The world beyond Willow Creek unfolded like a scroll painted in shades of hardship and muted color. The path, little more than a cart track worn into the earth, wound through valleys where stubborn farmers coaxed millet and wheat from stony soil. The air here was different—thicker with dust, carrying distant sounds of livestock and the faint, metallic murmur of humanity.
Lin Yan walked beside his eldest brother, Lin Tie. The basket of eggs, cradled in Lin Yan's arms, felt like a cargo of delicate hope. Lin Tie moved with a hunter's quiet vigilance, his eyes constantly scanning the path ahead, the woods to either side, and the few other travelers they passed: an old man with a bundle of firewood, a woman leading a skinny goat, a silent peddler with a creaking handcart.
"Keep the basket close," Lin Tie grunted, his first words in an hour. "Road has eyes."
Lin Yan nodded. He was using his new 'Basic Market Negotiation' knowledge to run scenarios. Pricing strategies, customer profiling, the art of the boast without the lie. He'd decided on their story: the eggs were a specialty product from a new method of raising poultry, focused on health and purity. It was true, just selectively so.
After half a day's walk, the land flattened. They crested a low rise, and Yellow Creek Town lay sprawled before them, a chaotic jumble of grey-tiled and thatched roofs enclosed by a crumbling earthen wall. A sluggish, ochre-colored river curled around it, giving the town its name and its perpetual smell of mud, waste, and fish. The noise was a tangible wall—shouts, bartering, the bray of donkeys, the clang of a blacksmith's hammer.
The East Gate was choked with traffic. Lin Tie shouldered a path through, his size commanding a grudging space. Lin Yan kept his head down, the basket tucked protectively against his chest. A bored-looking guard in a stained county militia tunic glanced at them, dismissed them as penniless peasants, and waved them through without a word.
Inside, the market street was a riot. Stalls lined the muddy thoroughfare, their awnings of faded blue and brown cloth creating a patchy canopy. The air was thick with the smells of frying dough, pungent spices, curing leather, and unwashed bodies. Hawkers cried their wares with theatrical despair or aggressive joy.
Lin Yan's heart hammered, not from fear, but from a fierce, analytical focus. This was the battlefield. He observed. The regular egg sellers—mostly older women—had their produce in open baskets. The eggs were of varying sizes, often dirty, sometimes with feathers stuck to them. They sold by the heap, not the count, and the haggling was quick and brutal. A pile of ten might go for five copper coins on a good day.
That was not his market.
He guided Lin Tie towards a slightly cleaner section where goods were displayed on tables, not on the ground. Here, a man sold clay pots, another sold bolts of coarse linen, a third sold dried fish and medicinal herbs from small, neat boxes. The customers here moved more slowly, examined goods more carefully, and had pouches that looked heavier.
"Here," Lin Yan whispered, spotting a small empty space against a wall, away from the main flow but still visible. He set the basket down carefully. Lin Tie stood just behind him, a silent, immovable monument, his arms crossed.
Lin Yan took a deep breath, tapped into the system's market knowledge, and began. He did not shout. Instead, he arranged three of their best eggs on a clean piece of cloth on top of the moss in the basket. They gleamed, pale and perfect, in a shaft of dusty sunlight. He then took out a small bunch of the wild garlic and a sprig of dandelion, placing them artfully beside the basket—a visual promise of the hens' diet.
A woman in a patched but clean dress paused, eyeing the display. "Your eggs look clean. How much?"
"Two copper coins each, elder sister," Lin Yan said, his voice clear and respectful.
The woman's eyes bulged. "Two coppers? One copper buys two eggs from Granny Sun down the way! Are they golden inside?"
"Not golden," Lin Yan said, offering a small, confident smile. "But they come from hens raised on a mountain herb diet, kept in a clean, airy house. They are for nourishing the weak, for children who need strength, for mothers after childbirth. They are medicinal eggs. Taste one, and you will feel the difference in your spirit."
It was a bold claim. The woman snorted. "Medicinal eggs! A new one." She shook her head and moved on.
Lin Yan didn't flinch. The system knowledge told him the first rejection meant nothing. He was targeting a specific buyer.
More people passed. Some laughed. Some just looked hungry. An hour slipped by. Lin Tie's stoic presence began to feel less like protection and more like a looming statue of failure. Doubt, cold and slick, began to coil in Lin Yan's stomach. Had he overreached? Were they about to return home with nothing but a story of foolishness?
Then, a man stopped. He was middle-aged, dressed in a dark robe of serviceable cotton, with the precise bearing of a shopkeeper or a senior servant. His eyes were sharp. He looked at the eggs, then at the herbs, then at Lin Yan.
"Medicinal, you say?" His voice was dry, devoid of mockery. "By whose pharmacopoeia?"
This was a more educated question. Lin Yan bowed slightly. "By the method of observation, uncle. We are simple farmers from Willow Creek. My mother is skilled with herbs. We found our hens were sickly. We treated them with dandelion for heat and plantain for cleansing. We fed them insects for strength, not just grain. They recovered. Their eggs changed—richer yolk, thicker albumen. The health of the hen passes to the egg. It is simple logic, not ancient text."
