NOVEL WEB Chapter 15: Beginning × Story Books
Chapter 15: Beginning × Story Books
The weather was perfect today, and spring plowing in Taohua Village began in this fine weather.
Li Xi wore comfortable gray summer clothes, a small straw hat on her head, and carried a small hoe on her shoulder. Standing in her refreshed spirit field, she felt elated.
Yesterday, she and Li Wen Ze had told the village about discovering the long-life root. Uncle Daniu, who was in charge of preventing long-life roots in the village, promptly brought a medicine specifically for long-life roots. Before dark, they went to the spirit field and eliminated all the long-life roots.
Uncle Daniu said they were fortunate to have discovered it in time, as the long-life roots hadn’t been destroying the surface plants for long. Otherwise, the long-life roots would have absorbed all the nutrients and spiritual energy from the spirit field to survive, and eventually, only they would remain, preventing any other plants from growing.
Strangely, although the long-life root was so tenacious, simply dripping the medicine onto the root stems growing on the soil surface would cause them to wither completely and turn into soil nutrients upon contact.
This medicine was made from the long-life root’s own seeds and flowers.
Despite its strong vitality, the long-life root couldn’t escape the nature of plant reproduction. As soon as its roots encountered its seeds and flowers, it would completely sacrifice its nutrients, leaving nothing behind.
So, the long-life root’s natural enemy was itself.
Li Xi pondered this after hearing it.
Being one’s own natural enemy…
But if the long-life root never flowered or bore fruit and just kept growing, wouldn’t it be invincible?
That wasn’t quite right either. The long-life root was ultimately just a wood-attribute plant. There must be something else in the world that could counter it, but the world of Taohua Village was too small to know about it.
These were just some small thoughts she had before cultivation last night, not affecting her enthusiasm today.
“Xi’er, our spirit fields are next to each other! That’s great!” came the delighted voice of Ling Niang, her close classmate from the village school.
Li Xi was very excited early in the morning, not feeling sleepy at all. She was the first in her family to get up and urged everyone else to leave quickly.
So she was the first to arrive at her spirit field this morning.
When she arrived, there was no one in the adjacent eight mu of spirit fields.
“Ling Niang, you’re here! You came early too, no one else has arrived yet,” Li Xi greeted her.
Ling Niang was very enthusiastic: “My mother woke me up early and urged me to come to the spirit field, saying there must be weeds growing and we need to deal with them first.”
“My spirit field had a lot of weeds, but we dealt with them all yesterday!” Li Xi nodded affirmatively.
Ling Niang looked regretful: “Ah, my mother urged me to come check yesterday too, but I didn’t. If I had known I’d meet Xi’er, I definitely would have come. It’s a pity I couldn’t pull weeds with Xi’er!”
After saying this, Ling Niang quickly looked at her own spirit field, then noticed that Li Xi’s field seemed to have more than just weeds removed.
“Xi’er, you’re so diligent! Your spirit field is already plowed!” Ling Niang exclaimed in surprise.
Indeed, Li Xi’s spirit field already had rows of soil ridges, though some harder clumps of soil still needed to be broken up with her hoe.
“My father rented two spirit oxen from town yesterday, and early this morning he brought them to plow my spirit field,” Li Xi said happily.
Although she had always longed to farm, wasn’t it better if someone helped prepare the land in advance?
“Oh my, looking at it this way, Xi’er, your progress is the fastest. I won’t chat anymore, I need to work hard too and try to catch up with you!” Saying this, Ling Niang enthusiastically went to pull weeds.
Soon after, children of Li Xi’s age gradually arrived at the spirit fields. Before long, all the owners of the ten mu of spirit fields had arrived.
There were four children besides Li Xi, all her classmates.
Seeing Li Xi’s rapid progress with her spirit field, they were all very envious.
“I’m so jealous of Xi’er!”
“Yeah, when will my family be able to rent a spirit ox to plow the field?”
“We can’t compare with Xi’er’s family. Our family only has so much spirit field, our family members can just act as oxen and plow it themselves.”
These words revealed their infinite resentment towards farming.
Since the development of the Li clan’s ancestors until now, a large portion of people still loved farming. But as time passed, by Li Xi’s generation, especially those within five years of her age, they had different ideas about farming.
A very small portion had no talent for farming and didn’t like it, another portion had talent but didn’t like it, and the most pitiful small portion loved farming but had no talent for it.
In the end, the result was that these people needed to seek other paths.
There was another reason that couldn’t be ignored for the strong divergence in this generation of the Li family in Taohua Village.
Five years ago, when the masterpiece “Immortality Calamity” by the Lanling Hermit emerged in the cultivation world and gained a large fan base, the “dragon proud sky” literary trend flourished in the story book world over these five years.
Phrases like “Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river,” “My fate is in my own hands, not heaven’s,” “Falling off a cliff without dying must lead to an inheritance,” and “Real men become sword cultivators” had corrupted many young cultivators, becoming their catchphrases.
Even in relatively peaceful places far from outside disturbances like Taohua Village, many young people were influenced.
Li Xi suspected that her neighbor, Brother Wen Ze, had also been corrupted by these story books.
She remembered when she was young, about four or five years old, playing with Li Wen Ze, she seemed to have often heard him say things like: “I am a man who will become a sword cultivator!”
Even now, Brother Wen Ze seemed to persist in practicing swordsmanship every day, though he no longer said that phrase.
But had the Lanling Hermit appeared at that time?
Maybe she remembered wrong.
However, the Lanling Hermit’s story books were indeed good.
————
Time slowly passed as Li Xi worked hard to break up soil clumps, and then she began to scatter spirit rice seeds.
The seeds she scattered were Level 1 Spirit Rice No.5 seeds developed by the Tianyan Sect. These spirit rice seeds no longer required everyone to raise seedlings in advance. Once scattered in the spirit field, they would quickly absorb nutrients, germinate, and grow into seedlings.
Moreover, because people in Taohua Village knew the Green Spirit Technique, the spirit rice seedlings would grow faster than ordinary people’s Spirit Rice No.5.
Once the spirit rice seedlings grew, everyone could divert river water into the spirit fields to irrigate the rice.
Some families would also begin to raise rice flower spirit fish in the paddy fields after introducing river water. Rice flower spirit fish were different from ordinary river fish, being especially delicious.
Li Xi’s family raised rice flower spirit fish every year.
Thinking of this, Li Xi’s mouth watered, “Should I raise rice flower spirit fish in my spirit field?”