Chapter 78: Two Months

Weren’t the children of the flower-planting nation supposed to have the Shennong^[1] gene flowing in their blood? Why did he have to win the reverse genetic lottery?! Even a mutation shouldn’t go to such extremes!

Besides, who on earth tilled spiritual fields with this level of micro-manipulation? Back when he worked as a lab assistant for his seniors, he hadn’t been this careful even under a microscope. It was just… ridiculous.

But the real kicker was that he had a freakishly talented friend who had perfectly and precisely completed the task assigned by the Lingyao Peak senior brother, making the whole thing even more ridiculous.

Bian Chunzhou rubbed his eyes, feeling as though his own two eyes were nothing but ornaments. This was outright bullying. The Danxiang Grass bullied him, and even the herb fields of Lingyao Peak bullied him.

If there was any silver lining to this misfortune, it was that he hadn’t been blacklisted by Lingyao Peak yet. Heh.

Bian Chunzhou had entered with grand ambitions, but now? Wen Xuxu only had him and Chen Zui as close peers. Chen Zui was already on the honor board, so he should at least… work hard and try not to get blacklisted.

Just two more days. You can do this, Bian Chunzhou. Just close your eyes, kick your legs… and you’ll pass right out.

“I can’t do it, I really can’t, Senior Brother! Please, spare me. Do we absolutely have to plant this Wind-Rain Sunless Flower?”

The senior brother flashed a textbook eight-tooth smile, but to Bian Chunzhou, it looked like a leopard baring its sharp, terrifying fangs. “Junior Brother Bian, we absolutely must plant it. It’s actually not that hard, right?”

The Wind-Rain Sunless Flower, as the name suggested, could not be exposed to the sun, not even to a single speck of sunlight. Yet, it required natural wind, frost, rain, and dew. Therefore, tilling the spiritual field for it was a highly delicate process. Aside from using spiritual energy to anchor its roots, one also had to set up a spiritual barrier to block out the sunlight while letting in the wind and rain.

Even more bizarrely, the flower’s roots were extremely short, only about the length of a child’s knuckle. If the root system grew too long, it would easily “die of depression.” Thus, the soil could not be too fertile, nor could it be too barren. Tilling it was… a matter of extreme micro-manipulation.

Bian Chunzhou thought he had seen the world, but as it turned out, he was still too young. How was this planting spiritual herbs? It was clearly serving an ancestor.

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

Aside from the times someone made a mistake and he transformed into a terrifying, raging dragon, the senior brother was usually quite easy to talk to. He was especially eager to share knowledge about spiritual plants. “Of course not. The cultivation conditions for the Wind-Rain Sunless Flower are harsh, so they are almost never found in the wild. If you do find one, its medicinal efficacy would be hundreds or thousands of times stronger than a cultivated one. If you ever come across one in the future, make sure to harvest it.”

“That powerful?”

“Of course. Just like the King Danxiang Grass, it cannot be precisely cultivated by human hands. It is a gift from nature.”

At the phrase “gift from nature,” Bian Chunzhou was taken aback. “So, what we are doing now is…”

“Yes, Junior Brother. We are merely copying others. And that ‘other’ is the Heavenly Dao of nature.”

Bian Chunzhou: …Like hell I believe you! You just want to trick me into farming!

The senior brother rubbed his fingers regretfully. Sigh, junior brothers these days are getting harder and harder to fool. The same goes for the Little Grand-Uncle Master next door. The wind element is really too useful. To think there is actually someone born with the ability to perceive the uniqueness of every single spiritual plant.

And not just every species, but every single individual plant.

The unique advantage of the Mutated Wind Spiritual Root in terms of spiritual plant affinity was simply unmatched, even bordering on terrifying.

Wen Xu had noticed this too. In fact, he had vaguely sensed it as early as his time in the Poyun Secret Realm. However, after he joined Yonglu Mountain and became the disciple of Venerable Chengwei, having a Body Integration powerhouse as his master had caused him to overlook this talent.

Or rather, due to his limited experience at the time, he had not thought that identifying spiritual plants was any sort of significant talent.

Wen Xu was a scholar, raised on the books of the sages. Although those books claimed that agriculture was the foundation of a nation, and the social hierarchy of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants seemed orderly, in reality, the scholar-gentry class stood far above the rest. The other three classes merely acted according to the whims of the gentry. As for farming, in his youth, he had seen many farmers who could not feed or clothe themselves reduced to begging. In fact, the majority of beggars had once been farmers who relied on the land for survival.

While alchemists and Mystic Physicians in the cultivation world were indeed highly lucrative, Wen Xu, who desired raw strength, had never planned to rely on his affinity for spiritual plants. He knew very well that a person’s energy was limited. Trying to grasp everything would only lead to losing it all.

Even now, his decision had not changed.

However, he found that tilling spiritual fields and tending to spiritual plants was a task that brought great peace of mind and allowed him to commune with nature. He had not noticed any so-called tempering of his Dao heart. Instead, standing in the spiritual fields, feeling the wind sweep across the tips of the plants and brush past his hands, ears, and feet, the information carried by the wind felt pure and passionate. Here, the wind and everything else merged into one.

In the first layer of the 《Art of Myriad Things Co-Creation》, “The Birth of All Things”, the wind and all things coexisted and grew together. When the spring wind rose, all things revived, and with their revival, the wind began to nourish the earth. It flowed through every inch of the world, free, passionate, wild, and unconstrained. The wind would never stop, just as the world would never lack life.

