Lín Xiāoxiāo regained consciousness amidst a splitting headache and an indescribable hunger. What met her eyes were not the lush green sprouts in her experimental field, but several crooked, cobweb-laden roof beams and a thatched roof that continually shed debris. The ground beneath her was hard and uncomfortable, and her nostrils were filled with a complex aroma of mildew, earthy tang, and a faint scent of decay.
She sat up abruptly and looked around. It was a bare adobe house. Besides the worn straw mat on the earthen kang she was lying on, there was a broken wooden chest with its leg propped up by stones, and in the corner, something that looked like a stove, with two chipped pottery jars lying beside it.
Cold wind whistled through the cracks in the walls, raising goosebumps on her skin. "Where… is this?"
she murmured, her voice hoarse. Her memories were like fragmented movie scenes, the last one showing lightning striking without warning as she recorded data in her experimental field. Immediately after, fragments of memories that weren't hers surged into her mind—the original owner was also named Lín Xiāoxiāo, an orphan whose parents had died, leaving her to depend on her uncle and aunt.
Unwilling to be sold as a second wife to an old widower, she had secretly returned to the abandoned old house of her parents, only to succumb to hunger and cold, a severe chill taking her life… Then, she arrived. Lín Xiāoxiāo, the top student of Agricultural University, with a double major in Civil Engineering and Veterinary Medicine, aiming to become a composite agricultural talent for the new era, found herself unexpectedly transmigrated to this seemingly desolate ancient world.
She had become an unlucky soul on the verge of starvation and freezing to death, possibly following in the original owner's footsteps. She looked down at the patched, dirt-stained coarse cloth dress she was wearing, then touched her shriveled stomach. A wave of despair and absurdity washed over her.
"This is hell mode from the start…" she gave a wry smile, rubbing her throbbing temples. "Let alone farming, it's a question if I can survive today."
The instinct for survival overwhelmed self-pity. Lín Xiāoxiāo struggled to get off the kang. Her steps were unsteady as she walked to the door and pushed open the creaking, dilapidated wooden door that seemed ready to fall apart at any second.
Outside was a desolate scene. A few equally dilapidated adobe houses were sparsely scattered not far away. Further in the distance lay continuous, rather barren-looking hills.
The small courtyard she was in had most of its fenced wall collapsed. Apart from a few clumps of stubborn weeds, the yard was empty. The only thing that could be considered "resource" within her sight was a broken sickle, covered in rust and with a dulled blade, leaning against the wall.
She walked over and picked up the sickle. It felt cold and heavy in her hand. "Alright, starting with a sickle, and all other equipment…
must be scavenged," she said with self-mockery. At least, she had a tool. The immediate priorities were to find food and assess the surroundings.
Leaning on the sickle as a crutch, she walked out of the yard with weak steps. According to the original owner's vague memories, there was a small river at the east end of the village, where she might find some waterdropwort or other wild vegetables to stave off hunger. The late autumn wind already carried a biting chill, making her thin clothes cling tightly to her body.
Most of the fields she passed were desolate. Occasionally, she saw a few patches of withered crops, their growth also worrying. This place called Huáishù Village seemed poorer than she had imagined.
She tried to avoid any places where people might be, heading towards the small river according to her memory. As she passed through a patch of withered grass about waist-high, her foot suddenly caught on something, and she stumbled forward. "Hiss—" The palm of her hand stung.
She turned back, about to curse, but the words got stuck in her throat. What tripped her was not a stone or a dead branch, but a person! A man, covered in blood, his clothes in tatters.
Lín Xiāoxiāo's heart leaped into her throat. She instinctively tightened her grip on the broken sickle and looked around vigilantly. In the silent withered grass, there was only the moaning sound of the wind, and no one else.
She took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down, and cautiously approached. The man was lying face down, his face obscured. He was tall, and even in his unconscious state, one could faintly discern the taut muscle lines beneath his clothing.
He had many wounds, the most severe being a knife wound on his shoulder blade, deep enough to see bone. Although crudely bandaged with torn cloth, dark red blood had already soaked through, and it was expanding. His breathing was extremely weak, and his face was an ominous pale blue.
"Still alive…" Lín Xiāoxiāo checked his breathing, her brow furrowed. To save him or not?
Reason told her that she could barely save herself, and meddling could easily bring disaster upon her. This person was severely injured and of unknown origin. What if he was a notorious bandit or someone being pursued by enemies?
