The yard was quiet after the harvest crowd left. The two hundred bags of golden millet sat stacked under a temporary straw roof I had built near the fields. With the autumn quota fully met, Elder Ironwood and his lackeys had no legal excuse to touch us for the next fortnight.
But as I walked back inside the small shack, I stopped at the threshold.
The house was simply too small. All five of us were sharing a single room. The floor was just packed dirt that turned to dust when the wind picked up. The single mattress in the corner was thin, and the girls had to crowd together just to stay off the ground. Their red wedding robes—which were cheap and thin to begin with—were now faded, stained with mud from the fields, and fraying at the sleeves.
They had their pride back, and their bodies were healing, but they were still living like prisoners.
"Lu Chen?" Ye Xinyang looked up from the mattress. She had the charcoal-written parchment in her lap. Her breathing was deep, she was showing a soft, healthy hum of energy as she practiced the bone-cultivation technique. "Why are you just standing by the door?"
"This place is too small," I said, walking in and sitting on my usual wooden block. "We have the food settled for the month. Now, we need to fix how we live. You four shouldn’t have to sleep on a single pile of straw, and you need proper clothes."
Mo Ran rolled her wheelchair over from the hearth. Thanks to the blue pill, she could stand for a few minutes at a time now, though her walk was still shaky. Her face lit up with a shy, happy glow. "Are we... are we building a new real house? With actual rooms?"
"Yes," I said, looking at the four of them with a warm nod. "Separate rooms for everyone. Real doors, and beds to keep the dampness away, and a proper bathhouse with hot water channels."
Gu Qinghan smiled, her cloudy eyes turning toward my voice with a deep, loving tenderness. "A bathhouse... I haven’t been able to wash my hair properly since the sword school fell. Lu Chen, you really think of everything."
"Well It’s just basic comfort," I said, standing up and grabbing my iron chisel and axe. "Xinyang, you stay here and help Ning’er practice her breathing. Mo Ran, keep working on your steps. I’m going down to the bamboo grove by the southern ridge to gather building materials."
The southern ridge was outside the sect’s immediate boundary, a quiet valley where thick, green timber bamboo grew taller than the shacks. In my past life, I had designed eco-friendly bamboo pavilions; I knew exactly how to cure the wood using heat so it wouldn’t rot or attract bugs.
I spent four hours selecting the thickest stalks, cutting them cleanly at the base, and stripping the leaves. As I was binding the logs together with wild hemp rope to drag them back, a soft rustling sound came from the bushes behind me. I didn’t reach for a weapon, but my muscles instantly primed themselves with the Phantom Step memory.
A young girl stepped out of the thicket. She wasn’t wearing the grey or blue robes of our local sect. Instead, she wore a beautiful, white silk dress embroidered with silver clouds—the uniform of the Heavenly Sword Sect, a grand Foundation-Establishment level school from the regional capital. She looked about eighteen, with a sharp, delicate face and a long sword strapped to her waist.
Behind her walked a tired-looking old servant carrying a large wooden crate covered in bronze latches. The girl stopped when she saw me, her brow furrowing as she looked at my cheap, faded red servant outfit. "A cultivator? No... your body has no spiritual energy in the dantian. Are you just a mortal woodcutter from the mountain school?"
"I’m an outer worker from the Ashen Cloud Sect," I said, my voice calm and polite.
The old servant behind her stepped forward, whispering softly. "Young Miss, this is just the backwater valley. The servants here don’t know anything about real cultivation. Let’s keep moving toward the capital."
The girl, whose name tag read Lin Xiaoxiao, looked at the bundle of bamboo I had cut. Her eyes widened slightly as she noticed the perfectly clean angle of the cuts. No regular servant using a dull iron axe could cut timber bamboo that cleanly without crushing the fibers.
"You have a good eye for wood," Lin Xiaoxiao said, her tone proud but not entirely mean. "My family runs a trading firm in the capital. We are passing through this valley to log the local herb supplies. If your sect behaves poorly, you can come to the capital and work as a carpenter for our house. We pay in silver, not leftover grain blocks."
"Thank you for the offer, Miss Lin," I replied with a small, respectful nod. "But I have a family to feed here."
She shrugged, turning around to follow her servant down the main road. "Suit yourself. But a talent for building is wasted in a school like the Ashen Cloud Sect."
I watched her leave, a small smile appearing on my face. The world outside was finally starting to show itself. The regional capital was where the real resources were—and where I would eventually take my wifes once this shack was finished.
After some time...
When I dragged the massive bundle of green bamboo back into the yard, all four girls were waiting outside. Chu Ning’er ran forward, her small hands helping me pull the rope, her face full of excitement.
"Lu Chen! Look!" Ning’er cheered, pointing to the side of the house. Ye Xinyang walked over, holding a small leather pouch. Her face looked slightly red out of embarrassment, but her eyes were full of a sweet, shy warmth.
"While you were gone, an old traveling peddler passed by the lower path. We... we used the small bits of silver my family managed to hide during the escape. We bought some plain blue cotton cloth and sewing needles. Tonight, we can make proper clothes for everyone."
I looked at the pouch, then looked at the four of them. They weren’t waiting for me to do everything; they were actively trying to build this home with me.
[ding! investment verified.]
[you provided: structural materials & lifestyle planning to upgrade your household environment.]
[triggering 10,000x multiplier...]
[reward received: heavenly loom silk thread x5 spools & structural durability array notes x1.]
[note: the silk thread can be woven into their cotton clothes to make them completely resistant to dirt, tears, and minor physical strikes. the array notes will allow you to make the bamboo walls as solid as granite stone!]
I held the small spools of shimmering blue thread in my palm, my heart feeling completely light and peaceful.
"Tonight, we split the bamboo," I told them, looking at each of their beautiful, smiling faces.
"Xinyang, you and Mo Ran can start cutting the blue cloth. We are going to build a place that none of those inner elders will ever be allowed to step into."