Chapter 1: Two Strong Men and a Patch of Land at the Start

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In the year 1998, on the twelfth day of the tenth lunar month.
In the western Shandong region, Yu family village.
Early morning.
Inside a dim, old clay-brick house, Yu Yang, wrapped in a military cotton coat, sat upright on a long bench, carefully examining the papers spread across the Eight Immortals table.
Opposite him sat the village chief, flanked by three bank officials.
“Comrade Yu Yang, if you just sign these contracts, when the court convenes, they’ll surely go easy on your father, and Yu Jianjun can come home for the New Year,” the village chief urged.
“Yes, this is your father’s chance to get out of trouble. Just agree quickly,” he added.
Yu Yang’s face was expressionless, but his mind raced.
Yu Jianjun—his honest, simple father—hadn’t really done anything wrong.
He had saved some money raising pigs, then was fooled by the township leaders into buying the long-dormant brick kiln at an outrageously low price of 100,000 yuan.
A tunnel kiln capable of producing 60,000 red bricks per day, worth at least a million yuan.
The township basically gave it to old Yu half-sold, half-gifted, but there were many hidden problems: difficulty in firing, temperatures too low, bricks collapsing inside the kiln, and the flues long since worn out.
To repair the kiln, old Yu borrowed and sold everything—his ancestral home, farmland, even taking out several loans.
But less than half a year after production resumed, a once-in-a-century flood in mid-year soaked the green bricks, corroded the new ones, destroyed the kiln tunnel, and delayed orders.
Old Yu had no money to restart production and defaulted on his loans.
Since debt default was a civil issue, the court refused to rule, and the police ignored it.
Worried creditors wanted to keep old Yu local, so they took turns reporting the brick kiln for illegal land use, pollutant discharge violations, and collective asset encroachment.
Soon enough, old Yu was detained, awaiting a slew of lawsuits.
Today, the bank came to persuade Yu Yang to convert the original unsecured loan into a mortgage loan and repossess the kiln.
In another timeline, Yu Yang had believed the kiln’s value far exceeded the loan amount and never agreed, causing a years-long struggle that ended with the kiln lost and old Yu shuttling in and out of jail, wasting three and a half years.
Now reborn...
Yu Yang had no intention of wasting time on this matter; he only wanted startup capital.
He planned to assemble a construction team, start small, grow stronger, become a general contractor, then pivot to real estate—settle down comfortably by his thirties.
As for stocks, funds, or lottery tickets—after a lifetime in construction, he truly knew nothing about those.
After thinking it over, he said, “The shares of the brick kiln are indeed in my name, and I agree to use the kiln as collateral. However, I want a low-interest loan of 500,000 yuan, to be paid back in two years. That’s my condition.”
“Another 500,000 loan? Are you crazy?” the village chief was incredulous.
The bank’s business manager shook his head firmly. “You lack the financial ability; the higher-ups won’t approve.”
“Then there’s nothing to discuss.”
“If you don’t agree, your father stays in jail,” the village chief urged anxiously.
“Let him stay,” Yu Yang replied flatly.
“That means prison.”
“Prison is better than being stuck in the detention center forever.”
“???”
“You don’t understand,” Yu Yang said, then suddenly recalled something. “You will, someday.”
“???”
“Don’t worry, once I make money, I’ll renegotiate better terms for him.”
Negotiations require skill. Yu Yang’s meaning was clear: if you don’t agree, I’ll disown my father, and you won’t see a dime.

