13: Chapter 13 This black soil is called Home

The excruciating pain in his lungs, the feeling that ice shards were about to sever his blood vessels, finally vanished.

In its place was a dry, warm scent, even carrying a slight earthy musk.

Jack snapped his eyes open, his body instinctively rolling to the right, trying to find cover.

His hand lunged for the position where his rifle should have been, but his fingertips only touched rough, hard earth and a few withered blades of grass.

No snow.

No despairing white.

Before him was a field of golden corn, the leaves already dried and bleached by the autumn wind, rustling loudly.

Above him, the high-wattage sun beat down, making the back of his neck burn.

"Hey, I say, what's wrong with you, kid?"

An aged voice sounded from above.

Jack's muscles tensed as he looked up. Against the light, he couldn't clearly see the person's face, only a faded, pale blue cloth jacket with frog closures, and a pair of large feet covered in dirt.

It was an old farmer, holding a steaming, long-stemmed tobacco pipe, looking strangely at Jack rolling on the ground.

"What is it? Did a bug bite your backside in the field?" The old farmer tapped the bowl of his pipe, and sparks landed on the yellow earth.

"Hurry up and get up. It's almost time for the first frost. If you don't finish harvesting this mu of land today, I don't know what you'll eat tonight."

Jack was stunned. One second he was crying like a dog among the dead at Chosin Lake, and the next he was kicked under this bright sun.

The system panel in the upper right corner of his vision flickered. The glaring red 【Extreme Cold Warning】 and 【Life Countdown】 had completely disappeared.

[Current Location: A farmhouse in Andong (Dandong)]

[Time: October 1950]

[Current Identity: Li Family Eldest Son]

[Mission Objective: Finish harvesting this mu of corn before the frost arrives.]

[Special Hint: Do not attempt to find firearms. The current map is a non-combat zone.]

Non-combat zone?

Jack got up from the ground, brushing the dirt off himself. The system had changed his attire to black padded trousers, a white cloth jacket, and he even had a straw rope tied around his waist.

He looked at his hands; they were no longer hands used to gripping a rifle, but palms full of thick calluses.

"I am... Li Family Eldest Son?" Jack pointed at his own nose.

The old farmer—who should now be his father—gave him an annoyed look.

He shoved a hoe, worn until it gleamed, into his hand: "Are you still half-asleep? I am your father! Get to work quickly and stop dawdling. The Second Girl next door is quicker on her feet than you are."

Jack gripped the hoe; the texture of the wooden handle was terrifyingly real. He looked back.

Not far away, two other figures were also standing blankly on the ridges between the fields.

The village girl wearing a floral padded jacket and a blue kerchief wrapped around her head, currently frowning at a basket of pig feed, was the popular female streamer 'Dai Dai'.

And the sturdy man by the courtyard entrance, making hand gestures toward a pile of wooden stakes while seemingly calculating angles aloud, was the FPS tactical master 'Brother Bao'.

It was too quiet here.

No sound of artillery, no screams. Only the rustling of corn leaves in the wind, the whooshing sound of the distant river hitting the bank, and the quacking of a few geese stretching their necks.

Jack took a deep breath of air carrying the scent of burning straw. This feeling of being alive slowly relaxed his tightly wound nerves, even generating a strong sense of unreality.

...

"According to the principle of leverage, the core of splitting wood lies in acceleration and contact area."

Brother Bao stood in front of the woodpile, holding a heavy iron axe. He still couldn't shake his habit as a professional player; even when splitting firewood, he had to conduct a theoretical analysis first.

"The wood grain is longitudinal. As long as the striking point is precise enough, it can..."

Thud!

The axe fell. It didn't split the wood. The blade got firmly stuck in the knotty elm burl, jarring Brother Bao's hand until his knuckles ached. He grimaced as he tried to pull the axe out, causing the wooden stump to bounce around on the ground.

"Can't you even use your strength?"

Old Man Li walked over with his hands behind his back. Without even looking at Brother Bao's 'force formula,' he raised his hand and slapped the back of Brother Bao's head.

"That's elm! That's hard wood! You're trying to split it against the grain? You're supposed to follow the grain!"

Old Man Li snatched the axe. Without seeming to exert any effort, he flicked his wrist, and the axe traced an arc that wasn't fast but extremely steady.

Crack.

The hard piece of wood that had given Brother Bao so much trouble split open instantly. The two halves of firewood fell neatly onto the ground, the cut surface as smooth as if planed.

"Understand now?" Old Man Li jabbed the axe into the ground.

"Work requires finesse, not just brute strength like your foolish older brother. If you don't finish splitting this wood, you won't eat tonight either."

