The kitchen of the Li household, usually a sanctuary of warm smells, had become a trial.
"What is that smell?" Second Brother Li Jun wrinkled his nose as he stepped into the house, holding his bowl of porridge away from his face. "It smells like... wet feathers and sour earth."
The chicks, now a week old, were rapidly outgrowing their bamboo basket near the stove. While they were healthy, the sheer volume of waste twenty growing birds produced was becoming unmanageable in a small, enclosed space.
Zhao Lan waved a hand in front of her face, sighing. "Wei'er, I love that you are working hard, but if your grandmother starts coughing again, I'm throwing them out."
Li Wei was already on his feet, tying his shoes. "I know, Mother. The smell is too strong. It's bad for their health too. I'm moving them today."
"Today?" Li Qiang, the eldest brother, looked up from his meal. "To where? The coop you built is just sticks and mud. It won't keep a weasel out, let alone the cold night air."
"I'm reinforcing it today," Li Wei said, grabbing a rusty hoe from the corner. "I'm going to the West River to clear a proper yard for them."
"A yard?" Li Jun laughed. "You mean a pen. Who clears land for chickens? Just stick them in a cage."
Li Wei didn't argue. In his past life, he knew that healthy livestock needed space, sunlight, and fresh grass. The 'cage' mentality was why village chickens were so scrawny.
"I'll be back by evening," he said, heading out the door. "Chen'er! Are you coming?"
Little Li Chen scrambled out from the back room, a piece of charcoal in his hand. He had been practicing writing characters on a flat rock. "Coming, Third Brother!"
***
**The West River Wasteland**
The sun was barely up, casting long shadows over the rocky terrain of the West River. The soil here was indeed poor—hardpan clay mixed with gravel. But Li Wei wasn't looking at the soil depth; he was looking at the sunlight and the drainage.
He selected a plot near the riverbank, where the ground dipped slightly, retaining moisture but not flooding.
"Chen'er," Li Wei said, pointing to the area. "We aren't just building a pen today. We are building a pasture."
Li Chen looked confused. "A pasture? Like for the oxen?"
"Exactly. But smaller. We are going to fence off one *mu* of land." (Approx. 667 square meters).
"One *mu*?!" Li Chen gasped. "That will take days to clear!"
"Not if we focus," Li Wei said, gripping the hoe. "System, overlay soil treatment."
**[Target Area: 1 Mu.]**
**[Recommended Action: Scarification (scratching the surface) to encourage root penetration for grass seeds.]**
Li Wei didn't need to dig deep like he would for rice paddies. He just needed to break the hard crust. He swung the hoe. *Clang.* The sound of metal hitting rock rang out.
*Clang. Clang.*
It was brutal work. Sweat instantly soaked his back. His hands, still healing from the blisters of building the coop, tore open again.
"Brother, let me help," Li Chen said, picking up a smaller stick to move rocks. He looked at Li Wei's bleeding palms. "Your hands..."
"Hard bark makes strong trees," Li Wei gritted out. "Keep moving the rocks to the side. We'll use them for the foundation of the fence."
They worked in silence for an hour. The progress was slow. The wasteland fought back, thorns tearing their pants, rocks stubbornly refusing to move.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over them.
"You're going to break that hoe, boy."
Li Wei stopped, leaning on the handle, breathing heavily. An old man with a wispy white beard stood watching them. He wore a faded blue robe and held a long pipe. It was Old Man Zhang, the Village Chief.
"Village Chief," Li Wei bowed respectfully.
The Chief looked at the cleared patch of ground, then at the pile of rocks. "I saw you gathering weeds yesterday, and now you're breaking your back on land the landlord rejected. Your father thinks you've gone mad, you know. He came to my house last night, asking if there was a doctor in the next town."
Li Wei couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm not mad, Chief. I'm planting grass."
"Grass?" The Chief raised an eyebrow, lighting his pipe. "We have grass everywhere. Why plant it?"
"Because the grass on the hills is tough and old," Li Wei explained, falling back on his 'dream' excuse. "The Taoist in my dream taught me that if you nurture the young grass, it's sweet. Sweeter than rice bran. It makes animals grow fat."
He gestured to the riverbank. "Look at this land, Chief. Nothing grows here but thorns. It's useless to the village. No one pays taxes on it because it yields nothing. But if I can turn this into a green field... even if I fail, the village loses nothing. If I succeed, the weeds are gone, and the land is improved."
Old Man Zhang puffed on his pipe, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the river. "You talk like a scholar, but you work like an ox. The land here is common land, technically owned by the Magistrate, but delegated to the village for management."
He took the pipe out of his mouth and pointed the stem at Li Wei. "If you can clear it, you can use it. I'll note it in the village registry as 'reclaimed wasteland.' But Li Wei, the tax on reclaimed land is half a tael of silver a year after three years. Can you pay that?"
Li Wei straightened his back. "In three years, I will pay double."
The Chief laughed, a dry, raspy sound. "Bold. Good. Young men should have fire." He turned to leave. "Don't kill yourself with the hoe. Use your brain."
As the Chief walked away, Li Wei felt a weight lift. Having the Village Chief's tacit approval meant no one in the village would dare to sabotage his work or claim the land was theirs.
