The last thing Lin Wanshan remembered was the cold, fluorescent light of the office flickering above him. It was 3:00 AM. The quarterly report was due in five hours. His heart had beaten a frantic, irregular rhythm, like a drum solo building to a crescendo, and then… silence. Absolute, peaceful silence.
He had always dreamed of quitting. He had folders upon folders on his desktop saved for a retirement that never came: *Montana Ranch Ideas*, *Guide to Raising Angus Cattle*, *The Art of Smoking Meat*. He wanted to trade his starched collar for a Stetson hat, his ergonomic chair for a leather saddle. He wanted to smell sagebrush and manure instead of toner and stale coffee.
Now, he was floating in a void.
"Is this the end?" he thought, feeling a strange sense of relief. "At least I don't have to fix the formatting on page forty-five."
Suddenly, a sharp, piercing sensation jabbed his consciousness. The smell of stale air and cheap ink replaced the sterile void. He felt a hard surface under his back—a wooden bed, far too stiff for a modern mattress.
"Young Master, please wake up. The Eldest Miss is asking for you."
The voice was soft, trembling, and distinctly archaic.
Lin Wanshan's eyes snapped open. He wasn't in a hospital. He wasn't in his office. He was lying on a cot in a small, dimly lit room with paper windows and wooden beams darkened by age.
A young boy, no older than fourteen, knelt beside the bed. He was thin, his clothes patched but clean, his eyes wide with worry.
"Young Master? Are you ill?" the boy asked.
Lin Wanshan sat up, a wave of vertigo washing over him. Memories that didn't belong to him crashed into his mind like a tidal wave.
*The Great Qian Dynasty.*
*Qinghe County.*
*The Lin Family.*
*A fallen scholar's son.*
*A live-in son-in-law.*
He looked at his hands. They were calloused but slender—not the hands of a middle-aged corporate slave. He was in a younger body, a body that had known hunger but not the ravages of stress-induced heart failure.
"Brother?" the boy asked again, hope flickering in his eyes. "You scared me. You were talking in your sleep about… 'steak' and 'cowboys'?"
Lin Wanshan stared at the boy. This was Lin Wen, his younger brother in this life. Orphaned two years ago, they had been taken in by their father's old friend, the County Magistrate Su Changming.
"It's… it's nothing, Wen," Lin Wanshan—no, he was Lin Wanshan here too—rasped. His voice was deeper than the boy's. He rubbed his temples. "I had a long dream. A very long dream."
In that dream, he had lived a life of grey monotony, chained to a desk. He had died chasing a bonus he would never spend.
But here? Here he was a joke.
The memories solidified. In the Great Qian Dynasty, cattle were sacred tools of agriculture. Killing a healthy ox was a crime punishable by law. Farmers treated their oxen better than their wives. The idea of eating beef was taboo, reserved only for the sick or the dying, or the meat of an animal that had broken a leg. Pig and sheep were the staple meats.
And he, Lin Wanshan, was the useless son-in-law of the Magistrate's household. He had failed the imperial exams twice. He couldn't farm, couldn't fight, and couldn't manage a business. He lived off the charity of his wife's family, a fact that gnawed at his dignity daily.
"I need to get some air," Lin Wanshan said, standing up. He felt a strange stirring in his chest. A second chance. He had died with a dream unfulfilled. Was this fate giving him a do-over?
He walked to the window and pushed it open. The courtyard of the Magistrate's manor was serene, filled with neatly trimmed bushes and stone paths. But Lin Wanshan didn't see a courtyard. In his mind's eye, he saw vast, rolling hills of golden grass, a herd of black cattle grazing under a big sky, and the smell of hickory smoke in the air.
"Brother," Lin Wen said hesitantly, pulling at his sleeve. "Sister-in-Law… she is in the main hall. Uncle Su is also there. They are discussing the family accounts. Uncle Su said… he said if you don't pass the next exam, they might have to find you a job as a bookkeeper in the county storehouse."
A bookkeeper. Stuck in a room, counting coins, writing ledgers.
Lin Wanshan shuddered. It was his old life all over again.
