Chapter 78: Two Months

Weren’t the sons and daughters of the Flower-Growing Nation supposed to have Shennong’s genes flowing through their veins? How had he ended up winning the reverse genetic lottery?! Even a mutation shouldn’t swing straight to the opposite extreme!

Besides, whose spirit-field cultivation required this level of microscopic precision? Back when he had helped his senior brothers and sisters in the laboratory, he had never been this painstaking even while using a microscope. It was just... absurd.

But the most absurd part was that he had a terrifyingly capable friend who had completed the task assigned by the senior brother from Spirit Plant Peak with flawless precision.

Bian Chunzhou rubbed his eyes. He was starting to feel as though the two things were nothing but decorations. This was outright bullying. Pill-Fragrance Grass bullied him, and now even Spirit Plant Peak’s medicinal fields were bullying him.

Still, there was one blessing amid all the misfortune: Spirit Plant Peak had not blacklisted him.

Heh.

Bian Chunzhou had entered brimming with ambition, but now? Wen Xuxu only had two close friends his age: him and Chen Zuizui. Chen Zuizui had already made the list, so the least Bian Chunzhou could do was... work hard and try not to get blacklisted.

Two days left.

You can do this, Bian Chunzhou. Close your eyes, kick out your legs, and...

You’ll pass straight into the next life.

“I can’t do this anymore! I really can’t! Senior Brother, I’m begging you, please retract your divine power. Do we absolutely have to plant this Rain-or-Shine Blossom?”

The senior brother displayed a textbook smile that showed all eight teeth. To Bian Chunzhou, however, it looked like a hunting cheetah baring sharp, savage fangs.

“Junior Brother Bian, we absolutely do. It’s actually not that difficult, right?”

The Rain-or-Shine Blossom, as its name implied, could not be exposed to sunlight. Not even the tiniest bit. Yet it still required natural wind, frost, rain, and dew, which made preparing its spirit field extremely demanding.

Aside from using spiritual power to stabilize its roots, they also had to erect a spiritual-energy barrier that blocked sunlight while allowing wind and rain through.

Most astonishingly, the flower’s roots were extremely short, no longer than a child’s finger joint. If the roots grew too long, the plant would easily “die of depression.” That meant the soil could not be fertile, but it could not be too barren either.

Turning and preparing the soil was, therefore, an exercise in microscopic precision.

Bian Chunzhou had thought he had already seen the world.

As it turned out, he was still far too young.

How was this cultivating a spirit plant? They were clearly making offerings to an ancestor.

“Senior Brother, are they this delicate in the wild too?”

Unless someone had made a mistake and caused the senior brother to transform into a terrifying, fire-breathing dragon, he was usually quite easy to talk to. He was especially enthusiastic about sharing knowledge related to spirit plants.

“Of course not. The Rain-or-Shine Blossom has extremely demanding growing conditions, so almost none grow naturally in the wild. Should you ever find one, its medicinal potency would be hundreds or even thousands of times stronger than an artificially cultivated specimen. You must pick it.”

“That powerful?”

“Of course. It’s just like Pill-Fragrance King Grass. It cannot be cultivated with artificial precision. It is a gift from nature.”

At the words gift from nature, Bian Chunzhou froze.

“So what we’re doing now is...”

“That’s right, Junior Brother. We’re borrowing another’s wisdom. And that ‘other’ is the natural Heavenly Dao.”

Bian Chunzhou fell silent.

Like hell I believe your nonsense! You’re just trying to trick me into farming!

The senior brother regretfully rubbed his fingers together.

Alas, junior brothers these days were getting harder and harder to fool.

The Junior Granduncle-Master next door was the same. Wind really was far too useful. There actually existed someone born with the ability to perceive the differences between every single spirit plant.

Not every variety.

Every individual, naturally grown spirit plant.

The advantages granted by a mutated wind spiritual root were unparalleled when it came to affinity with spirit plants. It was almost terrifying.

