Dawn found four Lin men standing at the edge of Old Zhang's north field, staring at a sea of stones.
The field was larger than Lin Yan remembered—about three mu of sloping land that should have been prime for early vegetables. Instead, it looked like a riverbed after a flood. Stones of every size lay half-buried in the pale soil, from fist-sized lumps to boulders that would require two men to lift. Frost clung to their surfaces, gleaming in the first grey light.
Old Zhang arrived as the sky lightened, carrying four wooden-handled iron bars—levers, their ends worn smooth by generations of hands. He thrust them at the Lin men without ceremony.
"The big ones first," he said, his breath fogging. "Dig around them, loosen the soil, then work them free. Stack them along the western edge—I'll use them for a retaining wall later."
Lin Tieshan nodded, hefting a lever. "We'll work sunup to sundown. Meal breaks at our own cost."
"Fair." Old Zhang's eyes swept over them, lingering on Lin Yan. "Third Son. You sure you're fit?"
"I'm fit," Lin Yan said, though his muscles still ached with residual weakness.
"We'll see." The old farmer turned away. "I'll be checking progress at noon. Don't slack. My coins bought sweat, not sighs."
He left them to it.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then Lin Tieshan walked to the nearest large stone—a grey beast the size of a sleeping dog. He drove his lever into the soil beside it with a solid thunk. "Fu. Here. Lu, the next one. Yan'er, start on the smaller ones. Clear a space to roll the big ones to."
The work began.
Lin Yan soon learned there was a rhythm to stone clearing, a brutal, physical poetry. Dig around the stone. Loosen the soil. Work the lever beneath. Rock it. Feel for the moment of release. Then lift, haul, stack.
The first hour passed in a haze of effort. His palms, soft from days in bed, blistered quickly. The blisters broke, stinging sharply. He wrapped strips of cloth torn from an old shirt around his hands and kept going.
By mid-morning, his back screamed with every lift. His breath came in ragged gasps that plumed in the cold air. Beside him, his brothers worked in grim silence. Lin Fu, the strongest, handled the largest stones with a steady, methodical strength. Lin Lu worked smarter, using leverage and angles to move stones with less effort. Their father was a machine—steady, relentless, his face set in lines of concentration.
The system offered no help here. No shortcuts. Only a quiet tally:
[LABOR PROGRESS: 8%]
[PHYSICAL CONDITION: FATIGUE ACCUMULATING]
[ADVICE: MAINTAIN HYDRATION, PACE ENDURANCE ACTIVITIES]
Lin Yan drank from their shared water skin, the water so cold it made his teeth ache. He looked at his hands. The cloth wraps were already stained with blood and dirt.
"Don't stop," his father said without looking up. "The cold will stiffen you."
So he didn't stop.
As the sun climbed toward noon, other villagers began to appear in nearby fields, tending winter crops or repairing fences. Lin Yan felt their eyes on them. Watched the occasional pointing finger. Heard the low murmur of voices carrying on the wind.
"The Lins," someone said, not unkindly, just stating fact. "Clearing Zhang's field."
"For what? That land grows stones better than radishes."
A laugh, quickly stifled.
Lin Yan kept his head down, focusing on the next stone, then the next.
Old Zhang returned at noon as promised, carrying a small pot. He surveyed their progress—a cleared patch about ten paces square, a growing stack of stones along the western edge. His expression gave nothing away.
"Food," he said, setting the pot down. "My wife insisted."
Inside were four steamed buns, coarse but thick, and a portion of pickled vegetables. It was more food than they would have had at home.
Lin Tieshan hesitated. "This wasn't part of the bargain."
"Consider it fuel for my investment," Old Zhang said gruffly. "Eat. Then back to work."
They ate in silence, sitting on the stones they'd cleared. The buns were dense and filling, the pickles sharp on the tongue. Lin Yan forced himself to eat slowly, savoring each bite, feeling the energy seep back into his exhausted muscles.
As they ate, Old Zhang walked the cleared area, kicking at the soil. "You're doing it right. Getting the deep ones too. Most men just skim the surface." He paused near Lin Yan. "Your hands."
Lin Yan looked down. The cloth wraps were soaked through in places.
"Let me see."
Reluctantly, Lin Yan unwound the strips. His palms were a mess of broken blisters and raw skin.
Old Zhang grunted. "Fool. Should have said something." He pulled a small clay jar from his belt pouch. "Goat fat and yarrow. My wife makes it. Rub it on tonight, wrap them fresh tomorrow. They'll harden by week's end."
Lin Yan took the jar. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I need those hands clearing stones, not bleeding on my field." But his tone wasn't unkind.
As they finished eating, a new figure appeared at the field's edge. Sun Dahu.
The village's wealthy farmer was a big man going soft in the middle, wrapped in a padded jacket of good blue cotton. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, surveying their work with an expression of mild curiosity.
"Zhang Shun," he called, his voice carrying easily across the field. "Putting the Lin boys to work, I see."
Old Zhang straightened slowly. "A fair exchange."
"Is it?" Sun Dahu walked closer, his boots crunching on the frosty soil. He nodded to Lin Tieshan. "Tieshan. Heard you were leasing the wasteland. Ambitious."
"Just trying to feed my family," Lin Tieshan said, his voice carefully neutral.
"Of course, of course." Sun Dahu's smile didn't reach his eyes. "But wasteland… it's called that for a reason. My grandfather always said: 'A man who plants in stones harvests hunger.'" He looked at Lin Yan. "You're the one with the ideas, aren't you? The one who woke up from fever thinking he could grow grass on sour ground."
