Chapter 4: The Poverty Alleviation Platform Falls from the Sky

“Well… it’s not impossible.” Father Yan hardened his heart. If it really didn’t work out, he would just have to confess to the man. If he didn’t say anything himself, he’d be in the same boat when the debt collectors came knocking in three days.

Hearing about this kind of thing from one’s own family was always better than hearing it from outsiders.

He thought his eldest brother was quite good; he didn’t talk much, caused little trouble, and seemed to have a decent temper.

Li Xuemei disagreed: “I’ve been asking around these past few days. Eldest Brother is not only a scholar but also a teacher at the town academy. He lives and eats at the academy along with our nephew, and his monthly tuition fees are sent back without fail. Meanwhile, our whole family doesn’t earn a single cent and is being supported for nothing… I blush just thinking about it. How could I possibly bring this up?”

“I haven’t worked the fields in so many years, and this Yan Lao’er is the same. Look at this body—young, yes, but soft and delicate. He’s not a man built for labor; his strength is too meager.” Father Yan complained quite a bit.

Yan Lao’er was truly weak; he was a disgrace to his fellow men.

“This Yan Lao’er is a good-for-nothing—lazy, greedy, fond of his drink, bad at his studies, and doesn’t do any work. He’s just a bum.” Li Xuemei sighed. “Eldest Brother has it hard. Since we’re here, we must be self-reliant. We can’t keep expecting to live off him.”

Father Yan nodded. That was certain; no matter what, they couldn’t keep sponging off the eldest brother.

“Let’s eat first.” He took the food out of the basket one by one.

Coarse grain cakes, pickled vegetables, and wild vegetable egg drop soup.

Li Xuemei sighed and said, “It’s hard on the child.”

Indeed. The old hen at home only laid a limited number of eggs, and after giving them to Eldest Brother to help him recover his health, there weren’t many left.

The family’s money should have been managed by the Li woman; they couldn’t find any, so naturally, they couldn’t buy anything extra.

They ate whatever was available.

Fortunately, there was still some old grain left from last year, as well as the pickled vegetables made by the Li woman. For the past few days, they had been eating nothing but coarse grain cakes and pickles.

The little girl knew that harvesting wheat was hard work, so not only did she add a meal at noon, but she also tried her best to make it as good as possible.

She had racked her brains to add this bowl of soup—it had eggs, water, and greens, all of which were rare things at the moment.

The couple ate the egg soup with their meal, and the choking, dry coarse grain cakes went down much easier.

……

The two of them didn’t return home until the sun set behind the mountains.

Although they worked slowly, they didn’t stop for a moment. The bundled wheat piled up quite high. Yan Lao’er went to the neighbor’s house, borrowed a cart, and made two trips before he finally transported all the wheat back to their courtyard.

The couple was exhausted, their bodies aching, both tired and thirsty.

Er Ya felt terrible for them. She served water and food, waited on her parents until they finished eating and drinking, and then took the dirty clothes into the kitchen.

Yan Lao’er hurried to the east room to check if his eldest brother needed anything.

Seeing that everything was fine and his brother didn’t need him for the moment, he picked up his shoulder pole and buckets and went out.

Each household could only fetch four buckets of water a day, and they hadn’t fetched their share for today yet.

Li Xuemei endured the pain while rubbing and kneading her body.

If she didn’t rub out these sore spots, they would only hurt more tomorrow.

Feeling a bit better, she regrouped and began another round of searching.

Er Ya held her breath, only taking a gasp when she truly couldn’t hold it any longer.

Her parents’ clothes—they were just too—stinky!

There was a drought, and water was precious.

They couldn’t bear to use it for laundry, but the wisdom of the ancients was infinite.

When she was wandering around the village today, she happened to see an auntie using wood ash to scrub dirty clothes. After scrubbing, she gave them a hard shake, and the ash flew off in clouds.

It wasn’t perfectly clean, but it didn’t stink anymore!

Er Ya was greatly inspired and decided to follow suit.

There wasn’t much wood ash in the stove, but she scraped out a pile and was looking for something to put it in.

Suddenly, a gentle female voice rang out in her ears out of thin air.