Wen Xu had noticed it too.

In truth, he had vaguely sensed it as early as the Cloudbreaking Secret Realm. But after joining Yonglu Mountain and becoming Divine Venerable Chengwei’s disciple, having a Body Integration Realm expert as his master caused him to downplay that talent.

Or rather, his experience had been too limited, so he had never considered the ability to identify spirit plants particularly important.

Wen Xu was a scholar, raised on the classics of the sages.

Although books always said that agriculture and sericulture formed the foundation of a nation, and although the people were supposedly arranged in the orderly hierarchy of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, the truth was that the scholar-gentry stood above every other class. The remaining three merely acted according to the preferences of the scholars.

As for agriculture, Wen Xu had seen many farmers in his youth who could neither fill their stomachs nor clothe themselves and had eventually become beggars.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that most beggars had once been farmers who depended on the land for survival.

Alchemists and mystic physicians in the cultivation world certainly earned a great deal of money.

But Wen Xu wanted to obtain overwhelming strength. From the very beginning, he had never intended to rely on his abilities with spirit plants. He understood perfectly well that a person’s energy was limited. Trying to have everything would only result in losing everything.

Even now, his decision had not changed.

Still, he had discovered that preparing spirit fields and tending spirit plants were exceptionally calming tasks, allowing him to settle his emotions and sense nature.

He had not noticed any so-called tempering of the Dao heart. On the contrary, as he stood in the spirit field, he felt the wind sweep across the tips of the spirit plants before brushing past his hands, ears, and feet.

The information carried by the wind was pure and ardent.

Here, the wind and all things were one.

The first layer of the Ten Thousand Things Arise Art was All Things Are Born.

Wind was born alongside all things.

When the spring wind rose, all creation awakened. And as all creation revived, the wind began to irrigate the earth.

It flowed through every inch of the world—free, passionate, arrogant, and unconcerned with trifles.

The wind would never cease, just as life would never be absent from the world.

Wen Xu held a hoe in his hands.

With his current perception, he could clearly sense the true condition of the soil beneath him.

Not far away, beneath the earth, a fragile sprout was breaking through the soil amid the wind’s “coaxing whispers.”

He had always known that life did not come easily.

But this was the first time—

The first time he had sensed the rhythm of life with such clarity.

Wen Xu had once attended a poetry gathering and written a poem about the wind. It had sounded reasonably pleasant at the time, but thinking back on it now, it had been...

Utter nonsense.

The wind was the messenger of life.

Wen Xu thought this with certainty.

And because of that fleeting, tender realization, the spiritual power gathered around the hoe in his hand also became warm and gentle.

Like an embroidery needle in a mother’s hand, it turned the soil with perfect precision, scattered the spirit seeds, and covered the plot with a spiritual-energy barrier.

With that, the field was considered fully prepared.

Not far away, Bian Chunzhou was still locked in a bitter struggle with the Rain-or-Shine Blossom.

Help! Senior Brother, could you stop looking at me so ominously?!

I’ll do it! I’ll do it, all right?!

“Three days! Senior Brother, do you know how I survived these three days?”

Bian Chunzhou’s eyes were bloodshot, the red veins within them serving as proof of how hard he had worked.

When he carried his registration token to Kaiyuan Peak to submit his task, only the heavens knew how fast he had run.

The senior brother responsible for registering farming tasks at Kaiyuan Peak had long since grown accustomed to such sights.

What was so strange about it?

Another newbie junior brother had simply gone mad.

“Junior Brother, my condolences. We all went through the same thing.”

The senior brother offered the assembly-line consolation with practiced ease.

“Oh, right. Where is the Junior Granduncle-Master’s registration token?”

Normally, anyone accepting a task from Kaiyuan Peak had to appear in person.

But Wen Xu was blind and held a high status, so he had directly entrusted Bian Chunzhou with handling the matter. The disciples on duty at Kaiyuan Peak all knew about it.

