Night draped itself over the village like a tattered blanket, cloaking the narrow paths and crooked huts in stillness. The moon hung low, a pale watcher in the sky. Back in his little bamboo hut, Hin Yu sat cross-legged beside the embers of a dying fire, the day's bitterness still clinging to his clothes like smoke.
He hadn't found a single job.
Not one.
Every shop, every stall, every corner he approached had either turned him away with mockery or chased him off like a stray dog. A few shopkeepers even threatened to beat him, claiming he was a thief just for stepping near their goods. He hadn't raised his voice, hadn't argued. He just walked away—silent, but far from defeated.
He looked down at his hands, rough from fishing and rejection. They were not the hands of a beggar. Not anymore.
As the fire cracked softly, he closed his eyes and fell into a meditative state. He wasn't trying to cultivate—he still didn't have the resources or understanding of this world's cultivation methods—but it was something he'd learned in his past life: clarity often came when the mind was quiet.
And it did.
A thought. Small. Simple.
Why search for a job… when I can create one?
It wasn't arrogance. It was logic.
He had lived 69 long years on Earth. He wasn't a genius, but he had lived in a world of science, of progress, of ideas. A world where people had long since moved beyond hunting and cultivating just to survive. And more importantly, Earth was a world where needs created markets.
In a place like this—where cultivators obsessed over strength and ignored everything else—those same markets could exist too… if someone dared to build them.
Hin Yu's eyes opened, a slow grin forming across his lips.
"I don't need their approval. I need their money," he muttered.
He would build something. A business. Something small at first—just a product. One people didn't even know they needed… until they had it.
And he already had an idea.
Hygiene.
Ever since he arrived in the village, he noticed it—no one brushed their teeth. Yellow-stained smiles, foul breath, rotting gums. Cultivators probably relied on internal energy or pills to suppress disease, but the average villager? They didn't have that luxury.
Toothbrushes.
A mundane item on Earth. Revolutionary here.
He could carve simple handles from wood, use horsehair or bamboo fiber for bristles. Even if they didn't understand the science, they'd understand comfort. Freshness. Cleanliness. He could sell that feeling.
But there was a problem.
No one would buy anything from him.
He was still the village beggar in their eyes—the cursed orphan, the dirt under their feet. He couldn't let them know he was behind it. His name would sink the business before it started.
So… he needed a front.
Not a group of people—that was too risky. Just one. Someone lowly enough that no one would expect him to be involved. Someone who had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Someone who wouldn't try to backstab him for a few coins.
He needed a beggar.
But not just any beggar. One with enough humility to follow orders, and enough desperation to stick by his side.
"Who better to trust with a secret… than someone the world never sees?" Hin Yu whispered to himself.
The idea felt right. He could invest in this person. Clean him up. Dress him in something respectable. Give him a few rehearsed lines and set him up in the village square. His face would sell the product, but Hin Yu would pull the strings from the shadows.
Still, there was one more issue.
Money.
He had none. Not even enough to buy a decent meal, let alone wood, horsehair, or fabric for clothing.
His gaze drifted toward the shelf near the far wall of the hut. There, hanging from a wooden peg, was the only thing of value he owned.
A wooden pendant.
Carved with a simple sun-and-leaf design, it was the last thing his parents had left him before they abandoned him.
It wasn't magical. It wasn't even pretty. But it was old, and it had sentiment. To the right buyer—maybe a merchant who liked antiques—it could fetch a few silvers. Enough to begin.
Hin Yu stared at it for a long moment.
"This isn't shamelessness," he whispered. "It's survival."
The boy who owned this body was dead. That pendant was a chain to a life already buried beneath the river. Besides, he had no intention of finding those parents—if they were even alive. They had left this boy to rot.
He would turn the last symbol of abandonment… into a seed for something new.
To build something of your own—something no one could take—that was the first step to freedom.
The fire had nearly gone out. Only a faint glow remained.
Hin Yu closed his eyes again, this time not to meditate, but to rest. Tomorrow would be a long day—he had to find the right person, sell the pendant, and begin carving his first prototypes.
His mind wandered one last time before sleep took him.
A single thought, crisp and clear:
In a world ruled by power, I'll make them need me… before they ever fear me.
And with that, he drifted into sleep, the faint smile of ambition on his face.