The days that followed were a harsh crash course in reality. Lu Chenyuan, bolstered by his predecessor's memories and his own sharp mind, quickly saw the truth—hope was a rare and withering thing in the Serpent's Coil Hills, especially for a clan whose name had long been reduced to a cautionary tale.
Their courtyard, once a quiet sign of modest prosperity, now felt like an open wound. The wind that swept through its cracked walls carried the dryness of the hills and the faint metallic tang of the Stone Tiger Li Clan's mining operations—a constant reminder of their weakness.
But despite the odds, Lu Chenyuan found within himself a flicker of resolve he hadn't expected. He began with the basics—restoring order to what little they had. He and Uncle Liu spent endless hours clearing the spirit fields of weeds, their hands blistered and raw. The 'Azurewood Art' cultivation method he practiced felt sluggish, its progress like coaxing sap from a stone. The ambient Qi in the area barely stirred, and his meager Third Layer cultivation made even the simplest exercises feel like he was pushing against a mountain. Twenty-seven low-grade spirit stones lay untouched beneath the floorboards—a desperate last resort he couldn't afford to use lightly.
The system remained a quiet presence in his mind, the 'Clan Prosperity Meter' stuck at a miserable 3 out of 100, a silent indictment of their condition. The mission—A Spark of Hope—ticked down steadily, its one-year deadline never far from his thoughts.
"Young Master," Uncle Liu rasped one morning as they struggled with the stubborn earth, "this field needs more than sweat. We need spirit dew, or at least a proper rain touched by a Wood-attribute cultivator. But we have neither."
Lu Chenyuan didn't need reminding. The system's so-called New Beginnings package—containing enhancements to their cultivation art and much-needed resources—remained locked behind a single, maddening requirement: find a wife.
Their search began quietly, cautiously. Uncle Liu dusted off old connections, many so faded with time they were little more than ghosts. They visited Willow Creek Village, Black Rock Town, even the lawless sprawl of Serpent's End Market. Lu Chenyuan often came along under the guise of looking for cheap spirit grains or herbs, discreetly using the system's 'Information/Assessment' ability.
But it brought little success.
The system's insight was frustratingly vague. A faint shimmer might appear around a young woman—green for Wood, red for Fire, and so on—indicating a spiritual root. But it offered no measure of quality or potential. Most of the time, he saw only:[Spiritual Root Detected – Quality Obscure]Or worse:[No Detectable Spiritual Root]
He learned to be subtle. A long stare drew suspicion, and brief conversations rarely offered any clarity. More often than not, the women he assessed were already promised to someone else. Those who weren't often came with other complications—illness, a troubled family, or a reputation even the desperate Lin Clan dared not risk.
One dusty afternoon in Black Rock Town, Uncle Liu spoke with an old herb-gatherer, Old Man Chen. Lu Chenyuan busied himself with inspecting a sorry-looking bundle of Iron Skin Grass nearby.
"A wife for your Young Master?" Old Man Chen chuckled, voice dry and brittle. "You jest, Liu Zhong. Everyone knows the Lin Clan's state. What girl would willingly marry into a grave?"
There was no cruelty in his words—just blunt honesty.
Uncle Liu's expression darkened. "The Young Master is… different. He works hard."
Chen shrugged. "Hard work doesn't fix a crumbling spirit field or feed empty bellies. Maybe if you had a few hundred spirit stones for a dowry—or a working Grade Two field. But as it stands…"
He let the rest hang in the air.
Lu Chenyuan couldn't argue. Objectively, marrying into the Lin Clan was like choosing to drown slowly. He needed to find someone for whom their poverty might still seem like an opportunity. A girl with nothing to lose.
And all the while, the Li Clan's shadow loomed nearby. From a rise behind their ruined courtyard, he could see their territory thrumming with activity. Li Clan cultivators—clad in black and yellow—often swaggered through Serpent's End Market, loud and smug. Once, he saw Li Hu, the patriarch's son, bargaining over a demonic beast pelt with a cruel glint in his eye. Lu Chenyuan recognized the look he gave him: casual disdain. Li Hu was stronger, better fed, and firmly entrenched in power. If they ever crossed paths as rivals, Lu Chenyuan wouldn't even be able to run.
The Li Clan hadn't acted yet—but they would. Their silence was just the patience of predators waiting for the right moment.
Weeks passed. Then a month. Then two.
The initial hope Lu Chenyuan had felt when he awakened the system began to erode. The congee was thinner. The nights colder. Even Uncle Liu, once a wellspring of quiet support, grew more withdrawn.
Then, one night, under a sliver of moonlight stretching across their bleak courtyard, Uncle Liu returned from Serpent's End Market with a strange look in his eyes—worry, yes, but something else too.
"Young Master," he began after they'd shared a meager dinner of boiled greens and a scrap of dried meat, "I heard something today. Just a whisper… could be nothing. Could be trouble."
Lu Chenyuan leaned in. "Tell me."
"There's a family up north, in the foothills near the Whispering Woods. The Shen family. Hunters and woodcutters. They have a daughter—Shen Yue. Nineteen, I think."
"And?" Lu Chenyuan asked, sensing the catch.
"They say she's cursed."
He said it plainly, almost reluctantly.
"Two families tried to arrange a betrothal. In one, the groom fell ill—barely survived. In the other, the family's home caught fire just before the matchmakers arrived. No injuries, but they lost most of what they had."
Lu Chenyuan frowned. Superstition ran rampant in remote places like this.
"Sounds like coincidence."
"Maybe," Uncle Liu admitted. "But people whisper. Say she's got an unlucky star. No family nearby will take her. Her father's injured—bad leg from a wild boar last season. They're barely scraping by."
"Does she have a spiritual root?"
Uncle Liu hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Old Man Hemlock—crazy apothecary who wanders through sometimes—once said he saw a 'hidden glimmer' in her. Called it 'tangled and weak.' No one knows what that means. They never tested her formally. She's never trained."
Lu Chenyuan's heart ticked faster. A hidden glimmer… could it be an undeveloped or rare root? If so, and if her family was truly desperate…
He asked the next question carefully. "And her character?"
"Quiet. Dutiful. Works hard, tends to her father. Gathers herbs and wood. No complaints."
Promising. Maybe even virtuous.
It was a gamble—taking a girl with rumors of curses and no proven cultivation as his first wife, the potential matriarch of the Lin Clan. But what choice did he have?
"The Whispering Woods… two days on foot, isn't it?"
"Yes. And dangerous."
Lu Chenyuan stared at his hands, rough from toil. Weak, yes—but not helpless. And he had the system, even if it was still limited.
"If her family is truly desperate, and if she has even a flicker of talent, then this might be our only chance. We'll investigate. Quietly."
Uncle Liu nodded, the weight of his old bones heavy but his loyalty unshaken. "If you're set on this, I'll go with you. I know some of the lesser paths. We'll prepare."
Lu Chenyuan allowed himself a faint smile. "Then we go. To the Whispering Woods. To find the girl whispered about in the dust."
A cursed girl. A dying clan. A faint, flickering hope.
For the first time in weeks, Lu Chenyuan didn't feel like he was just surviving. He was moving. Choosing. Gambling.
And somewhere in the ashes of the Lin Clan's legacy, the first ember of rebirth began to glow.