The arrival of the pigs shifted the gravity of the Lin homestead. The center of daily concern was no longer just the coop and the seeded field, but the sturdy, noisy pen in the wooded corner. The two weaners, named 'Spot' and 'Splotch' by Xiaoshan, were insatiable engines of conversion. Kitchen scraps vanished into their eager snouts. Armloads of weeds pulled from the field's untamed edges were devoured with comical gusto. They turned waste into enthusiastic squeals and, increasingly, into rich, dark manure that piled up promisingly in a corner of their pen.
The 'Basic Swine Husbandry' knowledge guided Lin Yan's care. He ensured their wallow was kept muddy for temperature control, their water clean, and their diet as varied as possible. The grain they received was a scant handful mixed with their forage, a precious supplement to spur growth without draining the family's stores. The pigs thrived. In just two weeks, their rounded sides grew taut, their legs sturdy. They were a visible, daily measure of progress.
But their appetites were a constant pressure. The family's foraging efforts redoubled. Wang Shi and the girls ranged farther for edible weeds—chickweed, plantain, young nettles (carefully boiled). Lin Dashan and the boys spent evenings after field work digging for roots and grubs. The pigs were a blessing that demanded tribute.
The field, meanwhile, underwent its own quiet revolution. The Enhanced Foraging Seed Mix, sown as a cover crop, erupted from the dark earth. First, a faint green haze, then a thick, lush carpet of crimson clover, vetch, and forage radish leaves. The hardy rye grass shot up slender blades. The transformation was breathtaking. Where there had been barren, pale dirt, there was now a vibrant, knee-deep sea of green. It was the most fertile-looking patch of land in all of Willow Creek.
Villagers walking the path would stop and stare. Old Man Chen made a daily pilgrimage to lean on the fence and simply gaze at it, a look of near-reverence on his weathered face. "You've sung the earth awake, boy," he muttered one afternoon. "I haven't seen clover like that since my father's day."
The cover crop served multiple purposes. It protected the soil from erosion. Its deep roots broke up the compacted subsoil. The leguminous clover and vetch pulled nitrogen from the air, fixing it in nodules on their roots, enriching the earth for future plantings. And it was a magnificent source of feed. Every other day, the family would harvest armfuls of the lush greenery. Some went to the delighted pullets. The majority went to the pigs, for whom it was a gourmet feast.
The system's 'Pioneer Aura' seemed strongest here, in this thriving green square. The plants grew with almost supernatural vigor. Lin Yan wondered if the aura was subtly enhancing the soil microbiome, the synergy between roots and fungi. It felt like magic, but it was magic born of correct principles and relentless effort.
The egg production, now secure behind the newly fortified gate and its clattering alarm of metal scraps, stabilized. With the improved diet of greens and grain, the pullets began laying more consistently. They were averaging four to five eggs a day. The Debt Bowl began to fill a little faster. Forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one coppers…
But the New Spring deadline, the day of reckoning with Village Head Li, was a mere forty days away. Three hundred and seventy coppers. They had fifty-one. The math was a stark, silent scream in the back of every family member's mind. Even if they sold every single egg at a premium and ate nothing but thin porridge, they couldn't bridge the gap.
The pressure forged a new, sharper unity. There were no more doubts, only a focused, desperate ingenuity. They needed a windfall.
Lin Yan's thoughts returned to the tinker's words: Imperial Horse Pastures… good grass hay. Their cover crop was, essentially, prime hay. But it was only one mu, and it was needed to feed their own animals and regenerate the soil. They couldn't cut and sell it.
But the knowledge that there was a high-value market for quality forage planted a seed in his mind. If they had more land… if they could grow a dedicated hay field…
It was a dream for another year. This year was about survival and debt.
One evening, as Lin Yan was scattering chopped cover crop into the pig pen, he noticed Spot rooting with particular enthusiasm in a specific corner, near a mossy stone. The pig was digging, not for food, but seemingly for the coolness of the earth. As the snout churned the soil, something glinted in the fading light—a pale, smooth curve.
Curious, Lin Yan waited until the pig moved away, then knelt. He brushed aside the loose dirt. It was a piece of old, thick pottery, perhaps from a broken storage jar buried long ago. Beneath it, the soil was darker, richer, cooler. He dug his fingers in. It was beautiful, loamy earth, completely different from the alkaline hardpan of the rest of their plot. A pocket of old, fertile soil, perhaps from a forgotten compost pit or a buried midden from generations past.
An idea, wild and desperate, struck him.
The next day, he gathered the family. "We need to find more of this," he said, showing them the dark soil from the pig's rooting spot. "The pigs can help. We'll move their pen, section by section, across the unused part of our wooded corner. Their rooting will turn the soil, and they might uncover more pockets of good earth, or at least work the forest floor into something we can use. It's a slow way to clear land, but it feeds them while they do it."
