Chapter Two: The Golden Finger

Han Li’s family lived comfortably, but they were just an ordinary working-class household. Over the past months, his father and mother had spared no effort pulling strings and calling in favors, endlessly troubled by the issue at hand.

It was no longer like the early years of the rural resettlement campaign, when those sent down to the countryside received subsidies and still drew salaries. Back then, few understood what life in the villages entailed. Now, several years had passed since the first great wave of resettlement, and people were much more informed. Subsidies were only granted to families in dire circumstances, and the state had rescinded the wages once paid to sent-down youth.

The most important change, however, was that families now knew exactly what awaited in the countryside. Any parent with a modicum of ability was unwilling to send their child away, making city jobs even more coveted and harder to secure. Even if you had money, you couldn’t buy a work placement—there simply weren’t any for sale.

Some factories did increase their workforce, but the positions were so few and the demand so high that roles were filled internally, reserved either as favors or as perks for the leadership. These jobs were never made available to outsiders. In other cities, the situation might be slightly better, but in the capital, it was nearly impossible.

At this time, the country’s agriculture was backward, and every village produced only so much grain. Many villagers viewed the sent-down youth as competitors for food. As a result, most villages were deeply insular, making it difficult for newcomers to integrate.

Of course, the lack of initiative among the sent-down youth was part of the problem. Most were city children unused to hardship. Even if they had participated earnestly in school labor lessons, it was only ever a crowd doing a touch of farm work together. Life in the countryside, toiling daily in the fields, was a different world—they simply couldn’t endure such hardship. Their slowness and incompetence at farm labor became another reason for local resentment. Add in various other factors, and the difficulties faced by these youths become easy to imagine.

Families with better means were an exception—they could regularly send money and parcels, ensuring their children did not suffer too much. But for those with average means, little support at home, and no taste for hardship, many chose to marry locals. With some help from their in-laws, their situation could improve.

However, once you married locally, even if your family managed to secure permission for you to return to the city for work, you would fail the background checks. The paperwork would be rejected outright, effectively severing any path back to the city.

As Han Li sat on the edge of his bed, lost in thought, his mother’s voice called from outside the door. “Son, get up and wash your face and brush your teeth—the eggs are ready. I fried you two this morning.”

Over the past month since Han Li had crossed over to this world, he had gradually assimilated the original memories. Still, his small differences in habit hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed by his family. They simply thought their son was anxious about finding a job after graduation, so his parents chased down even more connections for him.

Han Li could only scratch his head helplessly, repeating the words he’d used to comfort himself lately: "Since I'm here, I might as well make myself at home. Even if I don't have that essential farming-space cheat every transmigrator seems to get, at least I have a rather unimpressive golden finger and I know how history unfolds. Becoming a landlord shouldn’t be too hard."

Han Li was, admittedly, not particularly ambitious—he simply wanted to be a layabout landlord, eating, playing games at home, playing mahjong with friends, and traveling with a few beautiful companions when the mood took him. Whenever money ran short, he’d stroll around with a great ring of keys, collecting rent. That was the dream. As for saving the galaxy—that would be a job for someone else, not a homebody like him.

As for this lackluster golden finger of his, its functions were currently rather limited: simple decomposition, synthesis, and fusion—much like the game skills Han Li had played with. He suspected his transmigration was related to this cheat, but at least it had one advantage over the games: it could be operated within ten meters of himself, and it seemed to be improving his physical health.

So far, the effects of the three options were straightforward, but the side effects were significant. When Han Li first arrived, he had eagerly tested his golden finger, hoping for a system or a pocket dimension. Instead, in a fit of excitement, he chose to decompose the family wall clock. The result was a disaster—the clock fell to pieces, and Han Li spent three days dazed and dizzy.

On top of that, he suffered a tag-team beating from his parents—his mother’s spatula and his father’s bamboo ruler left a lasting impression.

Over time, Han Li experimented and gradually unraveled the uses of his golden finger. Decomposition functioned like a gaming skill, with a proficiency bar that increased with each use. When the bar filled, he suspected he would level up.

He started by decomposing dead things like wood and stone, breaking them into various forms. Was this meant to make him a building materials merchant? But his mental strength wasn’t sufficient—he’d probably keel over before he managed a full basket of goods. Han Li didn’t dwell on it; after all, this golden finger was a bit of a dud. At least, it would let him diversify his food. If he had the raw ingredients, he could make anything. With corn alone, he could produce eighteen different varieties: grits, standard cornmeal, superfine cornmeal, soybean flour, mung bean flour, dried sweet potato, sweet potato flour—the list went on. Truly a golden finger of questionable worth.

To avoid repeating the dizziness and nausea, Han Li always stopped when things felt off.

The synthesis function, for now, seemed useless. At best, he could combine decomposed bits of stone or wood into simple shapes, but the process burned through his mental energy. If he overdid it, he experienced serious side effects—dizziness, nausea, perhaps worse. Han Li suspected that his wall clock incident was like fighting a monster way above his level. He’d probably only survived because transmigrators supposedly had stronger mental faculties.

As for fusion, that function remained grayed out and unusable. When and how it might activate was a mystery. Perhaps there were more abilities hidden within, but Han Li would have to gradually discover them.

Objects he manipulated could be stored in a kind of inventory space and retrieved at will. However, anything he hadn’t operated on couldn’t be stored—an infuriating limitation.

A final note: At the time, as long as the sent-down youth worked diligently, most village heads were actually fairly tolerant.