South Jin, the twenty-fourth year of Yongjia, autumn.
Chuzhou, Fan'an Prefecture, Gucheng County.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
Before dawn, the crowing of roosters echoed through Dishan Village.
Zhao Xuan opened his eyes, his gaze filled with bewilderment.
Beneath him was no soft and comfortable Simmons mattress, but a simple wooden bed cobbled together from a few planks and covered with a layer of hay.
Above him was no white-plastered ceiling hung with a crystal chandelier, but smoke-blackened wooden rafters and aged thatch.
On the third day since his transmigration, he was finding it truly difficult to adapt to this world.
Clothing: crudely made hemp garments that not only chafed the skin, but were so fragile that a little carelessness while washing would rub right through them.
Food: ground coarse chaff mixed with wild greens and a tiny handful of rice, which was not only hard to swallow, but limited to a single bowl a meal—otherwise, today's dinner meant starving tomorrow.
Shelter: mud walls paired with a thatched roof, cool in summer and warm in winter, except that it leaked; whenever it rained hard, the interior resembled a water-curtain cave.
Travel: entirely reliant on two legs, burning two flatbreads for every ten miles.
At fifteen years of age, having lost both parents to illness three years prior, he had depended entirely on his elder brother for survival.
Until... his elder brother took a wife.
Half a month ago, after quarreling six times in ten days, the two brothers mutually decided to split the household.
Under the pretext of having taken care of him for three years, his elder brother took the newly built house the two of them had put up together, along with the majority of the money and grain.
Then, citing his greater age and strength, his brother seized the farming rights to the five mu of poor land left behind by their parents.
As for Zhao Xuan's rightful half, his brother declared he would give him a ten percent share of the harvest.
Meanwhile, the famous philanthropist Old Master Huang of the surrounding countryside rented out his fields for a fifty percent share.
Though the original owner had been filled with extreme resentment, he had gritted his teeth and swallowed it.
After all, he couldn't let the family line of the Zhaos be cut off.
He had asked a little companion from the village to help tidy up the old house left by his parents, and having brought along a few tattered clothes and a jar of grain, he had moved in.
Life had grown even poorer after the family split.
Zhao Xuan had checked: the coarse grain left in the jar amounted to less than five catties.
No matter how frugally he lived, it wouldn't last ten days or half a month.
The autumn grain had just been harvested, and the rent promised by his elder brother wouldn't be paid until after the summer harvest next year.
As a dignified transmigrant, was he actually facing the risk of starving to death?
"Zhao Er, going hunting?"
The voice of his companion Chen Ergou came from outside the house.
The two had grown up together and shared a deep friendship. This time, thanks to Ergou's help in cleaning up the old house, Zhao Xuan wouldn't even have had a place to lay his head.
Hearing the word "hunting," Zhao Xuan's spirits lifted.
Dishan Village was nestled in a mountain basin, surrounded by dozens of miles of undulating mountains where wild boars, deer, hares, and other game were a common sight.
At market prices, a catty of meat could be traded for ten catties of grain, and prices were often even higher due to shortages.
If he could bag some game and sell it before winter set in, he wouldn't have to worry about starving at least.
Zhao Xuan hurriedly replied, "Ergou, let's go."
When the two met up, Zhao Xuan felt a blush of shame.
He looked at Chen Ergou first: carrying a hunting bow and a bundle of homemade-feathered arrows, holding a two-meter-long spear, and dragging a fishing net.
He was armed to the teeth.
Then he looked at himself: after searching the old house from top to bottom, he had only managed to find a firewood chopper with a chipped blade and a bamboo bow whose range probably didn't exceed twenty meters.
A dozen or so bamboo arrows, though sharpened, had limited lethality unless they hit a vital spot.
After all, Zhao Xuan wasn't a naive fifteen-year-old youth, and he didn't feel too proud of his inferior equipment to walk alongside his friend. He filled a bamboo tube with water and headed up the mountain with Chen Ergou.
The nearby mountains were mostly small hills.
However, Zhao Xuan's current body had suffered from chronic hunger and was far too weak; after crossing just a single hill, he was panting heavily.
Chen Ergou was slightly better off, though he was also thoroughly exhausted.
The two put their heads together and decided to search for rabbit warrens on the spot.
Before long, Chen Ergou suddenly cried out, "Zhao Er, there are turtledoves! Shoot them!"
Zhao Xuan looked up and saw a flock of turtledoves flying past.
He hastily picked up his bamboo bow and fired an arrow into the flock.
The bamboo arrow passed right through the flock of turtledoves without grazing a single feather.
Then, he saw a light—a golden light.