It was an unconventional method, using pigs as land-clearers. But they had no ox to spare now, and time was the enemy. They began a rotational system. They expanded the pig pen into a new, adjacent section of the wooded margin, using movable hurdles made of woven branches. The pigs, delighted with fresh ground to explore, immediately set to work rooting up small shrubs, ferns, and network of roots, churning the leafy humus into a rough tilth. It was messy, noisy, and effective.
A week into this porcine land reclamation, Lin Gang, while collecting armfuls of the lush cover crop for feed, made a discovery. At the very edge of the green sea, where their cultivated mu met the wild grasses of the common pasture beyond their fence, a different kind of grass was growing. It was taller, with broader, bluish-green blades and a seed head that was just beginning to form. It looked… heartier. More substantial.
He brought a sample to Lin Yan. "This isn't from our seed mix. Look at it."
Lin Yan examined it. The system knowledge flickered, offering a comparison. It resembled a wild ancestor of a cultivated forage grass, but lusher. It was growing in a small, isolated patch, perhaps where the soil was slightly less alkaline due to centuries of leaf litter from the nearby wood. It was superior to anything else around.
"We need to save its seed," Lin Yan said, a spark of excitement igniting. "When it matures, we collect every grain. This could be the start of our own strain of hay grass. Something truly valuable."
It was a long-term project, but it was theirs. A potential competitive advantage discovered on their own land.
The following market day, Lin Xiaohui went to sell eggs with a new, quiet confidence. Their reputation for quality was now established. She returned not only with coins, but with a request. "Auntie Sun says a traveler is staying at her place. A woman. She's with a small caravan heading north to the prefectural city. She saw our eggs and asked if we had any fresh herbs or… interesting plants. She's an herbalist's apprentice, or something like that."
A traveler. An herbalist. Lin Yan's mind made the connection instantly. Mei Xiang had said Old Madam Zhang paid a premium for 'herb-fed' eggs. What if they could actually prove the herbs? What if they could grow specific medicinal or beneficial herbs for the pullets, and market the eggs as such?
He went to see the traveler at Auntie Sun's.
The woman was young, perhaps in her early twenties, dressed in practical but well-made traveling clothes of durable hemp and leather. She had an intelligent, observant face and curious eyes. She introduced herself as Qiao Yuelan. Her speech had a faint, crisp accent from farther north.
"Your eggs have deep orange yolks," she said without preamble, after Lin Yan introduced himself. "That comes from green feed. But the scent… there's a hint of something else. Wild garlic? Perhaps some other allium?"
Lin Yan was impressed. "You have a keen sense. Yes, they forage on a mix of wild greens, and we add some wild garlic and other herbs to their diet for health."
"It shows," Qiao Yuelan said. "I'm interested in sourcing reliable herbs. I'm apprenticed to a master who supplies remedies to several noble households near the prefectural city. We look for consistent, clean, wild-harvested plants. Do you just forage, or do you cultivate?"
The question was a door swinging open. "We are beginning to cultivate," Lin Yan said truthfully. "We have a plot of land we are healing. This spring, we've focused on forage crops. But we intend to plant medicinal and culinary herbs as well."
She studied him, her gaze assessing. "Healing land is slow work. Most don't have the patience." She paused. "The grass I saw by your fence… the bluish one. Do you know what it is?"
So she'd been looking. "A local grass we found. It seems robust. We're saving its seed."
A flicker of interest deepened in her eyes. "It looks like a strain of sheep's fescue, but denser. Good for grazing animals. If you can establish a patch, it might be valuable for more than just your chickens." She reached into a leather satchel and pulled out a small, wax-paper packet. "A gesture of goodwill. Seeds for true lavender. It grows in poor, well-drained soils. Calming for people, and the bees love it. It might keep mites away from your birds if planted near their run. If you can grow it, and it's of good quality, I or my master might buy the flowers next year."
It was an investment in their future. A connection to a market beyond the village. Lin Yan accepted the packet with a solemn bow. "Thank you. We will endeavor to be worthy of the trust."
She nodded. "I'll be back through this way in late summer, before the harvest. I will see your progress." It was both a promise and a challenge.
He returned home with the lavender seeds and a mind buzzing with possibilities. Herb cultivation. A specialized cash crop. It required knowledge, but he had Mei Xiang and now, potentially, Qiao Yuelan as distant mentors. It required land—land they were still clawing from the woods with the help of rooting pigs.
The pigs, in their latest rotated pen, had made a significant discovery. They had rooted up not just another pocket of good soil, but the remains of an old, stone-lined fire pit, long buried. Among the stones and charcoal, Lin Yan found several fragments of rusted iron—the remains of old tools, perhaps. Scrap. Worthless to most.
