The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like trapped, dying insects. It was a sound Li Wei had stopped hearing years ago, a background hum to the symphony of keyboard clatter and muffled phone calls that defined his existence. At 11:58 PM, the thirty-seventh floor of the Haisheng Corporation headquarters was nearly empty, save for the cleaning staff and one middle-aged section chief who didn't know when to go home.
Li Wei stared at the Excel spreadsheet dancing on his monitor. The columns blurred, numbers bleeding into one another like wet ink. His chest felt heavy, a familiar tightness that he had been ignoring for months, attributing it to bad posture, cheap coffee, or the simple crushing weight of existence.
He rubbed his temples. Forty-two years old. A receding hairline he hid under a combover. A stomach that protruded over his belt buckle, fueled by takeout and stress. He was the picture of modern corporate mediocrity—a man who had once dreamed of vast open skies but had settled for a cubicle with a view of the air conditioning units on the adjacent building.
"Just one more quarter," he muttered to himself, the mantra of the damned. "If I finish this report, Director Zhang might finally approve the raise."
But even as he typed, his other hand, almost unconsciously, minimized the report and opened a hidden browser tab. The screen filled with a high-definition image of a sunset over a Montana valley. Dusty gold light caught the silhouettes of hundreds of black cattle grazing on rolling hills of ryegrass. A cowboy on a chestnut horse sat in the foreground, a lasso coiled at his hip, looking out over a kingdom of grass and sky.
Li Wei exhaled slowly, his shoulders dropping for the first time in hours. This was his sanctuary. This was his secret.
For twenty years, he had been obsessed with the American West. He had never been there—his passport was gathering dust in a drawer—but he had lived there in his mind. He knew the gestation period of an Angus cow (283 days). He knew the protein content of Alfalfa hay (around 20%). He could recite the history of the Chisholm Trail and the branding techniques of the Texas Panhandle. He watched YouTube videos of ranchers like a starving man watching a feast.
*Why didn't I just go?* The thought was a splinter in his heart. *Why did I choose the safe path?*
The answer was simple: fear. Fear of poverty, fear of failure, fear of disappointing his late parents who had sacrificed everything for him to sit in this ergonomic chair and rot.
Suddenly, the tightness in his chest sharpened. It wasn't heartburn this time. It was a vice, squeezing his ribs with brutal force. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead. He gasped, dropping his wireless mouse. It clattered to the floor, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the silent office.
"Zhang...?" he tried to call out, but his voice was a strangled wheeze.
He pushed his chair back, trying to stand, but his legs were made of water. He collapsed forward, his cheek hitting the cold synthetic carpet. The pain radiated down his left arm, a burning line of fire.
*This is it,* he realized with startling clarity. *This is the end.*
His vision blurred. The fluorescent lights above him seemed to stretch into long, white tunnels. He tried to reach for the monitor, for the image of the ranch that was now just a glow in his peripheral vision.
*I wasted it,* he thought, tears stinging his eyes. *I wasted it all on spreadsheets. I never felt the grass under my boots. I never smelled the sagebrush. I never owned a single steer.*
The darkness closed in, swallowing the office, the buzzing lights, and the decades of regret.
"System... initializing..." a voice whispered, though he couldn't tell if it was inside his head or coming from the light.
Li Wei, Section Chief of the Accounting Department, took his last breath in a cubicle, dreaming of a horizon he never reached.
***
Pain.
A dull, throbbing ache behind the eyes, like a hangover mixed with a migraine.
Li Wei groaned, turning his head. The surface beneath him was hard, yet yielded slightly. Not carpet. Wood. Rough-hewn planks covered by a thin mat. The smell hit him next—not the staleness of recycled office air, but something earthier. Dust, old wood, dried herbs, and a faint, sweet scent of rice porridge.
"Brother? Brother Wei, are you awake?"
The voice was young, cracking with the uncertainty of adolescence.
Li Wei forced his eyes open. The light was dim and orange, casting long shadows across a small room. There were no fluorescent tubes. No monitors. The light source was a small oil lamp on a wooden table, flickering gently.
