The moon was bright and the stars were sparse.
From time to time, faint crying sounds drifted out from the Chen family ancestral tombs.
"Grandma Chen, the dead cannot be brought back to life, you must grieve with restraint," Xian He gently consoled. He stood behind Grandma Chen with his arms crossed, trembling as he looked around, terrified that a fierce ghost might pounce out and attack him.
After bustling about for most of the night, they had finally managed to bury Grandma Chen's son.
According to Grandma Chen, her son had been cruelly murdered by Greedy Wolf. It was an unnatural death, carrying a high probability that he would turn into a fierce ghost and return to exact his life.
However, every debt has its debtor and every grievance has its perpetrator; since he had not killed the man himself, even if Chen Zhou turned into a fierce ghost, he ought not to come looking for him.
Brother Chen Zhou, I helped boil hot water, helped transport the corpse, and helped dig the burial pit. You might as well not thank me, but please absolutely do not come looking for me. I will take good care of your old mother and daughter for you, and in the future, I will even wipe out Greedy Wolf to avenge you. You must absolutely not come looking for me.
Xian He pressed his palms together and prayed inwardly.
"Whoosh—"
Suddenly, a gust of eerie wind blew up, carrying a bone-chilling cold as it swept away toward the southern night sky.
Grandma Chen wiped away her tears, leaned on her walking stick, slowly stood up, and said in a deep voice, "Let's go, let's head back."
Xian He nodded, hurriedly fleeing from the graveyard, as he had long since wished to stay no longer.
After going from door to door to return the money he had previously borrowed, Grandma Chen entered the Mountain River Society Diagram to reunite with her little granddaughter.
Xian He dug up ten Muyang Tree saplings, shouldered them back to his house, and then followed her inside.
Not just anything could be stored inside the Mountain River Society Diagram; if the target's weight exceeded his strength, it could not be stored within.
His strength was only a little over two hundred catties, so he could only store saplings and not thick, sturdy mature trees.
It was worth mentioning that before Grandma Chen left, she told Xian He not to tell Chen Jingjing about Chen Zhou's death.
Because she was the sole remaining seedling of the Chen family, Grandma Chen did not want her to do anything foolish and cut off the Chen family's incense.
Grandma Chen had even hinted that Chen Jingjing could become Xian He's concubine, but he had brushed it off with the excuse that Chen Jingjing was still young.
Though fond of beauty, he still had a bottom line!
The Inner World.
Having procured the saplings, Xian He immediately set about planting them.
The open space in the back courtyard was limited, and Xian He did not intend to waste it on planting Muyang Trees; he prepared to plant the saplings on the opposite bank of the river.
"Master, is it okay to dig the pit this deep?" the maid Muyang asked in a muffled voice, resembling an upright brown bear.
Ever since shaking off the slave traders, her days had grown much better. Every day she did not have to endure hunger, nor did she have to be whipped at will.
The mistress treated people exceptionally well, without the slightest trace of looking down on her, and would share any tasty treats with her.
However, compared to the kind-hearted and easy-going mistress, the master was somewhat difficult to get along with and extremely stern.
Hearing Muyang's voice, Xian He stuck his shovel into the ground, jumped out of the pit, walked over to her side, lowered his head to glance down, and said, "Grandma Chen said to dig one chi, you dug a bit too deep. Forget it, deep is deep, just make do and plant it."
He had only dug half a chi himself, yet Muyang had dug over a chi deep; her work efficiency was rather fast indeed.
One had to admire Grandma Chen's eye for picking people—Muyang truly was a fine piece of material for hard work.
He hoped Grandma Chen could live a little longer and select a few more capable servants for him.
After planting all ten saplings and watering them with the water from Fairy River, the saplings did not exhibit the crazy growth that the Crystal Pomegranate Tree had, which left Xian He somewhat puzzled.
Could it be the reason that the Muyang Tree saplings were not system-produced?
Or perhaps it was a factor of the soil?
Harboring a try-it-and-see attitude, Xian He plucked up a Muyang Tree sapling and transplanted it to the open space in the back courtyard.
As a result, the very moment he finished watering, the Muyang Tree sapling grew frantically, turning into a towering tree in the blink of an eye, its verdant canopy covering a quarter of the courtyard.
"Good grief, it really is the soil's fault." Gazing at the tree, several hundred meters tall and thick enough for three people to hug, Xian He understood in a flash.
Viewed this way, if he wanted to plant trees or anything else in the future, he would definitely have to do it in the open space of the courtyard.
It is easy to invite a deity but hard to send them away; the Muyang Tree was so tall and sturdy that it likely weighed several tons. He would be unable to move it away to plant new things in the short term.
The wood powder produced by a single Muyang Tree was already enough for a family to eat, so Xian He temporarily did not plan to plant Muyang Trees in the remaining two patches of open space.
The open space was neither too big nor too small, measuring ten meters square; using it to cultivate paddy rice should also produce quite a yield.
Xian He licked his lips and thought to himself I'll find a way to get some rice seeds back tomorrow.
In the Sky Fortune Tribe, rice was an extremely precious commodity that only a tiny fraction of nobility could afford; a single bag of rice could even be traded for a poor family's pretty daughter.
If he had rice, he could buy Rem and Ram back and embark on the great enterprise of having many children and accumulating many blessings.
However, rice was so expensive that it would take a lot of capital to buy the seeds.
"I still have to find a way to make money!" Xian He frowned in thought.
The Crystal Pomegranate could not be sold; Yun Ling was about to give birth and needed it to replenish her nutrition.
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