The wooden door of the Xuan'an Bureau storehouse creaked open a crack. Pi Yanlin squeezed inside, bent at the waist, and his toe clipped half a broken brick, startling a gray rat on the rafters so that it darted into the beams with a *whoosh*.
Rubbing his bruised knee, he raised his head and, guided by the light from the small, drafty window, precisely located the pile of half-man-high straw in the corner—his "favorable geomantic spot," which he had spent three months tracking down. The straw was mixed with thoroughly dried mugwort, carrying a faint scent wrapped within the musty odor, making it just right for lying flat and checking in.
"A hundred days." He sank his back into the pile of straw and felt around in his tunic for a notched pottery shard—he had pried this out from the wall cracks of the secret room the night before last. The System had promised a "tenfold return" for a hundred consecutive days of check-ins, and he wondered what goodie he might fish out today.
Chapter 63