The man's eyebrow raised. A practical argument. He picked up an egg, weighing it in his hand, holding it up to the light. It was flawless. "My master's wife has been unwell since the last winter. The physician prescribes tonics, but she has no appetite. She might take a soft-cooked egg."
"A gentle food for a weak stomach," Lin Yan agreed. "And one with the essence of healing herbs already within it. A double benefit."
The man, whom Lin Yan now guessed was a steward for a wealthy household, gave a curt nod. "I will take six. But not for two coppers. I will give you ten coppers for the six."
It was a negotiation. He was offering just over 1.5 coppers each. Lin Yan's market knowledge calculated swiftly. It was far above market rate, but below his asking price. A first bulk sale to a reputable buyer was worth the discount. It established value and could lead to repeat business.
"For the health of your master's lady, and to thank you for recognizing quality, I accept," Lin Yan said, with another respectful dip of his head.
The transaction was made. The steward placed the eggs carefully into his own basket, covered them with a cloth, and melted back into the crowd. The weight of ten copper coins in Lin Yan's palm was electrifying. It was real currency. More than Lin Zhu had earned for a day of brutal weeding.
The sale acted as a catalyst. A well-off farmer, intrigued by the steward's purchase, bought two for his pregnant daughter-in-law. A harassed-looking scholar, tempted by the idea of clear-headed nourishment, bought one, paying the full two coppers without haggling.
Within another hour, all nine eggs were sold. Total take: twenty-three copper coins. A small fortune.
[Mission Subsidiary Goal Achieved: First Commercial Sale.]
[Financial Milestone Reached: Generated significant independent capital.]
[Points Awarded for Successful Market Innovation and Negotiation: +15.]
[Reputation: 'Willow Creek Medicinal Eggs' – Seed planted in Yellow Creek Town.]
Total Points: 19.
Lin Yan's hands trembled slightly as he secured the coins in a small inner pocket his mother had sewn into his tunic. They had done it.
But Lin Tie's voice was a low rumble in his ear. "We are marked."
Lin Yan followed his gaze. Two rough-looking men lounged against a wall across the street, their eyes fixed on them. They had watched the transactions. Lin Yan's sudden wealth, though small, was obvious.
"Time to go," Lin Tie said. He didn't wait for agreement. He picked up the now-empty basket, handed it to Lin Yan, and began moving back the way they came, his pace deliberate but not hurried. Lin Yan fell in step, his earlier elation now tempered with cold vigilance.
The men pushed off the wall and began to follow, keeping a casual distance.
Lin Tie didn't look back. Instead, he led them not directly to the gate, but into a narrower, quieter alleyway between two rows of closed-up workshops. The footsteps behind them quickened.
At a bend in the alley, Lin Tie stopped. He turned, placing himself between Lin Yan and the approaching men. He said nothing. He didn't adopt a fighting stance. He simply stood there, his broad back blocking the alley, his stillness more threatening than any shout.
The two men skidded to a halt. They were thugs, not warriors. They saw a peasant, but a peasant built like a brick granary, with eyes that held no fear, only a patient, dangerous calculation. He looked like a man who had fought wild boars and won.
One of them muttered something. The other spat into the dirt. After a tense, silent moment, they turned and slunk away.
Lin Tie watched until they were out of sight, then grunted. "Now we go."
They made it to the gate and onto the open road without further incident. Only when Willow Creek's familiar, tired silhouette appeared on the horizon did the tension finally bleed from Lin Yan's shoulders.
They returned as the sun was setting, painting the new chicken coop in shades of orange and purple. The family rushed out, their faces taut with anxiety.
Without a word, Lin Yan reached into his tunic and poured the twenty-three copper coins into his father's work-roughened hand.
The collective gasp was sweeter than any market chatter. Lin Dahu stared at the coins as if they were mythical objects. Wang Shi's hands flew to her mouth. Lin Zhu let out a low whistle.
"Twenty-three…" Lin Dahu breathed. "For eggs?"
"For our eggs," Lin Yan corrected, exhaustion and triumph mingling in his voice. He explained the "medicinal" angle, the steward, the sales.
"We need fourteen coins for Old Chen's interest," Lin Yan said. "We will pay him tomorrow. The remaining nine… we keep. For market fees, for emergencies. For…" he looked at the coop, where the hens were settling for the night, "…for expanding the flock."
The family stood in a circle, looking at the coins, then at the coop, then at Lin Yan. The equation had changed. They were not just surviving off the land's scraps. They had produced a luxury good and sold it in the wider world. They had turned herbs and insects and care into cold, hard copper.
That night, after a supper where the gruel was almost an afterthought to the buzz of excitement, Lin Yan lay in the dark. The mission counter glowed: 12/50 Eggs. They had a long way to go for the system reward. But they had something more immediate: they had bought time, and they had bought credibility.
He heard the soft clink as his father, somewhere in the darkness, counted the coins one more time. It was the sound of a chain loosening, of a future bending, just slightly, towards the light.
They had faced the dust and coin of the wider world, and they had returned not with empty baskets, but with the first, vital seeds of independence. The ranch had made its first profit. The real work was just beginning.