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The bank officials remained calm, but the village chief stood up.
Just then, the chief’s son—a chubby boy of thirteen or fourteen—burst into the room, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Dad, bad news! The small car parked at the village entrance had all four wheels stolen!”
“The bastards! How dare they cause trouble in our village...”
Before the village chief could curse and rush outside, the bank officials dashed out first.
In 1998, even the cheapest small car cost over a hundred thousand yuan.
Four wheels would be equivalent to half a year’s wages for most people.
“What a wonderful era,” Yu Yang muttered, watching their backs as they left.
He slipped on his mother’s layered-soled cotton shoes and pondered how to raise money as he stepped out of the old clay-tile house.
After old Yu sold the ancestral home, Yu Yang’s grandfather, worried his daughter-in-law might file for divorce, secretly spent his own money to buy this courtyard.
It was nearly half the size of a football field but contained only two main rooms and a large eastern room with a clay stove and kang bed.
Yu Yang recalled that at first, his mother still lived here. But after old Yu was arrested, she returned to her parents to borrow money and sought help to fight the lawsuits.
As for Yu Yang himself, when his father was detained at the start of senior year, he was young and hotheaded. Despite his homeroom teacher’s advice, he dropped out and stayed home, using the kang stove to cultivate bean sprouts, hoping to help repay his father’s debts.
Later, when old Yu was released, he managed to rebuild his life and start a general contracting business, with much credit to the bean sprouts.
“Should I just keep growing bean sprouts?”
Yu Yang walked to the eastern room and opened the tightly shut door.
To his surprise, two burly men were squatting inside.
One was hunched over the stove, tending to a pot.
The other was fiddling with something on the kang bed.
Yu Yang didn’t remember meeting these two men in the other timeline.
But glancing at their arms—thicker than an average person’s thigh—he felt that one punch from either would probably put him out for half a year, so he dared not speak.
Still, this couldn’t go on.
Because the many enamel basins filled with sprouting soybeans had been spilled all over the kang bed by the burly men.
And the roof had been opened with a ‘skylight.’
This was the foundation of Yu Yang’s start-up.
Furious, Yu Yang stormed over to the man by the stove and casually took off his military cotton coat to wrap around him.
“Big brother, are you cold?”
“...”
“Big brother, where are you from?”
“...”
“Big brother, how much does my father owe you?”
“...”
“Big brother, say something!”
“...”
“Big brother is really funny.”
Yu Yang gave a dry laugh, ready to change the subject, when he caught a glimpse of translucent text floating above the big brother’s head.

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[Farmer - Zhao Qian, from Beihe, skilled in agriculture and construction.]
“This…”
Yu Yang rubbed his eyes and turned to look at the other burly man squatting on the kang bed.
[Farmer - Sun Li, from Nanhu, skilled in agriculture and construction.]
Above the kang bed, a small line of text also floated:
[Improved farmland: Primary level, area 0.01 mu (6.6 square meters), accelerates crop growth. Currently planting soybeans. With adequate sunlight, expected to mature in 30 days.]
This...
Two burly men and a single plot of land at the start?
Civilization?
Magic beasts?
Age of Empires?
Yu Yang suppressed his excitement and stepped inside.
On the kang bed lay soybean sprouts just beginning to peek out, visibly growing—growing—to nearly two fingers tall.
By midday, sunlight streamed through the skylight in the roof, and the yellowish sprouts visibly turned greener and greener, transforming into lush green seedlings.
“Stop!”
Though soybean seedlings were common in rural areas, it was winter.
Especially in an era when plastic greenhouses were still rare, such seedlings were even more precious.
If sold, they could earn some money.
“In less than a morning, we’ve grown a whole kang bed full. We’re set to make it!”
Hearing the shout, the burly man paused his work, and the seedlings’ growth rate slowed.
Yu Yang stifled his excitement, watching the man’s reaction while tearing off fresh, root-bound seedlings into twenty-by-twenty-centimeter squares, placing them into woven baskets prepared for selling bean sprouts.
The kang bed was two meters wide and three meters long; the seedlings filled four large baskets.
After finishing, Yu Yang stepped outside and glanced at the sky—it was already noon.
He looked down at the heavy baskets nervously and called to the man by the stove, “Big brother, going to the market?”
Before he finished, the big brother stood, stacked the four baskets into two loads, grabbed a shovel, removed the blade, balanced the baskets on a pole across his shoulders, staggered a few steps, then vanished down the lane.
Yu Yang wrapped his coat tighter, tugged at his cotton shoes, and sprinted after him—losing a shoe in the process—but couldn’t catch up.
“Big brother, wait for me! Do you know where the market is?”
Passing the village entrance, the small car the bank had driven was propped up on four stacks of red bricks, the wheels still missing.
Yu Yang no longer cared about the brick kiln, loans, the bank, old Yu, or building a construction team.
His mind was filled only with the bean sprouts.
“Big brother, turn, turn, left turn!”

...

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