Two days later, the Yellow Barley Malt Grass in the five mu Spirit Field at the manor had all ripened, turning the whole field a brilliant golden yellow.
Under the sunlight, the entire manor complex gleamed with dazzling golden splendor.
Only after seeing such a breathtaking sight did Lu Wanyuan understand why Chu Tianxing had asked him to plant the Yellow Barley Malt Grass here.
He guessed this place was meant to set off the buildings, not to grow crops.
Though the beautiful scenery was pleasing to the eye, at this moment, it couldn't put food on Lu Wanyuan's table.
He still needed to harvest the Yellow Barley Malt Grass to cover his and Baili Qiuyue's expenses.
With no other choice, he took out the Mysterious Ice Iron Sickle. After he infused it with spiritual power, the sickle suddenly extended into a massive, one-zhang-long blade, and spiritual power began pouring rapidly from his body into it.
Feeling the change, he immediately understood what was happening. The sickle really had grown longer, and it was more efficient, too!
The problem was that all this came at the cost of spiritual power. Fortunately, he was now a Qi Refining third-layer cultivator. If he were still at Qi Refining Level 1, he would have been lucky just to extend the sickle, let alone use it to harvest the Yellow Bud Wheat Spirit Grass!
The one-zhang-long Spirit Sickle sliced cleanly through the Yellow Bud Wheat Spirit Grass before it even reached the roots, its blade's gleam cutting through with a remarkably smooth edge.
There wasn't the slightest hitch!
It seemed this thing really was worth the price. In less than the time it took to brew a cup of tea, he had harvested half a mu of Yellow Barley Malt Grass.
The reason it had taken only that long was that the spiritual power in his Dantian wasn't enough to keep the sickle going any longer. He had no choice but to stop and cultivate to replenish it.
If he had enough spiritual power, the sickle could probably grow even longer. He wondered whether a single sweep could cover the entire five mu Spirit Field.
Then he could harvest it all in less than the time it took to brew a cup of tea.
It seemed that no matter what you did, you couldn't do without spiritual power!
The higher one's Cultivation Realm, the more formidable one's strength. No wonder so many cultivators devoted themselves to improving their cultivation and were willing to do anything else for it!
After resting for two hours, Lu Wanyuan felt the spiritual power in his Dantian had recovered. He immediately poured it into the Mysterious Ice Iron Sickle and quickly resumed harvesting the Yellow Bud Wheat Spirit Grass.
He worked through the better part of the day, repeating the process again and again. It took a full day to finish harvesting the Yellow Bud Wheat Spirit Grass in the five mu Spirit Field.
It took another two days to pluck all the golden leaves from the five mu of Yellow Bud Wheat Grass. Fortunately, the golden leaves didn't change shape or color after being harvested.
Even after they had been plucked, the golden leaves showed no obvious change.
Of course, they would eventually change if left too long, so Lu Wanyuan immediately stored away all the leaves he had gathered.
Once he was done, he sold the golden leaves to Laiyun Zhai and received 3,450 Spirit Stones. He then bought some flower seeds to plant in the flower beds.
Next, he went to the Spirit Bird Market and bought several more Silver Moon Spirit Carp like the ones he had bought last time, spending 500 Spirit Stones. Apart from one that he and Baili Qiuyue ate, he put the other six into the manor's Spirit Fish pond.
Time passed without his noticing, and before long, more than a month had gone by.
Looking at the Spirit Fish swimming in the pond, Lu Wanyuan was filled with mixed feelings. He had only wanted to add a touch of beauty to the place. When he bought the fish a month ago, he hadn't paid attention and had ended up bringing home several female Silver Moon Spirit Carp. Now, there were more than a hundred thousand fry in the pond.
He didn't even know when all those fry had appeared.
Seeing so many of them made him both eager and uneasy. The sudden appearance of so many Spirit Fish fry was certainly exciting.
But once the excitement passed, worry set in. With so many fry, they would need a great deal of food to grow.
Another problem was that he still had no idea what Spirit Fish ate. That worried him most of all.
If he couldn't figure it out, all those fry would be doomed, wasted for nothing. What a terrible shame!
This had been getting him down for days. He had bought a whole stack of books about Spirit Birds to study, hoping to find out how to raise Silver Moon Spirit Carp, but none of them contained a single thing about the fish.
He had lost heart and decided to let the Silver Moon Spirit Carp fend for themselves.
Still, watching them glide leisurely through the pond, carefree and graceful, was a delight. If he could raise all those fry to maturity, what a magnificent sight it would be!
The pond would surely be filled to the brim with silver-white Silver Moon Spirit Carp—a whole pool of dazzling silver light.
"Huh? Silver Moon Spirit Carp!"
Just as he was watching the school of Silver Moon Spirit Carp in the pond, a surprised voice suddenly rang out.
The sound gave Lu Wanyuan a fright. Normally, no one entered the manor. After all, the manor was protected by a Forbidden Seal. The only reason he had been able to enter was that its owner, Chu Tianxing, had given him a Forbidden Seal token.
Following the voice, Lu Wanyuan immediately spotted Chu Tianxing standing at the nearby Rain Pavilion, gazing at the school of Silver Moon Spirit Carp in the pond.
He had no idea when Chu Tianxing had arrived at the manor.
"Fellow Daoist Chu, when did you get back?"
"Not long ago—just now, while you were lost in watching the Silver Moon Spirit Carp. Did you do all this?"
Chu Tianxing pointed to the transformed surroundings before them and asked with a smile.
"I'm sorry, Fellow Daoist Chu. I tidied up the surroundings without your permission. Please forgive me."
Lu Wanyuan spoke with some concern. To be honest, he was only renting the place. He had changed things without the owner's permission and worried Chu Tianxing might be unhappy. Some people didn't like others altering the original layout or surroundings.
"Ha, it's fine! Especially the Silver Moon Spirit Carp in this pond. There used to be Silver Moon Spirit Carp here, but no one looked after them, and eventually they all disappeared."
"Really? There used to be Silver Moon Spirit Carp here?"
"Of course. Silver Moon Spirit Carp are ornamental Spirit Fish."
"Oh. Then, Fellow Daoist Chu, what do they eat?"
"Are you thinking of raising these Silver Moon Spirit Carp?"
"Yes. I couldn't bear to leave so many of them to their fate. The pond used to look so desolate, so I bought Silver Moon Spirit Carp from outside."
"Who would have thought the pond used to have Silver Moon Spirit Carp, too? I'd stumbled into the right thing at just the right time—the female Silver Moon Spirit Carp actually spawned all these fry. Seeing so many of them here, if I don't figure out how to raise them, they'll all die. I've been worrying about this for days."
Lu Wanyuan looked at Chu Tianxing and spoke with a sigh.
"Oh, so that's how it is. I can see you've tidied up the area around the buildings. You've certainly put a lot of care into the place, Fellow Daoist Lu."
"This manor used to be a base for my Lineage. Later, as the Lineage grew, the Chu Family moved its operations to a big city. Yangmei Market is a remote place, and it no longer suited the scale of our family's development."
"Most of the Chu Family members don't have time to come back here. I only return now and then, so the place gradually fell into disrepair. But I'm afraid I won't have time to come back in the future, either!"
"I can see you truly care about everything here. How about this? I can decide to sell you the manor. If you two can gather 3,500 Spirit Stones, I'll hand over the Deed. What do you think?"
After speaking, Chu Tianxing looked at Lu Wanyuan.
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