I Activated the Black Tech System and Led the World in Science

The moment he opened his eyes, Ling Yun was “frozen awake” in a ruined temple amid a pile of corpses. A modern programmer had transmigrated into the body of a poor scholar who owed the King of Hell, frail and sickly, with barely enough clothes to cover him. A ten-tael debt note hung over him like a death sentence.

First he dug through the snow for shepherd’s purse to stave off hunger; next, starving refugees came swinging clubs to steal his food. He had barely won the bloody fight when servants from Zhang Yuanwai’s household sealed the door with torches, their barking dogs baying for his life.

In a desperate race for survival, he snatched the original owner’s debt note and half a tael in loose silver, only to discover a secret letter from Magistrate Wang Mingtang tucked inside the silver. In an instant, his personal escape became entangled in a corrupt alliance between officials and merchants.

With the county gates sealed, he pretended to be dead and slipped into a funeral pyre. To repay a bowl of porridge, he braved the flames at the Zhang estate to save Old Wang, only to become entangled with Wan Niang, a little beggar girl. The two huddled together for warmth in a kiln cave, but Li Si’s cudgel and Zhang Yuanwai’s poisonous schemes soon caught up with them at the foot of the mountain. A fifty-tael bounty was offered for Ling Yun’s head, and for the fertile fields Wan Niang was being forced to surrender.