Chapter 2 – A Slice of Luck (Patreon)

Lynn Naya opened her door and, as usual, checked the sky.

It was cloudless and bright. Looks like it would be a clear day.

A clear day was good. A clear day meant she could leave the Dao Palace and search for food and resources.

As she stepped out, her neighbors were also looking up at the sky, discussing where they would go. At the same time, smoke was already rising from the kitchen next door.

It was Aunt Wang’s turn to cook this month.

To save firewood, the four families in their small courtyard pooled their food together and took turns cooking. Each family got one month, and they would cook every three days, like a large-scale communal meal.

Of course, if a family wanted to cook on their own, they could, but they had to provide their own food and firewood and pay a pound of wood to the communal kitchen as a utensil maintenance fee.

The poorer you were, the more you had to be careful with every little detail just to get by.

Not wanting to give anything away, Lynn Naya followed the old rules. She had already taken her turn last month. Fortunately, making the coarse bran cakes wasn’t hard, so no one had noticed anything amiss.

By the time she finished her morning routine, the food was ready. Each family came to the kitchen and took their share of cakes based on the amount of food they had contributed.

Lynn Naya had contributed very little over the past few months. Her share was only three cakes—her ration for the next three days.

As she put her cakes away, Aunt Wang, who was putting out the fire, said to her, “Lady Lynn, there’s boiled water in the pot by the stove. You can get some if you need it later. Once the sun is out, we’ll be leaving, so we’re relying on you to watch the homes.”

Just like with cooking, watching the houses was also done on a rotational basis.

The cultivators in the Dao Palace didn’t strictly govern the mortals at the foot of the mountain, which meant that while there were no major crises in the slum, small-scale conflicts were a regular occurrence.

With resources so scarce, petty thieves were everywhere. If you weren’t careful, something from your house might get stolen.

Especially on clear days, when all the able-bodied adults would leave the safety of the Dao Palace, the empty houses became an easy target for thieves. To counter this, most people arranged with their neighbors to watch each other’s homes.

The courtyard she lived in was no exception, but their little neighborhood watch was a bit different because Lynn Nayawould always volunteer to stay and watch the houses on clear days.

At the medicinal fields, as long as the herbs were taken care of, the supervisor would allow the farmers time off on sunny days so they could go out and search for resources.

But with her “Everlasting Life” trait, Lynn Naya had already decided she wouldn’t step a single foot outside the DaoPalace’s safe zone until she had the means to protect herself.

So whenever it was sunny, she became the go-to person for everyone in the courtyard.

“It’s no problem at all.” Lynn Naya replied politely. Since staying behind on a sunny day was a disadvantage, her neighbors would usually share some of their harvest with her if they had a good haul. If not, she would get nothing.

She didn’t mind.

Although neither she nor the original owner had ever left the safe zone, the frequent change of neighbors around them was a clear sign that venturing into the wild was incredibly dangerous.

Their little courtyard, for example, had already seen a complete turnover of its other three families. If she hadn’t transmigrated, the original owner’s house would likely have been taken over by someone else as well.

But the real reason she didn’t mind was that she had another way of getting survival resources: medicine.

Or, more accurately, her half-baked medical knowledge from her past life, combined with the occasional herbs she could “borrow” from the medicinal fields.

Whenever her neighbors returned on a clear day, someone was bound to be injured. If she could treat their wounds, she would get some compensation, whether it was a bran cake, an herb, a piece of wood, or a mineral.

So even though Lynn Naya never left the Dao Palace, she still looked forward to clear, sunny days.

After filling her bamboo flask with boiled water, she watched the sun begin to rise. Once her neighbors left, she immediately locked the courtyard gate and moved all the flowerpots containing her Mud-Root Gourds onto the roof.

With so little land and food, no one wasted a single inch of space. The communal courtyard wasn’t a good place to plant, so almost every household used pots to grow things.

They would put them on the roof to get sunlight during the day and then bring them back inside at night to keep them from being stolen.

Lynn Naya’s Mud-Root Gourds were something everyone planted. They looked a bit like sweet potatoes, but they didn’t taste nearly as good. On the bright side, they were a little more filling.

After moving the pots, Lynn Naya ate her breakfast and then went back into the hut to continue cultivating the Evergreen Technique.

Based on her progress yesterday, she knew she wouldn’t be leveling up quickly. All the more reason to work harder.

Sitting cross-legged, she closed her eyes and entered a state of cultivation.

A gentle breeze drifted in through the window, as if to say everything was just beginning.

*

It was almost evening when her neighbors returned. Lynn Naya’s Evergreen Technique had only gained two experience points—and that was after she spent the entire day focused on nothing else. Once she had to go back to the medicinal fields, the progress bar would be even slower.

At this rate, it would take her at least two or three months to reach the first level of Qi Condensation.

With a sigh, Lynn Naya ended her cultivation, got off the bed, and opened her door.

Her neighbors seemed to have had a good day. While the things they brought back were the usual—wood, wild fruit, mushrooms, and greens—Lynn Naya could see a controlled joy on their faces.