Holding his hoe, Wen Xu could fully perceive the true state of the earth beneath him with his current senses. In the soil not far away, coaxed by the whispers of the wind, a fragile sprout was breaking through the dirt. He had always known that life did not come easily, but this was the first time he had ever perceived the rhythm of life so clearly.

Wen Xu had also participated in poetry gatherings and written poems about the wind. At the time, those poems had sounded decent, but looking back now, they were simply… utter nonsense. The wind is the messenger of life, Wen Xu thought with certainty.

Moved by this gentle realization, the spiritual energy gathered on his hoe grew warm and gentle. Like an embroidery needle in a mother’s hand, it precisely turned the soil, sowed the spiritual seeds, and covered them with a spiritual barrier. With that, this patch of land was successfully tilled.

Not far away, Bian Chunzhou was still wrestling with the Wind-Rain Sunless Flower. Help, Senior Brother, you don’t have to look at me with such a gloomy expression! I’ll do it, alright? I’ll do it!

“Three days! Senior Brother, do you have any idea how I survived these past three days?!” Bian Chunzhou’s eyes were bloodshot, the red veins showing just how hard he had worked. Heaven only knew how fast he had run to Kaiyuan Peak to hand in his mission token.

The senior brother in charge of registering farming missions at Kaiyuan Peak was already used to this. What was there to be surprised about? It was just another newbie junior brother going crazy :).

“Junior Brother, my condolences. We’ve all been through it,” the senior brother offered some routine, assembly-line comfort. “Oh, by the way, where is Little Grand-Uncle Master’s token?”

Generally speaking, one had to show up in person to accept missions at Kaiyuan Peak. However, Wen Xu was blind and held a high status, so he had delegated the task directly to Bian Chunzhou. The disciples on duty at Kaiyuan Peak were all well aware of this.

“…Um, he’s still up on Lingyao Peak.”

The senior brother from Kaiyuan Peak was astonished. “If I remember correctly, today is the third day, right?”

“…Yes, it is.”

As expected of someone with a Mutated Spiritual Root, to be so terrifyingly formidable. This senior brother from Kaiyuan Peak was a gossip; he shared the news the moment he turned around. And then… a bunch of people with nothing better to do began waiting for the bulletin board on Lingyao Peak to update its data.

This wait lasted for a full two months.

Good grief, two months! That was a full sixty days! A total of twenty three-day periods. In fact, around the one-month mark, some busybodies had already taken on missions at Lingyao Peak just to go and investigate. And then…

“No, no, no, no. The sight I saw that day… I’ll need my whole life to heal from it.”

“So what on earth did you see?! Tell us!”

“I saw a gentle, soft-spoken, and sweet Senior Brother Cui. Do you understand me?! That was Senior Brother Cui of Lingyao Peak!”

“…No, what nonsense are you talking? That’s the merciless Senior Brother Cui!”

24. “No, I am sober. In fact, I’ve never been more sober!”

See? This kid must have broken his brain from tilling the soil. Look at him, he couldn’t even speak properly anymore. How pitiful.

Yet the rumors continued to spread, growing more ridiculous by the day. By the time Chen Zui emerged from the secret realm after a brush with death, he found… Huh? The world outside had completely changed.

“Why is everyone so sure that I can’t beat Wen Xu now? Where is he?”

Bian Chunzhou gave him a “you’re still too young” look. “He’s at Lingyao Peak.”

Having just emerged from the secret realm, Chen Zui’s aura was incredibly intense. His master had ordered him to stop practicing his saber for two days to let the murderous aura disperse before resuming his cultivation. Exhausted from his ordeal, he was unusually obedient for once. Of course, even if he wasn’t, his senior brothers on Saber Peak would have forced him to comply anyway.

“What is he doing at Lingyao Peak?”

“Tilling spiritual fields.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

Bian Chunzhou’s tone was eerie. “He has been at Lingyao Peak for a full two months.”

Chen Zui’s eyes widened. “How long?”

“You didn’t mishear.”

He had originally thought he had made massive progress in the secret realm, but now, Chen Zui’s heart instantly settled. “I’m looking forward to fighting him again.”

Bian Chunzhou gave a light snort. “Fight, my foot. Let’s go, let’s go. Since you have nothing to do anyway, come down the mountain with me.”

“For what?” From his expression, he clearly didn’t want to go.

“To make dumplings. Ah, you don’t get it! I promised Wen Xuxu that I’d give him a surprise, and he even invited us to watch the sunrise. Don’t you want to fight him again?”

Bian Chunzhou always had all sorts of bizarre reasons to convince Chen Zui. Sure enough, Chen Zui immediately gave in this time.

“What’s so good about a sunrise? Why make a special plan for it?” Chen Zui didn’t quite understand. He practiced his saber every day before dawn, facing the morning dew. He had seen plenty of sunrises, and there was really nothing special about them.

It was just a bright red egg yolk popping over the horizon. The sunrise on Yonglu Mountain was no different from the sunrise back home. Could watching it with three people really make it any different?

“Of course it is!” Bian Chunzhou retorted. “Besides, this is the sunrise of the first day of the new calendar. Have you seriously never watched a sunrise with friends before?”

Chen Zui thought about it, shook his head, and spoke honestly, “Indeed I haven’t. You and Wen Xu are the first friends I’ve ever made.”

Bian Chunzhou: …Why does that sound a little familiar?