【Dear citizen of the Xia Kingdom, ID number: 371312XXXXXXXXXXXX, hello! This is the Xia Kingdom Support Trading Platform.】

【It has been detected that you and your family have left your original dimension. The environment you are in has low technological productivity, is impoverished, and survival is difficult, meeting the platform’s support criteria. Would you like to bind and activate it?】

Er Ya stared blankly at the dialog box that had suddenly appeared before her.

【Would you like to bind and activate it?】

It was printed clearly and squarely on the light screen.

She moved from side to side, and the light screen shifted with her movements.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Er Ya was excited.

Wasn’t this the system she had been waiting for?

How could one transmigrate without a system!

If you don’t have a system now, can you even call yourself a transmigrator?

【Starting binding…】

【Binding successful!】

【Xia Kingdom Support Trading Platform: Aimed at helping compatriots who have left the embrace of the motherland due to force majeure (including but not limited to transmigration, rebirth, entering a book, apocalypse, spiritual energy recovery, etc.) to overcome hardships and weather the storm together.】

【This platform adheres to the universal law of equivalent exchange and calculates exchange rates for transactions across planes.】

【This platform is activated non-conventionally and is subject to energy limitations. It will open irregularly; please prepare in advance according to the prompts.】

【The Xia Kingdom Support Trading Platform promises you: though it may be late, it will arrive. The Xia Kingdom is never absent!】

【Platform user 0037258258, hello! Your archive: Transmigrated into a book. Would you like to claim the new user benefit and retrieve the dimension’s world settings?】

Did she even need to ask? Yan Er Ya said urgently: “Yes! Claim!”

【Buzz… buzz…】

【Book Title: “Rise of the Humble Gate”.】

【Protagonist Name: Yan Huaiwen.】

【Story Synopsis

In the first half of his life, Yan Huaiwen lived a miserable existence; his parents died, and he lost his wife, son, and daughter.

In the second half of his life, it was as if he had cheats enabled. He fought his way into the officialdom, rising rapidly through the ranks with iron-fisted methods. A princess was married off to him, and he even brought his own concubines, enjoying the blessings of all. He pushed the princess’s own brother to the throne, and to clear the obstacles, he exhausted his heart and blood, stopping at nothing, eventually reaching the rank of First Grade official.

Upon learning that the person he loyally served was only using him, and that the seemingly glorious and upright court was filthy and corrupt, he helped the Prince of England ascend to the throne without hesitation, still standing proud in the court.】

【Buzz…】

My god!

This familiar synopsis—she had read this book!

It was a very old-fashioned fictional ancient political novel. The male lead had truly experienced everything. His early misery was genuinely miserable, and even as he rose in power later, he was often forced by circumstances, facing various dilemmas and weighing pros and cons…

From a frustrated scholar to an iron-fisted power-hungry prime minister, the process was arduous. The author didn’t skimp on the melodrama, and even less on the suffering.

The male lead’s final success—the most classic plot of the entire book, the deposition of the monarch—she had read the comments section before reading the book, and she was deeply impressed by one comment that said that historically, only emperors deposed prime ministers, but the author had a wild imagination and reversed it, kicking the monarch off the dragon throne…

A bunch of people below

Well deposed!

If the emperor is no good, replace him; if you don’t like it, fight!

She had just read the beginning, which was about Old Yan being bedridden with serious injuries, the gambling den coming to collect debts, and in a fit of anger, he separated from his second brother’s family.

Coincidentally, Old Yan’s second brother’s name was Yan Huaian, her father’s name was Yan An, he married a woman surnamed Li, her family’s leader was Li Xuemei, and she had a daughter named Er Ya… her name was—Yan Yu.

Yes, she was now Er Ya!

Yes, the positioning of this trading platform was—poverty alleviation!

An alliance of unlucky people struggling on various planes, helping each other to escape poverty and become rich.

So, some props that didn’t fit the ancient background would appear—a little bit of creative license.

The unlucky people connected were basically struggling on the line of survival, derived from various apocalyptic and natural disaster novels the shut-in had read… for a while, she had been really into these survival stories.

(End of chapter)