“...He’s still at Spirit Plant Peak.”

The senior brother from Kaiyuan Peak stared in shock.

“Unless I remember incorrectly, today is the third day, isn’t it?”

“...It certainly is.”

As expected of someone with a mutated spiritual root.

How terrifying.

The senior brother from Kaiyuan Peak had a big mouth. He immediately spread the news, and then...

A crowd of people with far too much time on their hands began waiting for Spirit Plant Peak’s notice board to update its records.

They waited for two months.

Two whole months.

A full sixty days.

Twenty sets of three days.

In truth, after roughly one month, a busybody had accepted a task from Spirit Plant Peak, intending to investigate what was going on.

And then—

“No, no, no, no. I will need the rest of my life to recover from what I saw that day.”

“So what did you see? Tell us!”

“I saw Senior Brother Cui, gentle as a mild breeze and soft rain, warm and approachable. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? That was Senior Brother Cui from Spirit Plant Peak!”

“...No. What nonsense are you spouting? That’s Senior Brother Cui, the life-stealing taskmaster!”

“No. I’m completely lucid. In fact, I’ve never been more lucid in my life!”

See?

The poor child had clearly ruined his brain from turning soil.

Just look at him. He could not even speak properly anymore.

How pitiful.

Even so, the conversation spread.

The rumors grew increasingly outrageous until Chen Zui finally emerged from the secret realm after narrowly escaping death countless times, only to discover...

Huh?

The world outside had changed.

“Why are they all convinced I can’t beat Wen Xu anymore? Where is he?”

Bian Chunzhou gave him a look that said he was still far too young.

“He’s at Spirit Plant Peak.”

After leaving the secret realm, Chen Zui’s aura was so intense that it practically surged from his entire body.

His master ordered him to stop practicing the saber for two days and wait until the baleful aura around him dissipated before resuming his cultivation.

This time, he had emerged unusually exhausted, so for once, he obediently listened.

Of course, even had he refused, the senior brothers from Saber Peak would have made him listen obediently anyway.

“What is he doing at Spirit Plant Peak?”

“Preparing spirit fields.”

“What kind of nonsense are you talking about?”

Bian Chunzhou’s voice turned幽幽.

“He’s been at Spirit Plant Peak for two full months.”

Chen Zui’s eyes widened.

“How wong?”

“You heard me correctly.”

Chen Zui had originally thought he had undergone tremendous growth inside the secret realm.

But after hearing this, his heart immediately settled.

“I’m starting to look forward to fighting him again.”

Bian Chunzhou snorted.

“Fight, my ass. Come on. You’ve got nothing else to do, so accompany me down the mountain.”

“What for?”

Judging by his expression, he was clearly reluctant to go.

“To make dumplings. Hey, you wouldn’t understand! I promised Wen Xuxu I’d give him a surprise. Besides, he invited us to watch the sunrise. Don’t you want to fight him again?”

Bian Chunzhou always had all kinds of strange reasons capable of persuading Chen Zui.

Sure enough, Chen Zui immediately gave in.

“What’s so interesting about a sunrise? Why did he have to make a special arrangement for it?”

Chen Zui did not understand.

Every day, he practiced his saber before dawn beneath the morning dew. He had seen countless sunrises and truly found nothing remarkable about them.

It was nothing more than a bright red egg yolk leaping over the horizon.

The sunrise on Yonglu Mountain looked no different from the sunrise back home.

Could the three of them somehow see something different merely by watching it together?

“Of course it’s beautiful!”

Bian Chunzhou was unconvinced.

“Besides, this is the sunrise on the first day of the new calendar. You’ve never watched the sunrise with friends before, have you?”

Chen Zui thought about it, then shook his head and answered honestly.

“No. You and Wen Xu are the first friends I’ve ever made.”

Bian Chunzhou fell silent.

Why did those words sound strangely familiar?

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