Brother Bao rubbed the back of his head, staring intently at the two pieces of wood.

In FPS games, he was accustomed to calculating everything using data, bullet trajectories, and recoil.

But in this system, the physics engine didn't seem to care for the 'data stream.'

This place valued feel, life experience, and that muscle memory carved into the bone from day after day of labor.

He picked up the axe and tried to feel the wood grain, mimicking Old Man Li's posture, rather than calculating coordinates.

This was much harder than recoil control.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen.

Dai Dai was crying from the smoke.

This wasn't a kitchen; it was a gas chamber. The old-fashioned earthen stove was hard to manage. She had tried to help start the fire earlier,

but stuffed too many undried corn stalks inside. The smoke backfired, turning her originally rosy face into charcoal.

"Cough, cough, cough... How do you even play this game...?" Dai Dai coughed while wiping tears, still clutching a ball of dough in her hand.

In the live stream chat, the viewers who were expecting gunfights went wild with laughter.

[Hahahaha, I didn't expect this game to have a Housekeeping Simulator segment!]

[Dai Dai's smoked makeup is quite unique; this is the real battle-damaged version!]

[Brother Bao is still wrestling with wood over there. What happened to the tactical master?]

[Am I the only one who finds this place comfortable? It was too oppressive in the snow earlier. Looking at this sun, I feel like taking a nap.]

"Girl, that's not how you burn a fire."

A rough, large hand reached over and took the fire-blowing tube from Dai Dai's hand. It was the 'Mother' of this household.

She was a woman who looked to be in her fifties, her hair neatly combed. Although her clothes were covered in patches, she was clean and efficient.

She skillfully cleared some of the fuel from the stove pit, and in a few movements, the flames cheerfully licked the bottom of the pot. The black smoke dispersed, leaving only the pleasant smell of burning firewood.

"Go wash your hands," Mother said, tenderly wiping the soot from Dai Dai's face with her sleeve.

"You're such a big girl, and you can't even start a fire. How will you ever find a husband?"

Dai Dai froze.

The sleeve was rough and scraped her face slightly, causing a little pain.

But the look in her eyes was so warm.

In reality, her parents were divorced. Later, she became a streamer, surrounded by older brothers who wanted to gain traffic or see her act spoiled.

No one had ever spoken to her with that tone of exasperated affection.

"Mom... I'll go knead some more dough.", Dai Dai sniffled, her voice a little hoarse.

"Enough, don't waste ingredients.", Mother pushed her aside and lifted the pot lid.

A thick plume of steam rose. It was the fragrance of white flour bread.

In this era, white flour was a rarity.

Dai Dai watched as Mother placed a large, albeit slightly uneven, steamed bun into her hands.

"It just came out of the steamer, be careful, it's hot.", Mother smiled, her crow's feet filled with kindness.

"Taste it. This is the new wheat our family harvested this year."

Dai Dai cupped the scorching hot bun and took a bite.

There was no filling, and no sugar.

But the sweetness chewed from the white flour traveled down her esophagus, warming her stomach.

She had never thought a steamed bun could taste so delicious.

...

Dinner was laid out on the kang table.

There were no delicacies; just a basin of thick, golden cornmeal porridge, a plate of finely shredded pickled vegetables, and the few white flour buns left over from noon.

Jack, Brother Bao, and Dai Dai sat cross-legged on the heated kang.

After an afternoon of labor, Jack's back ached, Brother Bao's hands were covered in splinters, and Dai Dai still had unwashed black smudges on her face.

But they were hungry.

This hunger wasn't the numerical decrease on the system's red bar; it was the real protest from their empty stomachs.

Jack picked up his bowl and slurped the scalding porridge noisily. The coarse corn grits scraped his throat, bringing with it a grounded sense of fullness.

Old Man Li sat at the head of the kang, puffing on his pipe, not eating a single bite. He was staring at a piece of red paper in the middle of the table.

The red paper was somewhat old, the creases already faded, but it had been smoothed out perfectly flat.

Jack put down his bowl and curiously leaned over for a look.

It was a land deed.

The names of the family members were written on it in brush script, along with the location of the five mu of land allocated to them.

"Dad, what are you looking at? Does this paper go with the food?" Jack asked casually, following the system's role-setting.

Old Man Li's hand trembled.

He slowly raised his head, and his cloudy old eyes were actually filled with tears.

"Eldest Son..." Old Man Li's voice trembled as he pointed at the red paper, "Remember this, this is the root of our lives."

Brother Bao stopped chewing his bun. Dai Dai also looked up.

The air in the room suddenly grew heavy.

"Our Li family worked for the landlords for three generations."

