advantage of yours as the son of destiny-your physical strength-to use!"
"Coming, coming!"
Lin He strode forward and gripped the wheelchair's armrests.
"Sit tight, my lady wife. Let me treat you to the exclusive Lin wheelchair-pushing service. You'll really feel it pressing you back into your seat."
Lin He firmly grasped the wooden handles behind the wheelchair with both hands.
Although he had been a programmer who lacked exercise in his previous life, this young body was still growing, after all, and had a fair bit of strength.
He drew a deep breath and exerted both arms with a sudden burst of force.
"Up!"
With that low shout, Lin He tipped the wheelchair's front end up slightly. With that deft application of force, the rear wheel instantly cleared the large stone blocking its way.
"Creak-"
The wheelchair was free again.
Lin He didn't let go. Instead, he kept pushing the wheelchair across that stretch of potholed dirt road, taking it straight to the rickety wooden door.