But… as a highly educated person who subconsciously respected life, she couldn't bear to watch someone who was still breathing die before her eyes. Moreover, when she was double-majoring in veterinary medicine, she had also attended many courses and practical sessions on human trauma treatment…
"Forget it, consider him a piece of trash I picked up. Whether he lives or dies depends on his fate," she sighed. In the end, her professional ethics (or perhaps, a bit of pity for a fellow human after transmigration) won out.
She exerted herself to flip the man over, revealing a face that, though smeared with blood and pale from blood loss, was still sharply defined and exceptionally handsome. His sword-like eyebrows slanted towards his temples, his nose was high-bridged, and his thin lips were tightly pressed, exuding a stern aura that couldn't be entirely hidden even in his unconscious state. "Tsk, he's quite good-looking," Lín Xiāoxiāo muttered, trying to find amusement in the grim situation.
She checked his injuries. Besides the knife wound on his shoulder blade, he had multiple abrasions and bruises. His left leg also seemed to be problematic, possibly fractured.
Excessive blood loss and infection were the most immediate threats. She looked at the broken sickle in her hand, then at the man. An absurd thought surfaced: "Does this count as a 'chief tool person' bonus at the start?
Even if he's a battle-damaged version right now." The priority was to get him back to that dilapidated house and clean his wounds. Lín Xiāoxiāo used all her strength to try and lift him, but the man was as heavy as a stone, and her own body was too weak.
After several attempts, she failed, breaking into a sweat and gasping for breath. As dusk approached and the temperature dropped, staying any longer would mean freezing to death in the wilderness for both of them. Lín Xiāoxiāo gritted her teeth and her gaze fell on some tougher vines and thicker dead branches nearby.
An idea for a makeshift dragging device formed in her mind. Using the broken sickle, she laboriously cut down vines and branches. Relying on the meager knowledge of mechanics from her civil engineering studies, she began clumsily trying to create a simple stretcher, or rather, a dragboard that would allow her to move this "big piece of trash" back.
Just as she had finally wrapped the vines around the branches, forming a basic shape, the unconscious man on the ground let out an extremely weak groan. His long, curled eyelashes fluttered, showing signs of waking up. Lín Xiāoxiāo froze, looking at him nervously.
The next moment, the man's eyes suddenly snapped open! They were extremely deep black eyes, somewhat unfocused due to his severe injuries, but the depths of his pupils suddenly erupted with the sharp, vigilant glint of a falcon. Almost instinctively, carrying a chilling murderous intent, they shot directly at Lín Xiāoxiāo, who was closest to him!
Simultaneously, his right hand, which was intact, shot up like lightning, accurately grasping her wrist! "!" Lín Xiāoxiāo was utterly terrified and recoiled sharply, narrowly dodging the hand that whistled through the air.
Their eyes met. The air seemed to freeze at that moment. The murderous intent and vigilance in the man's eyes were like tangible ice picks, sending chills all over Lín Xiāoxiāo.
She had no doubt that if he had the strength, he would have broken her neck without hesitation. Her heart pounded wildly as she forced herself to meet his gaze, her hand tightly gripping the rusty sickle, as if that would bring a sliver of insignificant security. The man's gaze paused on her face for a moment, then swept over the pathetic sickle in her hand, and the unfinished, crude vine contraption behind her.
In an instant, he seemed to assess the situation and this thin, unthreatening girl. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but only managed a broken gasp. Then, the sharp intensity he had mustered receded like a tide, the light in his eyes dimmed rapidly, and his arm fell powerlessly.
His head lolled to the side, and he completely lost consciousness again. Lín Xiāoxiāo remained frozen for several seconds before letting out a long, trembling breath. Her back was drenched in cold sweat.
Looking at the man on the ground, who had once again lost consciousness, her feelings were extremely complex. This man was by no means ordinary. The momentary burst of his gaze and aura was something only someone who had truly experienced mountains of corpses and seas of blood would possess.
Had she just brought back a huge pile of trouble? Lín Xiāoxiāo looked at the crude drag device she had painstakingly made, then at the unconscious man who exuded a dangerous aura of "keep away from strangers." To save him, or not to save him?
This choice seemed even more difficult and weighty than before. Would this life she had barely managed to reclaim be lost because of this? **Chapter One (End)**