Old Man Li's finger gently stroked the large red seal on the red paper, as if touching a rare treasure.

"Three generations! Your grandfather starved to death in the furrow, your great-grandfather had his leg bitten off by the landlord's dog... We didn't even have a place to stand."

The old man choked up; it was an emotion that had been suppressed for too long, a mixture of grievance and wild ecstasy.

"Now, this land belongs to us."

Old Man Li lifted the red paper and pressed it against his chest.

"Five mu of land! All good land! As long as we are willing to work, we will never have to look at others' faces or starve again. This is our family's legacy; even if we die, we have a place to be buried."

Jack looked at the dark, thin old man.

He had seen countless divine artifacts, equipment, and treasures in the game, but never had an item made an NPC display such an expression.

That wasn't just a piece of paper.

It was dignity. It was the hope of survival. It was the deepest obsession the Chinese peasantry had held for land for thousands of years.

Jack looked down at the land deed item in his hand.

[Item Name: Five Mu of Black Earth Deed]

[Attributes: Non-tradable, Cannot be discarded, Cannot be destroyed.]

[Annotation: This is your foundation. With it, you have roots.]

The previously joking bullet comments in the live stream quieted down.

[My grandfather always said the same thing... He said he slept in the field the day they were allocated land.]

[I suddenly understand why they fought the war. If someone dared to steal this land, this old man would fight anyone to the death.]

[The planner's stroke is deep. First, they let you see this beauty, then they tell you how fragile that beauty is.]

...

Night fell.

The wind by the river carried a chill.

Jack, Brother Bao, and Dai Dai did not log out. They sat on the threshold, looking toward the Yalu River in the distance.

The opposite bank was a dead, pitch black expanse. That was Korea.

On this side, Andong, though a small city, had dim yellow lights in every household, and occasionally the sound of dogs barking or children crying could be heard.

It was a stark, unsettling contrast.

"Brother and Sister!"

A crisp voice broke the silence.

A little head with pigtails peeked over the top of the neighboring courtyard wall. It was the little neighbor girl who had been watching them work during the day, the NPC named 'Second Girl'.

Second Girl extended her small, dark hands and offered an object.

"For you to eat."

Dai Dai instinctively took it. It was a piece of malt candy the size of a fingernail, slightly melted and stuck to Second Girl's palm.

"My mother said thank you to Big Brother for helping fix our roof.", Second Girl smiled, her eyes curving into crescents. "This candy is very sweet. I saved it for several days and couldn't bear to eat it."

The piece of candy carried the little girl's body heat.

Dai Dai put the candy in her mouth.

The low-quality malt candy was a bit sticky and even carried a hint of bitterness, but the moment it melted on her tongue, the sweetness shot straight to her mind.

"Thank you, Second Girl.", Dai Dai's eyes reddened slightly, and she reached out to pat the little girl's head.

Second Girl flinched back slightly but didn't pull away. Instead, she bravely grabbed Dai Dai's finger: "Sister, you are so pretty. When I grow up, I want to be as pretty as you."

"Yes, you will be prettier than Sister."

Jack watched the scene, his sense of unease growing stronger.

He turned his head to look at Brother Bao sitting next to him: "Lao Xie, I think something is wrong."

Brother Bao was staring at the darkness across the river, unconsciously squeezing a stone in his hand: "I feel it too. That damn planner Su Yun wouldn't let us have such a comfortable farming life. This pace is too slow, so slow it's like... the calm before the storm."

"These five mu of land, this warm meal, and this candy," Jack toyed with the empty pipe bowl.

"This is all setup. He's making us build bonds. The cruelest part of this game isn't killing people; it's attacking the heart."

Just then, the coughing of Second Girl's grandfather came from the neighboring yard.

"What's going on these last few days? There are always iron birds flying across the river, noisy enough to stop the chickens from laying eggs."

Iron birds.

Jack and Brother Bao exchanged a look, their pupils contracting sharply.

In this era, common folk called those things iron birds. But they knew what they were.

They were B-29s, Superfortresses.

Almost simultaneously, a line of blood-red countdown appeared in the center of the three of them's vision.

It wasn't a mission-end countdown.

It was—

[Time remaining until 'That Meal' begins: 05:00]

What meal?

Before they could react, the ground began to tremble slightly.

It wasn't an earthquake.

The vibration came through the air—low, oppressive, with a frequency that made their internal organs resonate.

Buzz—Buzz—Buzz—

The sound came from high above the opposite bank of the river.

At first, it sounded like a swarm of flies, then it turned into muffled thunder, and finally, it became an overwhelming metallic roar.

That was the characteristic roar of a cluster of heavy bombers fully loaded with ordnance.