But to Lin Qiang, who had an eye for metal, it was potential. He collected the fragments. "I can reforge this in the village smithy's fire, if I do some work for him in trade. Make nails. Hinges. Maybe a small blade for butchering."
Nothing was wasted. Every scrap, every root, every patch of unusual grass was a resource.
As the days counted down to New Spring, the family's existence became a triage of effort: tend the field, feed the animals, expand the land, secure the perimeter, and scrape together every possible copper. The Debt Bowl held sixty-seven coppers. Still a cavernous gap.
Then, ten days before the deadline, Village Head Li's scribe appeared again. This time, he carried a scroll.
"The Village Head," the scribe announced, his voice carrying a formal weight, "in light of the season and the… industry… he has observed, offers a modification to the agreement."
Lin Yan's heart hammered. Was Li calling the debt early?
The scribe unrolled the scroll. "The Village Head acknowledges the difficulty of a single, lump-sum payment. He proposes an installment plan. On New Spring day, you will pay one hundred coppers. Then, at the end of the summer harvest, you will pay a further one hundred and fifty. The final one hundred and twenty, inclusive of the originally agreed interest, will be due at the next New Spring festival, one full year from now."
It was a restructuring. It spread the burden. It also extended their indebtedness for another full year and increased the total interest slightly. But it offered a lifeline. One hundred coppers in ten days was still impossible, but less impossible than three hundred seventy.
"Why would he do this?" Lin Dashan asked, suspicious.
The scribe allowed a thin smile. "The Village Head is a practical man. He sees you are building an asset—the land, the livestock. It is in his interest for that asset to grow enough to pay him, rather than for him to seize a half-finished project. Also," the scribe's voice dropped slightly, "the Imperial Tax Assessor's visit is confirmed for late summer. A village with productive, tax-paying households looks better than one with forfeited, fallow fields."
There it was. They were not just debtors; they were now part of the village's economic tableau, a factor in Li's own standing with higher authorities. Their success had made them useful.
It was a cold, calculated mercy. But it was a chance.
"We accept," Lin Yan said, before his father could speak. They had no choice.
The scribe noted their mark. "One hundred coppers, in ten days." He rolled the scroll and left.
The family gathered around the Debt Bowl. Sixty-seven coppers. They needed thirty-three more. In ten days.
Silence hung, heavy and thick. Then, Wang Shi stood up, walked to her sleeping area, and returned with a small, cloth-wrapped bundle. She unfolded it. Inside was a pair of simple but finely crafted silver hairpins, tarnished with age. Her dowry, from her mother. "Sell them," she said, her voice unwavering.
Lin Xiaohui gasped. "Mother, you can't!"
"They are hair," Wang Shi said. "Our home, our land, our future is bone and blood. Sell them."
Lin Yan looked at his mother's resolute face, at the family's stunned expressions. They had reached the point of selling heirlooms. It was the final reserve.
The next day, Lin Yan and his father took the hairpins to the prefectural town, a half-day's journey. At a small pawnshop, they bargained hard. The silver was thin, but pure. They got forty-two coppers for the pair.
Returning home as dusk fell, they added the coins to the Debt Bowl. One hundred and nine coppers. They had surpassed the first installment. With nine coppers to spare.
They stared at the small heap of coins in the pottery bowl, illuminated by the hearth fire. It represented back-breaking labor, stolen eggs, a mother's sacrifice, and a desperate, clawing kind of hope.
They had met the first impossible hurdle. By the skin of their teeth, by the roots of strange grass and the snouts of rooting pigs and the silver from a mother's hair, they had bought themselves another season.
The New Spring came. They paid Village Head Li his one hundred coppers. He accepted them without comment, his expression unreadable. The land deed remained in his strongbox.
Walking back from Li's compound, the first true warm breeze of the year caressed their faces, carrying the scent of their own lush, green field. They had no coins left. They had a mountain of debt still ahead. But they had their land for another season. They had their animals. They had a patch of mysterious, bluish grass going to seed. They had lavender seeds from a traveling herbalist. They had two growing pigs and a flock of laying hens.
They were poorer than ever in coin, but richer than ever in potential. The roots they had fought to put down—in the soil, in the community, in their own spirits—had held. The storm of the debt had not washed them away.
Spring was no longer just a season. It was a reprieve. A battlefield. And the Lin family, armed with little more than stubbornness and the whisper of grass, stepped onto it.
[System Milestone: 'Debt Crisis – First Hurdle Cleared.' Financial pressure modulated but not eliminated. Host has leveraged all available assets (social, material, familial).]
[Reward: 'Basic Herb Lore (Culinary/Medicinal)' knowledge unlocked. 25 System Points.]
[New Quest: 'The First Harvest.' Successfully harvest and process the seed from the 'Bluestem' grass patch. Reward: 'Seed Purification & Storage' knowledge, 20 Points.]
[Points Total: 130/100. 170 points to next Tier unlock.]