Chapter 1: Going to the Countryside

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October, 1975.

Black River Province, Songling County, Qingshan Commune, Xiangyang Brigade entrance.

Chug-chug-chug...

A Liberation-brand tractor, trailing billows of yellow dust, slowly pulled up before the brigade headquarters’ mud-brick house. In the truck bed, more than a dozen young men and women clad in cotton jackets and padded coats, faces weary from their journey and uncertain about the future, began to jump down one by one from the tall vehicle.

“Wow—”

A bespectacled young man had barely touched the ground before his knees were shaking uncontrollably. Unable to hold back any longer, he dashed to the roadside, grabbed a bare sapling, and doubled over, vomiting fiercely.

Like a chain reaction, two or three young women turned pale and hurried to a corner, dry-heaving.

Jiang Xiaoman’s little face was ashen as well; her stomach churned as if an invisible hand was stirring it violently. She bit her lower lip hard, barely suppressing the nausea, but a cold sweat had already formed on her forehead.

She stole a glance at Zhou Yichen beside her.

He, however, was perfectly composed, as if nothing had happened. Not only was he unaffected, he seemed genuinely interested in surveying the barren and unfamiliar land around them.

Low mud-brick houses, walls smeared with yellow clay, distant barren rolling hills, and the crooked flagpole at the brigade entrance.

“So this is... where we’ll be living from now on?” Zhou Yichen sighed softly at the desolate surroundings, but his gaze remained calm.

He did not belong to this era.

Strictly speaking, the soul inside this body, just over half a month ago, came from the twenty-first century’s Zhou Yichen.

The original owner’s family was fairly well-off. His father, a fifth-level machinist at Red Star Steelworks, earned sixty-six yuan and fifty cents a month, enough to match the income of two or three ordinary working families. His mother was a diligent homemaker, and his eldest sister was already married with a good job.

As the only son, the original Zhou Yichen had been doted on since childhood, spoiled and lazy, a typical young master incapable of any real work.

When Zhou Yichen awoke in this body, he was confronted with this mess.

The original had just graduated from high school. Jobs in town were long since saturated; there were not nearly enough positions for these half-grown kids.

National policy dictated that each household, besides one child who could be hired internally by the factory or kept at home, required all other junior and senior high graduates to respond to the great call—go to the countryside, seek their fortune in the vast world.

He and his younger sister Zhou Xiaoling had both graduated high school that year.

Their father, Zhou Jianguo, worried about their employment so much that his hair had turned white in places.

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It must be known that going to the countryside now was nothing like the late sixties or early seventies, when substantial settlement subsidies were provided.

Now, the policy had changed. The subsidies were gone; heading out meant pure “struggle against nature,” with conditions harsher than ever.

Just over half a month ago, the neighborhood office issued a notice.

Between him and his sister Zhou Xiaoling, one had to go to the countryside.

Zhou Xiaoling was delicate and pretty, a true beauty in the making. This impoverished rural area posed far too many hidden dangers for a beautiful single young woman.

He was a grown man, his soul from the age of information explosion—surely better suited to endure hardship than a seventeen-year-old girl.

So he took the initiative, approached Officer Li at the neighborhood office, volunteered, and gave his sister the chance to stay in the city.

His words: “I’m a boy—what’s a bit of hardship to me?”

His mother, Li Xiulan, wept bitterly at the time, and his father Zhou Jianguo sighed incessantly. Only Zhou Xiaoling, his sister, clung to him and cried her heart out.

“Yichen, are you... really all right?” Jiang Xiaoman finally caught her breath and looked at Zhou Yichen’s calm profile, incredulous.

She knew well the state of his health. After days of trains and tractors, bumping along these rutted country roads, he still seemed unaffected.

Zhou Yichen turned, grinned, revealing a set of white teeth. “I’m fine, really.”

Of course he was.

Ever since his arrival, after discovering his “Heaven rewards diligence” talent, everything had changed.

Heaven rewards diligence—meaning, as long as you work hard, you progress, and that progress is tangible and perceptible.

Knowing he would be sent to the countryside, he immediately bought a copy of the “Barefoot Doctor’s Manual.”

He reasoned that rural areas lacked medical resources; if he could master some medical skills, he could at least spare himself and those around him some suffering, and, at critical moments, this knowledge might prove invaluable. It could also earn him some privileges amid the heavy labor.

Though he’d trained his body, he still couldn’t match the strength of villagers used to farm work. He had no desire to labor endlessly, face to the soil, back to the sky, like a beaten dog.

Now, in his mind, a transparent attribute panel displayed a line of golden text:

[Medicine LV1 (562/1000)]

Level one medical skill—barely entry-level, enough to handle common ailments, equivalent to a village doctor.

But in the countryside, that was more than sufficient, especially with his “Heaven rewards diligence” talent; as long as he worked hard, progress would follow, and soon his medical skill would advance.

Besides medicine, he had revisited the “Eight Brocades” exercises he had once dabbled in online.

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In his previous life, he had practiced them irregularly, never truly mastering the basics.

This time, coupled with his innate talent, practicing twice daily for more than half a month had yielded remarkable results.

[Eight Brocades LV3 (257/300)]

Now, he was far from the frail, pampered young master he once was. His physical condition had improved substantially—stamina, coordination, and strength all markedly enhanced.

A few hours on a jostling tractor was nothing to him.

“That’s good,” Jiang Xiaoman patted her chest, trying to steady her breath, though worry and confusion lingered in her eyes. “Yichen, what will we do in the future? This place is just too...”

She didn’t finish, but the disappointment in her tone was unmistakable.

Zhou Yichen said reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Xiaoman. When the cart reaches the mountain, there will be a path. Everything will be fine.”

Seeing Zhou Yichen’s confident face, Jiang Xiaoman was momentarily stunned.

She realized that today, Zhou Yichen seemed different from before.

Jiang Xiaoman was his neighbor; they’d grown up together, childhood friends as close as siblings. If childhood sweethearts, they were more like comrades who could tease and support each other.

She, too, had chosen to go to the countryside for similar reasons—there was a younger sister at home, and as the elder, she felt obliged to take responsibility.

In the original’s memories, Jiang Xiaoman had always been a tomboy, a wild girl.

But now, from the perspective of the twenty-first century, this little lady, with her adorable baby face and neat shoulder-length hair, was undeniably goddess material. The red scarf around her neck made her cheeks glow, adding to her charm.

Just then, a group emerged from the brigade headquarters’ mud-brick house.

Leading them was a man around fifty, skin dark but eyes bright, sharp and capable. He was followed by several men of similar or slightly younger age, all broad-shouldered and sturdy—clearly used to farm work.

When they saw the youths vomiting by the roadside, the leader’s brows twitched imperceptibly.

The men behind him were less discreet; some openly displayed expressions of disdain.

“City kids are so pampered—they get sick just riding a tractor. How will they ever do real work?”

A crew-cut man muttered under his breath, not loudly, but just enough for the nearby educated youth to hear.