**[System Notification: Land Rights Secured.]**
**[Quest 'Land Reclamation' Progress: 30%.]**
***
**The Predator Problem**
By late afternoon, Li Wei and Li Chen had cleared a rough circle of land. The rocks were piled into a low boundary wall. But a wall of rocks wasn't enough.
"We need a fence," Li Wei muttered. "A high one. Or a weasel will clean us out in a single night."
He had no money for wood planks. He had used all the scrap wood for the coop.
"Brother, look," Li Chen said, pointing to the pile of thorny brush and brambles they had cleared.
Li Wei's eyes lit up. "Thorns."
An idea sparked in his mind, reinforced by the system.
**[Technique Retrieved: Dead Hedge Construction.]**
**[Description: A barrier made of woven branches and thorns. Effective against small predators. Cost: Free.]**
"Chen'er, don't throw those thorns away! We need them!"
For the next two hours, they gathered the long, flexible branches of the thorny bushes they had just cut down. Li Wei dug a shallow trench around the perimeter of the cleared land. They placed thick branches vertically in the trench, then wove the thorny vines horizontally between them.
It was nasty work. Their hands were scratched, and their clothes were snagged. But slowly, a formidable barrier rose from the ground. It wasn't pretty—it looked like a chaotic nest of spikes. But it was dense, sharp, and terrifying to touch.
As the sun began to set, the 'Dead Hedge' stood five feet tall, encircling the clearing.
Li Wei stepped back, panting. "It's... beautiful."
"It looks like a monster's lair," Li Chen muttered, plucking a thorn from his finger.
"It's a fortress," Li Wei corrected.
He entered the enclosure. Inside, the wind was blocked by the hedge. It felt safer. He took the pouch of wild clover seeds and rhizomes he had collected over the past few days.
"Scatter them," he told Li Chen. "Everywhere. Tread them into the dirt with your feet. This will be their salad bar."
They scattered the seeds and trampled them into the scarified soil.
**[Quest Completed: Land Reclamation (Basic)]**
**[Reward Unlocked: Predator-Proof Chicken Run (Structural Integrity +20%).]**
Suddenly, a flash of understanding entered Li Wei's mind. He saw how to reinforce the simple coop he had built back home. He needed to dig the corner posts deeper and use a specific cross-bracing technique to prevent digging predators from undermining the structure.
He didn't have time to rebuild the whole thing today, but he knew how to fix it tomorrow.
***
**Moving Day**
When they returned home, the sun had dipped below the horizon.
Li Wei didn't waste time. He took the chicks, who were now chirping loudly in the kitchen, and carried them in the basket. He ignored the questioning looks of his family and marched back out to the West River.
"Wei'er! It's dark!" his mother called out.
"I have to move them, Mother! The coop is ready!"
He and Li Chen walked back in the twilight. Li Wei placed the chicks inside the small wooden coop (which he had dragged to the edge of the new pasture earlier). But he didn't lock them in.
He had attached the coop to the outside of the Dead Hedge enclosure. He opened a small door on the side of the coop that led directly into the thorny pen.
"Go on," he whispered, nudging the chicks.
One by one, the chicks hopped down the little ramp and landed on the soft, cleared earth. They looked around, confused for a moment, and then instinct took over. They began pecking at the ground, scratching at the dirt.
They were free.
Li Wei sat on a rock outside the hedge, watching them. In the dim light, the white fluff looked like little pearls rolling on the dark earth.
"Third Brother," Li Chen sat next to him, shivering slightly in the evening breeze. "It's cold. We should go back."
"In a minute," Li Wei said. He took off his outer jacket—a thin, patched layer of cloth—and draped it over his brother's shoulders.
He looked up at the sky. The stars were coming out, brighter than he had ever seen in the city of his past life.
"You know, Chen'er," Li Wei said softly. "In the Taoist's dream, he showed me cattle. Big, strong cattle that live on grass like this. Cows that weigh as much as three oxen."
Li Chen hugged the jacket tight. "Three oxen? That's impossible."
"Nothing is impossible if you have good grass," Li Wei said. "These chickens are just the start. If they live, we build a bigger pen. Then we buy a goat. Then a cow."
He looked at the thorny hedge, a crude symbol of his determination.
"One day, this whole riverbank will be green. Not a wasteland. A pasture."
Li Chen looked at his brother's silhouette against the starlight. He didn't fully understand, but he felt a strange thrill. A sense of adventure.
"I'll help you," Li Chen said firmly. "I'll carry the rocks."
Li Wei smiled and ruffled his brother's hair. "Good. Now let's go home. Mother will be worried."
They walked back to the village, leaving the chicks in their fortress of thorns. It was risky—leaving them outside the house—but it was a necessary step. They had to toughen up.
As they walked, Li Wei checked the system interface.
**[Ranch Status: Level 0 (Foundation Stage)]**
**[Livestock: 10 Chicks (Healthy, Free-Ranging)]**
**[Pasture: 1 Mu (Newly Seeded - Wild Clover)]**
**[Infrastructure: Dead Hedge Fence (Durability: Low)]**
It wasn't much. It was barely a blip on the map of the Empire. But for the first time since his rebirth, Li Wei felt the ground beneath his feet was his own.
He was a rancher. Even if no one else knew it yet.