"No," Lin Wanshan said, his voice firm.
"No?" Lin Wen blinked.
"I won't be a bookkeeper," Lin Wanshan turned, his eyes gleaming with a fire Lin Wen had never seen before. "Wen, do you know what we are going to do?"
"We… we will study hard?"
Lin Wanshan laughed, a dry, humorless sound that morphed into determination. "We are going to build a ranch."
"A… ranch?" Lin Wen looked confused. "You mean a farm? But brother, we have no land. And you can't even hold a hoe straight."
"Not a farm," Lin Wanshan corrected, looking out at the horizon where the sun was beginning to set. "A place where the sky touches the earth. A place for cattle. Real cattle."
***
The main hall of the Su residence smelled of sandalwood and expensive tea. The architecture was typical of the region—elegant, curved roofs, and intricate lattice work.
Su Qingya, the eldest daughter of the house and Lin Wanshan's wife, sat behind a large rosewood desk. She was beautiful, undeniably so. Her skin was like porcelain, her hair pinned up with a jade hairpin, and her figure graceful under the layers of silk. But her expression was as cold as the northern wind.
To her left sat Su Changming, the Magistrate of Qinghe County. A man in his fifties, he had a kind face, though lined with the stress of governing a small county. To her right sat Su Cheng, Qingya's cousin, a man with sharp features and an arrogant posture.
Lin Wanshan entered, followed by the nervous Lin Wen.
"Greetings, Father-in-law. Wife," Lin Wanshan said, bowing politely.
Su Qingya didn't look up from her ledger. "You're late. The morning studies are over. Did you finish copying the 'Analects'?"
"I did not," Lin Wanshan said calmly.
The scratching of the brush stopped. Su Qingya looked up, her eyes narrowing. "You did not? Then what were you doing? Sleeping?"
"I was thinking," Lin Wanshan replied.
"Thinking will not put food on the table, Brother Lin," Su Cheng interjected with a smirk. "Nor will it help you pass the exams. Perhaps it is time to accept that the path of the scholar is not for you. The storehouse position is still open. It pays three taels of silver a month. Enough to feed you and your brother."
The air in the room grew heavy. The implication was clear: *You are a burden. Leave our family alone.*
Lin Wanshan looked at Su Cheng, then at his wife. In the past, the original Lin Wanshan would have flushed red with shame, stuttered apologies, and retreated. But the soul inside now was a man who had managed teams of hundreds, who had stared down CEOs and faced death itself.
"I will not take the storehouse position," Lin Wanshan said.
Su Qingya raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Do you have other talents? Can you paint? Can you write poetry that sells?"
"I can raise cattle," Lin Wanshan said.
A stunned silence followed.
Then, Su Cheng burst out laughing. "Raise cattle? You? You, who faints at the sight of blood? Brother Lin, raising cattle is for peasants. And more importantly, why would anyone raise cattle? For milk? We have goats. For plowing? The farmers have their own."
"For meat," Lin Wanshan said simply.
The laughter died instantly. The atmosphere turned frigid.
"Meat?" Su Qingya's voice dropped an octave. "You speak of eating beef? You know the laws of the Great Qian. Killing a healthy ox is a crime. Do you wish to see Father stripped of his title?"
"I am not speaking of stealing farmers' plow oxen," Lin Wanshan clarified, stepping forward. "I am speaking of a new breed. A breed meant solely for the table."
"Nonsense," Su Cheng scoffed. "There is no such thing. Cattle are for labor. Pigs are for meat. This is the way of the world."
"The world changes," Lin Wanshan countered. He turned to Su Changming. "Father-in-law, you promised my father you would care for us. The best way to care for us is to let me stand on my own feet."
Su Changming looked at his son-in-law with surprise. Usually, the boy was meek and avoidant of eye contact. Today, he stood straight, his shoulders back.
"What do you need, Wanshan?" Su Changming asked gently. He was a good man, torn between his promise to a deceased friend and the reality of his useless son-in-law.
"I need a loan," Lin Wanshan said. "Fifty taels of silver."