He sat up too fast. The room spun, and he gripped his head.
"Brother, don't move! You collapsed at the banquet last night. Father-in-Law said you were drunk, but I know you hardly drank anything," the boy said, rushing to his side.
Li Wei blinked, focusing on the face hovering over him. A boy, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. Thin, with a sharp chin and worried, intelligent eyes. He wore rough, homespun clothes—blue-grey linen, tied at the waist with a rope.
*Who is this?*
Then came the rush. It wasn't a headache; it was a flood. Memories that weren't his own crashed into his consciousness like a tidal wave, merging with his own identity.
*Li Wei. Age twenty-four.*
*Status: Matrilocal Son-in-Law (Ru Zhui).*
*Location: Qinghe County, Great Liang Dynasty.*
*Family: Deceased parents, one younger brother, Li Sheng.*
Li Wei gasped, his hand clutching the rough fabric of his own shirt. He wasn't in the 21st century. He wasn't a section chief. He was a man in ancient China, a man who had just died—or passed out—at a banquet in his wife's home.
"Brother?" Li Sheng's voice trembled. "Should I fetch the doctor?"
Li Wei looked at his hands. They were calloused but slender, smoother than a laborer's, but lacking the soft, moisturized feel of a modern office worker. They were the hands of a scholar-wannabe who had failed his exams and been forced into marriage to survive.
"I... I'm fine," Li Wei croaked. His throat was parched. "Water."
Li Sheng scrambled to the table and poured a cup from a clay pitcher. Li Wei took it, the cool ceramic grounding him. He drank greedily, the water tasting of minerals and sweetness.
"Collapsed," Li Wei repeated, testing the words. He accessed the memories of this body's previous owner. It was a pitiful life. The original Li Wei had been the son of a low-level scholar who had promised his son's hand in marriage to Magistrate Zhao to settle a debt of gratitude. The father died, leaving Li Wei and his brother destitute.
The Magistrate, a man of his word, took them in. But in this world, a man marrying into his wife's family was considered the lowest of the low—losing his surname, his autonomy, and his dignity. The original Li Wei had been depressed, lazy, and incompetent, spending his days reading old poetry and avoiding work, earning the disdain of the entire household.
*You worked yourself to death in one life,* Li Wei thought grimly, *and died of shame and lethargy in the next. Pathetic.*
"No, I don't need a doctor," Li Wei said, his voice growing steadier. He looked at his new, younger brother. Li Sheng looked malnourished, his collarbones visible. But his eyes were bright. This was his family now. This was his reality. "What time is it?"
"Almost noon," Li Sheng said, looking down. "Sister-in-law... she left early this morning. She didn't come to check on you."
Li Wei felt a sting of phantom pain from the previous owner's emotions—humiliation. His wife, Zhao Qingyu. The memory of her face floated up. Beautiful, cold, intelligent. She was the jewel of the county, a woman who could read and write, who managed the inner accounts of the Magistrate's household. She had been forced to marry a 'good-for-nothing' orphan to fulfill her father's promise.
"She is busy," Li Wei said dismissively. He had no time for romantic heartache. His mind was already racing, assessing the situation.
He was alive. He had a second chance.
He stood up, swaying slightly. The room was small and sparsely furnished. A bed, a table, a wooden chest. Through the paper window, he could hear the sounds of a busy courtyard. Chickens clucking, servants shouting, the rhythmic chopping of vegetables.
He walked to the window and pushed the wooden shutter open.
Sunlight flooded the room, blinding him for a moment. When his vision cleared, he saw the compound of the County Magistrate. It was a respectable estate, whitewashed walls and black tiles, but showing signs of age. Beyond the walls, he could see the silhouette of mountains in the distance, and closer, the bustling streets of the county town.
But it wasn't the town that caught his attention. It was the land.
Far to the west, visible from this second-story window, stretched a vast, wild expanse of land. It was overgrown, untamed, a sea of yellow and green grass swaying in the breeze. The 'Westland'. He knew from the memories that it was considered barren wasteland, useless for farming rice or wheat due to the hilly terrain and poor irrigation. The locals called it the 'Graveyard of Plows'.
