Very soon, he came up with a little idea and ran home with the fruit. He ran fast, but didn’t notice that behind a tree, a white fox was poking out its little head, watching him leave. The white fox’s mouth curved into a beautiful arc, pouting as if feeling wronged—a kind of grievance that comes from good intentions being misunderstood.

　　Jason Brooks returned home, washed the fruit clean, then carefully cut off a small piece with a knife to feed to the old hen at home. After observing for a while and confirming that the hen showed no signs of poisoning, he relaxed and ate the fruit himself.

　　The flesh was crisp, sweet, and very tasty, leaving a lingering aftertaste. After finishing one, Jason Brooks felt a burning desire rising inside to eat a second.

　　This desire came on strong and inexplicably, making his heart skip a beat. He quickly washed his face with cold water, finally managing to suppress it.

　　By this point, Jason Brooks certainly knew the fruit was no ordinary thing, but he still didn’t know what its true effect was.

　　Just as he was lost in thought, his stomach suddenly rumbled loudly, as if a huge pot of water was boiling inside. Jason Brooks’s face changed, looking odd, and he rushed to the latrine, fumbling with his belt. Before he could even fully squat down—whoosh, whoosh—like a floodgate opening, waste gushed out, followed by an incredibly foul stench spreading everywhere...

　　“Can’t take it anymore!”

　　Not long after, a pale-faced Ethan Brooks pinched his nose with one hand and held up his pants with the other, fleeing the latrine in a panic. Luckily, no one was around, or such an undignified act would surely have been ridiculed.

　　That day, besides setting a record for the biggest bowel movement, Jason Brooks also sweated profusely, the sticky sweat clinging uncomfortably to his clothes. Yet his mood was soaring.

　　Detoxification and cleansing—in short, after finishing in the latrine and sweating it out, Jason Brooks immediately felt a marvelous change in his body, as if he had been reborn, filled with vitality. His energy and spirit were like a long-dusty mirror, suddenly wiped clean, shining with unprecedented clarity and freshness.

　　So refreshed he could almost fly.

　　Could that fruit be the legendary immortal fruit?

　　Jason Brooks wondered happily. He had a hunch that this magical fruit might just change his life as a transmigrant.

Chapter Five: Transformation

　　A mysterious fruit had fundamentally changed Jason Brooks’s frail constitution; and just a small piece of the fruit’s flesh made the old hen burst with vitality, laying three eggs in a single day—completely against reason, and truly strange.

　　This world is anything but simple!

　　Jason Brooks concluded as much, though just how it wasn’t simple still needed further understanding. He vaguely felt that the world before him was far broader than he had imagined.

　　As the Spring Festival approached, the weather grew colder. Finally, on a night thick with new moon clouds, a heavy snow fell, blanketing the world in white.

　　Charcoal burned in the study, though it couldn’t compare to the wealthy households—just a clay pot filled with coals, giving off heat.

　　The charcoal was the most common kind, with a strong smoky smell.

　　Jason Brooks wasn’t reading, but writing—writing couplets.

　　Writing couplets was a “perk” for scholars; every year before the Spring Festival, they could write couplets for others and receive some payment in return. Sometimes money, sometimes a piece of meat, sometimes a chicken—things like that, to help with living expenses.

　　“A thousand doors and ten thousand households greet the rising sun, always replacing old charms with new ones.”

　　Every New Year’s Eve, almost every household would tear down their old, tattered couplets and put up new ones, hoping for a fresh start in the new year. Even the poorest would scrimp and save to pay someone to write couplets. The people they asked were almost always scholars or above, for the sake of respectability.

　　Jason Brooks was the only scholar in Jingyang Village, so this year, almost all the New Year couplets in the village were written by him alone—a cause for celebration. The villagers no longer had to go far to find a scholar, and for Jason Brooks, it was a chance to help others and earn some household money—why not?

　　In fact, many poor scholars would even travel to Jiangzhou City to set up stalls on the street, writing couplets as a small business. When business was good, they could earn dozens of copper coins a day.

　　—In the Tiantong Dynasty, copper coins were the lowest denomination of currency, one coin per wen, a thousand wen made a string, a string equaled one silver ingot, and ten silver ingots equaled one gold ingot.

　　The silver and gold ingots here were standardized imperial currency, finely crafted and quite beautiful.

　　Of course, for Jason Brooks, gold and silver were far out of reach. He and his mother’s monthly living expenses were only fifty wen.

　　But ever since Jason Brooks passed the scholar’s exam, the family’s situation had slowly improved. This year, for example, was certainly the most prosperous “fat year” in the Chen family’s history. For writing couplets, Jason Brooks received a total of 136 wen, three chickens, two ducks, and a full thirteen jin of meat.

　　These supplies were enough for a truly abundant New Year.

　　So Jason Brooks felt very happy—he was finally no longer a burden on his mother. Letting Olivia Morgan live a good life had always been one of his dreams.

　　It is an honor to support oneself.