The village was called Wuming.
No Name Village.
Someone, at some point in its unremarkable history, had apparently decided that honesty was more important than ambition when naming settlements, and Wei Changfeng found this deeply respectable.
He had spent thirty years in a world where everything was named to sound more impressive than it was — the Hall of Celestial Wisdom, which was mostly used for storing grain records; the Avenue of Ten Thousand Virtues, which smelled strongly of fish on market days.
Wuming had made its peace with what it was.
He could respect that.
He spent his first morning doing what he had always done when entering an unfamiliar situation:
Observing.
From the doorway of the small house — his house now, by default and necessity — he watched the village wake.
It was not large. Perhaps sixty households arranged in a loose cluster around a central well, surrounded on three sides by terraced fields climbing the lower slopes of a hill too rocky to farm all the way to the top.
The kind of village that appeared on no important maps and paid its taxes late and was largely left alone by the world as long as it stayed quiet.
He noted the power structure automatically.
The headman's house was the largest, positioned closest to the road.
Three families owned more land than the others, based on the quality of their outer walls and the number of people already working their fields.
A small shrine near the well suggested a relationship with a local earth deity. That meant a traveling priest or spirit-worker likely visited on festival days.
Useful.
There was no cultivation sect presence.
No disciple banners.
No spirit-stone lamps.
No young men in matching robes looking down their noses at everyone.
This, he decided, was the first genuinely good news of his new life.
The second arrived twenty minutes later.
A short, stout woman of about seventy rounded the side of the neighboring house. She stopped when she saw him standing in the doorway.
Hands went to hips.
She looked him over slowly, thoroughly.
"You're up early," she said.
"Yes," he agreed.
"Have you eaten?"
The question struck somewhere deeper than expected.
He had heard that exact question, in that exact tone, every morning of his life until four days ago.
He kept his face still.
"Not yet," he said.
She made a sound — half disapproval, half decision — turned around, and walked back the way she had come.
"Come then," she called over her shoulder.
It was not a request.
Her name was Chen Yulan.
Her house smelled of soy paste, dried chrysanthemum, and something faintly medicinal he could not immediately identify but filed away for later.
It was slightly larger than his own.
Bundles of dried herbs hung from ceiling beams.
Ceramic jars lined the walls — each slightly different, clearly collected over decades.
A loom stood against the far wall, dust settled thinly across its frame.
On the ancestor shelf sat a wooden tablet with two names.
Her husband.
And beside it, a younger name.
A son.
The ink had faded slightly.
Gone some years ago.
He absorbed all of this before she finished ladling congee into a bowl and placing it in front of him.
He looked at the congee.
Then at her.
"You do not have to feed me," he said carefully. "I have money."
She sat across from him and picked up her chopsticks.
"Seventeen copper coins," she said without looking up. "I helped Old Magistrate Lin count it after the funeral. Eat."
He ate.
It was better than his had been last night.
He said nothing.
Some observations were best kept private.
They ate in silence.
It was not uncomfortable.
It was the kind of silence that did not demand to be filled.
He had spent decades appreciating that kind of silence.
"You don't cry," she said eventually.
Not accusation. Observation.
"No," he said.
"Most children your age would still be crying. It has only been three years."
He considered his answer.
The honest one was not useful.
"I cried when it happened," he said instead, which was true of the boy whose body he now occupied. "After a while, crying stops helping."
She looked at him properly then.
Sharp dark eyes.
Seventy years of judgment and experience behind them.
He met her gaze steadily.
No defensiveness.
Nothing to hide.
"Hm," she said.
Approval.
He recognized the language.
She fed him again at midday.
Again at dinner.
When he politely insisted he was capable of feeding himself, she pointed out that his kitchen contained half a bag of millet and a jar of pickled vegetables that had seen better days.
"Capable," she said, "is generous."
He had no counter-argument.
"You'll need to work," she said as he finished dinner.
"Yes."
"Old Farmer Guo takes day laborers during harvest. Twelve days from now. You're small, but you look like you won't complain."
"I won't."
"What did your father do?"
"He was a carpenter. Furniture. Tools."
"And your mother?"
"She helped at the village medicine seller before marriage."
Chen Yulan nodded.
"Your mother was sensible. She brought me persimmons every autumn. Did you know?"
He did not.
"Good persimmons," she said — the highest praise available.
She cleared the bowls briskly.
"You can sleep in your own house," she said. "But you'll eat here until you can manage properly. I won't have the child next door getting sick because he's too proud."
"I'm not proud."
"Good. Then no problem."
There was no arguing with her.
He found this oddly comforting.
"Thank you," he said.
She waved a hand dismissively.
"Chop my firewood in the mornings. My back's been bad since summer."
"Of course."
"And quietly. I don't like noise before the birds."
"I'll be quiet."
"And stack it properly. The Guo boy stacks it like he's angry at it."
"I'll stack it correctly."
She turned.
For half a breath, something flickered across her face.
Not quite a smile.
Close.
"You're a strange child," she said.
"I've been told."
That night, alone in his house, Wei Changfeng lay on his mat and thought.
He was good at this.
Thinking in the dark had been one of his primary occupations for thirty years.
His wife had hated it.
She said it felt like sleeping beside someone who was always somewhere else.
She had not been wrong.
Assessment:
Ten years old.
Orphan.
Seventeen copper coins.
A neighbor willing to trade meals for firewood.
Twelve days until harvest labor.
And—
This required careful attention.
He could feel qi.
Faint.
Subtle.
But present.
In his previous life, there had been nothing.
Now it was like hearing a tone others could not.
A door slightly open.
The Nine Heaven Cultivation Manuals waited in his memory like a library.
He did not rush toward them.
Impatience destroyed foundations.
He had catalogued enough sect records to know that.
The body must be prepared.
He was ten.
Undernourished.
Three years of hard labor.
The foundation was weak.
That was acceptable.
He had time.
Perhaps far more time than he had ever possessed before.
Immediate concern: money.
Seventeen coins would not last.
Harvest wages would not suffice.
Skills inventory:
He could read and write fluently.
He understood medicine theory well enough to identify herbs and interactions.
He knew carpentry in principle.
He could cook adequately.
The medicine knowledge was most useful.
There was no resident healer in Wuming.
The nearest physician was two hours away.
Villages accumulated minor ailments constantly.
This was opportunity.
He filed it away.
Outside, an owl called once.
Crickets continued their steady commentary.
Next door, Chen Yulan coughed three times in her sleep.
Not illness.
Age.
He knew that sound.
He lay still and allowed himself one honest moment of weight.
Where he was.
Who he was.
What he had lost.
Not despair.
Simply acknowledgment.
Then he set it aside.
Tomorrow:
Chop firewood quietly.
Stack it correctly.
Learn names.
Study hillside herbs.
Eat without complaint.
Be patient.
He had always been patient.
In his last life, patience had led nowhere.
This time—
With a cultivator's body and the complete Nine Heaven Cultivation Manuals—
Patience might take him somewhere worth going.
He closed his eyes.
He slept without dreams.