Li Wei stared at it. His heart, which had stopped beating in a modern office thousands of miles and hundreds of years away, began to race.
It wasn't a graveyard. It was a pasture.
He saw the grass not as weeds, but as forage. He saw the hills not as obstacles to the plow, but as natural shelter from the wind.
*Grass... Cattle... Open sky...*
A shiver ran down his spine. The dream he had carried for forty years, the dream that had tormented him in his cubicle, was suddenly possible. There were no permits to file, no board members to convince, no million-dollar loans to beg for. There was just land, waiting.
"Brother?" Li Sheng asked, confused by the intensity on Li Wei's face. "Are you... are you feeling unwell again?"
Li Wei turned to the boy. A slow, unfamiliar smile spread across his face—a smile of genuine excitement, something the original Li Wei had never possessed.
"No, Sheng," he said, his voice firm. "I have never felt better. I know what to do now."
"You're going to study for the exams again?"
Li Wei laughed. It was a dry, raspy sound, but filled with life. "No. Books won't save us. Sheng, do you know what the most valuable thing in the world is?"
Li Sheng blinked, confused. "Gold? Silver? Silk?"
Li Wei looked back out the window at the wild Westland.
"Cattle," he said softly. "Black cattle, red cattle, strong cattle. Meat on the bone. Sheng, how much money do we have?"
Li Sheng's face fell. "Money? We... we have nothing. Father-in-Law gives us an allowance, but Sister-in-law controls the main accounts. I have... maybe twenty copper coins saved from the New Year."
Twenty coins. Not even enough for a good meal.
Li Wei nodded. "Then we need to get some."
He turned back into the room, his mind racing. He needed capital. He needed animals. He needed to convince a house full of people who thought he was trash that he wasn't trash. And he needed to do it without getting thrown out on the street.
Suddenly, a strange sensation washed over him. A warmth in his mind, like a cooling balm on a fever. Text appeared in his vision, faint and translucent, hovering in the air like a hologram.
**[Ranch Development System Initialized]**
**[Host Status: Physique Weak. Reputation: Terrible.]**
**[Current Mission: Acquire Initial Livestock.]**
**[Reward: Basic Grass Identification Skill.]**
Li Wei froze. He wasn't a religious man, but he had read enough web novels in his previous life to know what this was.
*A system?* He almost laughed aloud. *A cheat code for life.*
He focused on the text. It wasn't a game-breaking superpower. It didn't offer infinite money or magic pills. It was a tool.
He closed his eyes and focused. A new interface appeared, overlaying his vision.
**[Livestock Panel]**
**[Owned: 0]**
**[Land: 0 Acres]**
**[Genetic Modifier: Locked (Requires Biology Level 1)]**
**[Pasture Analysis: Locked (Requires Grassland access)]**
It was real. It was all real.
Li Wei opened his eyes. He looked at Li Sheng, who was watching him with concern.
"Sheng," Li Wei said, his tone shifting from brotherly to authoritative. "Put on your shoes. We are going to find Father-in-Law."
"The Magistrate? Why? Are you going to complain about the banquet?"
"No," Li Wei said, straightening his wrinkled robes. "I'm going to ask him for a loan."
Li Sheng's jaw dropped. "Brother! Everyone already thinks you are a leech! If you ask for money again, Sister-in-law will..."
"She won't refuse," Li Wei interrupted. He walked to the small mirror hanging on the wall. He looked pale, thin, and weak. But his eyes—his eyes held the fierce determination of a forty-year-old man who had been given a second chance and refused to waste it.
"I'm going to build a ranch, Sheng," he said quietly, staring at his reflection. "I'm going to turn that wasteland into gold. And the first step... is asking for permission to fail."
He turned to his brother. "Come on. It's time to stop being a burden."
As Li Wei walked out of the room, his sandals slapping against the wooden floorboards, he felt the phantom weight of a cowboy hat on his head and the ghost of a lasso in his hand.
*Watch out, Great Liang Dynasty,* he thought. *The Cowboy is here.*