[Awakened Talent: Effort Brings Rewards.]
"Ding, you have exerted your utmost to fire an arrow, comprehending Basic Archery."
Basic Archery: 0/100.
Trait 1: Slight increase in arm strength, slight enhancement in physical constitution.
Trait 2: Slight enhancement in sensory abilities such as vision, hearing, and smell.
Trait 3: Increased range and accuracy.
As the golden light faded, Zhao Xuan rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
This was no hallucination!
The newly emerged "Effort Brings Rewards" talent and the new skill "Basic Archery" existed in his mind like a status panel, available to be checked at any time.
After a brief moment of thought, Zhao Xuan abruptly realized just how terrifying this talent was.
A single arrow had allowed him to comprehend the basics of archery; if he shot ten million arrows, wouldn't he become the reincarnation of Houyi, capable of shooting down the sun with a single shot?
"Zhao Er, what are you standing there in a daze for? Shoot!"
Chen Ergou's reminder interrupted Zhao Xuan's reverie.
He flurriedly loosed an arrow.
"You perfunctorily fired an arrow; your archery skills have improved slightly."
The prompt claimed there was an improvement, but the progress bar for Basic Archery remained stubbornly at 0.
After pondering for a moment, Zhao Xuan nocked an arrow, drew the bow to its full length, held his breath, and carefully observed the flight path of the turtledoves.
The instant a turtledove landed on a treetop, he released the string. The arrow flew true and struck it squarely in the body.
As the turtledove plummeted, the prompt appeared once more: "Unflustered and calm, you earnestly fired an arrow and struck the target; your archery skills have greatly improved."
"Basic Archery: 3/100."
"Arm strength, perception, and other traits have increased correspondingly."
Zhao Xuan felt his arms grow warm, the scenery before his eyes became sharper, and the sounds of insects and birds filled his ears with greater clarity.
The effect was remarkable.
Merely by shooting earnestly and hitting the target, his archery skill had jumped by 3 points?
What a magnificent "Effort Brings Rewards."
Zhao Xuan understood: whether you are truly putting in effort can fool others, but it can never fool yourself.
He was beginning to understand and fall in love with this talent.
"Zhao Er, what on earth are you spacing out for? The turtledoves are all gone."
"It's a good thing you had a stroke of blind luck and hit one, otherwise we'd have gone up the mountain and come back with nothing at all."
"The one you shot is yours, take care of it."
Human joys and sorrows are not always connected.
Zhao Xuan felt he had gained a rich harvest, but Chen Ergou merely thought his companion was acting like a fool.
He hadn't even bothered to pick up the turtledove he'd managed to shoot.
Fortunately, Ergou had picked it up for him.
The turtledove Zhao Xuan had shot didn't look large, but it weighed close to a catty and was plump with meat.
Just this single bird could be traded for ten catties of coarse grain.
Knowing full well his own difficult predicament, Zhao Xuan did not decline; he pulled out the bamboo arrow to reuse it and tucked the turtledove into his hemp sack.
Once he had more game, he would give a share to his companion.
He had half a mind to chase after the flock of turtledoves—if he succeeded, they'd eat meat; if not, he could still hone his archery.
However, the two of them had agreed before coming up that their primary target was rabbits.
A single rabbit was worth twenty turtledoves.
Chen Ergou was one of his few brothers, a fine buddy willing to take him up the mountain to hunt, and no matter what, he could never bring himself to ditch his partner.
After searching around for a while, the experienced Ergou quickly located two rabbit warrens and instructed Zhao Xuan to smoke the rabbits out while he stood by with the net, waiting for them to walk right into it.
Knowing he wasn't as skilled at catching rabbits as Ergou, Zhao Xuan followed instructions and blew thick smoke into the burrow.
He blew for a full quarter of an hour, until his throat felt parched and smoky.
At last, two rabbits poked their heads out of the hole Ergou was guarding and bolted for freedom.
Ergou, who had been well prepared, dropped his large net over them. One rabbit agilely wriggled free and bolted, but the other failed to escape and dragged the net along as it ran.
Taken aback for a moment, Ergou fumbled and failed to grab hold of the net.
Seeing the twenty-catty fat rabbit about to drag the net out of their sight, Zhao Xuan stood up, nocked an arrow, and loosed it in one fluid motion.
A dozen or so bamboo arrows in rapid succession pinned the fishing net firmly to the ground, successfully halting the rabbit's escape.
Ergou rushed forward and pinned the rabbit down with his body, not forgetting to shout excitedly at Zhao Xuan, "Zhao Er, nice work!"
Zhao Xuan's face flushed slightly; he had originally intended to shoot the rabbit itself.