Hunting: Catching Bears and Chasing Off Tigers After Receiving a Wife from the Government

Lu Chuan, a former mercenary, transmigrates into the body of a dying man in the war-torn Great Xia Dynasty. Waking up in the frozen wasteland of Bingzhou, he finds himself in a society ravaged by civil war among eight princes and external threats from nomadic tribes. The region is plagued by poverty, famine, and harsh winters where survival is a daily struggle. With no food in his granary and the year-end grain tax deadline approaching, Lu Chuan must rely on his combat and survival skills to feed himself and avoid starvation. His immediate priority is to hunt in the snow-covered mountains, where he crafts a simple bow and arrow to secure meat.

While preparing his hunting gear, Lu Chuan is summoned by the village chief to participate in a government-organized marriage assignment. Due to a severe gender imbalance caused by years of war, the authorities have confiscated female relatives of disgraced officials and are forcibly assigning them to men to increase household tax revenue. At the threshing ground, Lu Chuan discovers a unique ability: when he looks at certain women, a panel appears displaying their name, beauty score, affection level, and rewards he will receive for taking them in. He selects Su Ruan, a noblewoman with a beauty score of 89, and Bai Siyu, another noblewoman with a beauty score of 91. Upon bringing them home, he unlocks a portable storage space and basic hunting and beast-taming skills, which significantly aid his survival efforts.

Armed with his new abilities, Lu Chuan successfully hunts a roe deer and other game, demonstrating exceptional archery skills that impress Su Ruan, who reveals her military family background. During a hunting trip, he encounters Chen Qingqing, a village girl caring for her sick mother, and learns that taking her in would grant him advanced medical and farming skills. He also rescues two wolf pups and their injured mother, using his beast-taming skills to bond with them. Back in the village, he confronts Sun Laizi, a local thug who previously extorted him, and defeats him with precise martial arts, reclaiming stolen goods and establishing dominance. Lu Chuan then travels to Hongtu County to sell his game, forming a profitable partnership with Steward Xu of the local Xu Manor, who offers him insider information on high-value targets like badgers.

Conflict arises when Lu Chuan encounters Zhou Tong, a corrupt constable and relative of County Magistrate Zhou Zheng. Zhou Tong, harboring jealousy over Lu Chuan’s acquisition of the assigned women, attempts to arrest him on false charges of being a Turkic spy. Lu Chuan outsmarts the constable by feigning compliance while subtly threatening to expose the false accusation if imprisoned, forcing Zhou Tong to release him. Determined to eliminate this threat before the tax deadline, Lu Chuan plans a covert operation. He returns to the mountains, where he hunts badgers for the Xu Manor and discovers a mysterious cave containing a fragment of a treasure map, which he memorizes and destroys to keep secret.

Lu Chuan uses his earnings to buy household supplies and begins constructing a brick kiln to improve his living conditions, utilizing the kiln-building skill granted by Su Ruan. He also acquires three wild boar piglets, castrating them to raise as a sustainable food source. Throughout these events, his relationships with Su Ruan and Bai Siyu deepen, with their affection levels rising and unlocking further skills, including intermediate beast taming and storage expansion. The narrative establishes Lu Chuan’s strategy to build a secure foundation while navigating the dangerous political landscape of Bingzhou, where the enigmatic Magistrate Zhou Zheng’s refusal of promotions hints at deeper, hidden agendas that may eventually intersect with Lu Chuan’s own ambitions.