"FIFTY TAELS!" Su Cheng stood up. "Uncle, this is madness! That is half a year of the household's discretionary budget! He will gamble it away or lose it to some scam!"
Su Qingya stared at Lin Wanshan, her gaze piercing. "Fifty taels. For what?"
"To buy the Westland," Lin Wanshan answered. "The barren hills west of the city. The soil is too rocky for wheat, but the grass grows wild. I want to buy land, and I want to buy livestock. Not pigs. Cattle. Sheep. Horses."
"The Westland is worthless," Su Qingya stated. "It is windblown and desolate."
"It is perfect for grazing," Lin Wanshan insisted. "Give me one year. If I fail to pay back the money with interest, I will sign the divorce papers myself. I will take Lin Wen and leave, never to burden the Su family again."
Su Qingya's hand trembled slightly over the ledger. Divorce. It was the ultimate threat. In this society, a divorced daughter was often looked down upon, but a useless husband was a festering wound. She was tired of the whispers in the market. She was tired of her relatives mocking her father's decision.
"And if you succeed?" she asked, her voice low.
"If I succeed," Lin Wanshan smiled, a confident, rugged smile that didn't fit his scholar's robes, "the Su family will have the most profitable business in the county. And you, Wife, will never have to lower your head to anyone again."
Su Changming looked between them. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Wanshan, are you certain? The Westland is harsh."
"I have never been more certain of anything in my life," Lin Wanshan said. He thought of the Angus breed, the marbling, the taste of a ribeye steak. He thought of the open sky. He wasn't lying. He would die before he went back to a desk.
Su Qingya closed the ledger with a snap. She stood up and walked to a chest in the corner. She unlocked it and pulled out a heavy bag. She tossed it onto the table. It landed with a heavy *thud*.
"Fifty taels," she said coldly. "This is the dowry money I saved. I am betting it on you. Not because I believe in your dream of 'meat cattle', but because I believe you are honest enough to keep your word about the divorce."
She looked him dead in the eye. "Do not disappoint me, Lin Wanshan. I will not give you a second chance."
Lin Wanshan picked up the bag. It was heavy. It was hope. It was his seed capital.
"I won't need a second chance," he said, bowing. "Thank you, Wife. Thank you, Father."
He turned and walked out of the hall, his stride long and purposeful.
Su Cheng sneered. "Uncle, you let him take that money? It's gone."
Su Qingya sat back down, her face unreadable. "Let him try. If he loses it, we have a reason to cast him out without Father breaking his promise. If by some miracle he succeeds... well, I will eat my shoe."
Lin Wanshan didn't hear them. He was already outside, the morning sun hitting his face. He gripped the bag of silver.
*[Ding.]*
A mechanical sound echoed in his mind. He froze.
*[System Initializing... Host life signs stable.]*
*[Detecting Host's deepest desire... Ranching.]*
*[The 'Great Dynasty Ranch System' is now bound.]*
A translucent blue screen hovered in his vision.
**[Host: Lin Wanshan]**
**[Status: Novice Rancher]**
**[Funds: 50 Taels of Silver]**
**[Current Herd: 0]**
**[Land: None]**
**[Newbie Gift Pack: Claim? Y/N]**
Lin Wanshan stared at the screen, his heart racing. It wasn't just a second chance. It was a miracle.
"Claim," he whispered.
**[Reward: Optimized Pasture Seed Pack x1 (Adapted to local climate).]**
**[Reward: Genetic Optimization Serum (Type: Bovine) x5.]**
**[Reward: Basic Ranch Construction Blueprint.]**
He looked toward the west, where the barren hills waited. A wind blew through the courtyard, rustling the leaves. It sounded almost like the lowing of cattle.
"Wen," he said, turning to his brother who was trailing behind him, looking terrified. "Go pack our things. We're moving to the Westland."
"Brother? We are moving? But the house there is broken! And it's haunted!" Lin Wen cried.
"Haunted?" Lin Wanshan laughed, feeling truly alive for the first time. "Good. I need the ghosts to help me herd the cattle."