All eyes turned to Lin Yan. He set down his half-eaten bun and stood, meeting Sun Dahu's gaze. "The land has water. Water can be persuaded."
"Persuaded." Sun Dahu chuckled. "Land isn't a woman, boy. It doesn't listen to sweet words. It only understands sweat and seed—and sometimes, not even then." He turned back to Old Zhang. "Well, at least you're getting your field cleared out of it. Smart trade."
The implication was clear: Old Zhang was the only one benefiting from this arrangement.
Old Zhang's face remained impassive. "The stones have been there twenty years. Someone finally moving them is benefit enough."
Sun Dahu nodded, as if agreeing with a child. "Just be careful, Tieshan. Debt has a way of compounding faster than grass grows." He touched his hat in a mock salute and walked away, his steps leisurely.
The silence he left behind was thick.
Lin Fu broke it, his voice low with anger. "Who does he think he is?"
"The man who owns the best land in the village," Old Zhang said flatly. "And the man who loans grain at fifty percent interest when the harvest fails." He looked at Lin Tieshan. "He's not wrong about debt. But he's not right about everything."
He left them with that, heading back toward his house.
The afternoon's work felt heavier. The stones seemed larger, the soil harder. Lin Yan's hands throbbed with every grip. But he kept moving. Stone by stone. Breath by breath.
As the sun began its descent, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, Lin Yan found himself working beside his father on a particularly stubborn boulder. They'd dug around it, exposed its bulk, but it refused to budge.
"Again," Lin Tieshan said, setting his lever.
They worked in tandem, Lin Yan on one side, his father on the other, rocking the stone back and forth, feeling for the moment when the earth would release its grip.
"He's afraid," Lin Tieshan said suddenly, his voice barely above a grunt.
Lin Yan glanced at him. "Sun Dahu?"
A nod. "Not of us. Of change. If poor men find a way up… what does that make the man who built his wealth on their backs?"
They heaved. The stone shifted slightly.
"Again," his father said.
They rocked it once more, harder this time. Lin Yan felt the moment—a sudden give in the soil. "Now!"
Together, they lifted, muscles straining, breath explosive in the cold air. The stone came free, rolling onto its side with a heavy thud that seemed to shake the ground.
For a moment, they just stood there, panting, looking at the stone they'd conquered.
"Progress," Lin Tieshan said, wiping sweat from his brow with a dirty sleeve.
By sundown, they had cleared nearly a quarter of the field. The stone stack along the western edge was waist-high and ten paces long. Their bodies ached in ways Lin Yan hadn't known possible. Every muscle protested. His hands were on fire.
Old Zhang returned as they were gathering tools. He walked the cleared area once more, his face unreadable in the fading light. Then he nodded. "You work hard. I'll give you that."
He handed Lin Tieshan two small packets. "Grass seed. From the south slope, like your boy mentioned. And some clover seed I had left. Not much, but it's a start."
Lin Yan stared at the packets. They were small, but they represented something huge: recognition. Partnership.
"Thank you," Lin Tieshan said, his voice rough with emotion.
"Don't thank me yet. Seed is just potential. You still have to make it grow." Old Zhang looked at the darkening sky. "Same time tomorrow. The stones won't clear themselves."
The walk home was silent, each man lost in his own exhaustion and thoughts. The village was settling into evening, smoke rising from cooking fires, the sounds of families gathering for meager meals.
At their gate, Lin Tieshan paused, looking at his sons. "You did well today."
High praise, from him.
Inside, the family was waiting. Hot water was ready for washing. A thin vegetable soup steamed in the pot. The women had spent the day patching clothes and mending tools, but their eyes held the same weariness.
As Lin Yan washed his hands, wincing as the water hit raw skin, his mother came over with clean cloth and the jar of ointment Old Zhang had given him. She didn't speak as she applied the salve, her touch surprisingly gentle. Then she wrapped his hands carefully, her fingers lingering on his wrists.
"Does it hurt much?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," he admitted.
She nodded. "Good. Pain means you're changing something."
Later, as they ate, Lin Wen listened intently as his brothers described the day—the stones, the food, Sun Dahu's visit. When they finished, he said, "Sun Dahu fears you because you're acting outside your station. In the classics, when the lower orders seek to rise, those above must either crush them or join them. He's testing which you are."
"We're just clearing stones," Lin Fu said wearily.
"You're building something," Lin Wen corrected. "That's different."
That night, as Lin Yan lay on his mat, his body a symphony of aches, he looked at his bandaged hands in the moonlight filtering through the paper window. They throbbed with a steady, insistent pain.
But beneath the pain, he felt something else. A strange sense of… solidity. As if moving stones had grounded him in this world, this body, in a way waking up in it never had.
The system updated:
[LABOR PROGRESS: 24%]
[PHYSICAL CONDITION: FATIGUE (MODERATE), BLISTERING (SEVERE)]
[SOCIAL CAPITAL WITH OLD ZHANG: +10]
[VILLAGE REPUTATION: MIXED (HARDWORKING BUT FOOLHARDY)]
[NEW ASSETS ACQUIRED: GRASS SEED (SOUTH SLOPE VARIETY), CLOVER SEED]
He closed his eyes, the image of Sun Dahu's smug face floating behind his lids.
Crush them or join them.
Well, Lin Yan thought as sleep finally claimed him, they would see about that.
One stone at a time, they would see.