Going into the wild alone was a sure way to not return, so the three couples in their courtyard always worked together, leaving and returning as a group, and dividing the spoils based on who contributed the most.

“Dad! Mom!” The door of the house to her left opened, and two little kids rushed out.

They were the children of her neighbor, Xue Yong.

Xue Yong was a skilled hunter, and with his sharp wit and decisive nature, he was the de facto leader of their little courtyard alliance. Because he contributed the most, his family lived the best out of everyone here.

Perhaps that’s why his two children were born healthy and survived. His son was now four, and his daughter was two.

“Hey, come help us carry the things inside.”

“Okay!” The older boy immediately went to grab a basket. His sister, seeing her brother, grabbed a small piece of firewood and imitated him, which made all the adults burst into laughter.

Lynn Naya couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

No matter the time or place, the innocence of children was always a balm for the weary souls of adults.

She knew her neighbors were going inside to divide their haul. After a brief chat, she returned to her own house to prepare her tools: a pair of scissors, some homemade bandages, and powdered herbs.

Before the sun completely set, her first patient arrived.

He had a shallow cut on his arm that still needed to be treated. Lynn Naya cleaned the wound, applied the herbal powder, and bandaged it. In return, she received a small bag of wild peaches.

There were six peaches in total, none of them bigger than a fist. It was early summer, and the fruit wasn’t fully ripe. Seeing the peaches, which were green with only a hint of red, made her teeth ache just looking at them.

It was a shame. These things were just a snack and couldn’t fill you up.

Guess they’ll have to be my vitamins.

After putting her tools away, and seeing that no one else was coming yet, Lynn Naya picked out what looked like the ripest peach, washed it, and sat on her doorstep to take a bite.

Hiss.

The sourness made her face scrunch up, and her eyelids twitched uncontrollably.

As she recovered from the tartness, she saw Xue Yong’s two little ones peeking out from their door, their eyes fixed on the green peach in her hand.

Even with how capable their father was, their family couldn’t eat their fill every day. There wasn’t much meat on the children’s faces, and their hair was dry and brittle from malnutrition.

Lynn Naya had a soft spot for the two well-behaved kids. Seeing how badly they wanted a peach, she waved them over.

When they timidly approached, she used her small knife to cut half a peach and handed it to them. “Here, have some.”

“Thank you, Auntie!” The two kids were already familiar with Lynn Naya and weren’t shy. The older brother immediately took a bite. Lynn Naya watched as his eyes went wide with sourness, and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

He then eagerly passed the peach to his sister, watching her take a small bite. When she shivered from the tartness, he laughed triumphantly.

The little girl didn’t quite understand what her brother was laughing about. Even with her eyes squeezed shut from the sourness, she mimicked her brother, giggling happily.

The two siblings had successfully amused Lynn Naya, but she couldn’t give them any more. Her own situation was too tight to be generous.

After finishing her half of the peach, a second injured person came by. Lynn Naya popped the rest of the peach into her mouth, told the older boy to take his sister back home, and went back to treating her patients.

A half hour later, the second patient left, leaving a small piece of bran cake as payment.

One after another, people came to Lynn Naya for treatment until it was completely dark. Only then was she finished with her patients. In return, she had received eight pounds of dry wood, sixteen more peaches, a handful of wild greens, and a stalk of rhubarb.

It wasn’t a huge haul, but it was decent.

After putting the new peaches with the ones she had received earlier, Lynn Naya saw it was already pitch black outside. She went out and climbed the makeshift ladder to bring all the planted pots back into her room. Just then, Xue Yong’s wife came to her door.

She wasn’t empty-handed. She was carrying a wooden bowl with a lid on it. “Lady Lynn, thank you for the peaches and for watching my two little troublemakers today. This is something Yong got lucky enough to find. Please, don’t be shy.”

Xue Yong’s wife was a gentle woman. At least in this courtyard, Lynn Naya had never seen her get angry. She had always had a good impression of her.

“Your children were very well-behaved and stayed in the house all day. I barely had to watch them,” Lynn Naya said cordially.

In the end, Lynn Naya accepted the food from Xue Yong’s wife. In a show of gratitude, she also insisted on tucking two of the green peaches into her pocket for her kids.

Perhaps her reciprocation boosted Xue Yong’s wife’s goodwill, because before she left, she gave Lynn Naya some heartfelt advice. “Lady Lynn, you don’t have to leave the Dao Palace, but you could still wait at the edge for people to come back. The healers always wait there and make a lot of money. The people who come to you here at home are all the ones with minor injuries—they can’t give you much.”

Lynn Naya knew exactly what Xue Yong’s wife meant. But she also knew her own abilities, and her target audience was precisely those with minor injuries. She wasn’t going to hold up people with serious injuries. She couldn’t tell her that, of course, so she just thanked her and said she would think about it.

After seeing her off, Lynn Naya lifted the lid on the bowl. Inside was a small piece of meat!