Night gradually deepened.
Aside from a few romantic couples who had rented tents to camp at Qinglin Villa, there were no guests left.
Qin Lin rode his little electric scooter out of the villa with Zhao Moqing.
It was gradually approaching mid-October, and the night air felt a little chilly on the scooter. Feeling the cold, Zhao Moqing hugged Qin Lin tightly and pressed herself against his back.
"Moqing, let's buy a car first. What brand do you like?" Qin Lin felt the chill too.
It would get even colder before long. Riding the scooter out would become a real ordeal.
They hadn't had the means before, but now they did. He couldn't let Zhao Moqing suffer like this whenever she went out.
"You haven't paid off the debt from the villa yet, and now you're planning a rafting project. Do you have enough money? Why don't we wait until the debt is paid off? We don't need a car to show off." Zhao Moqing knew Qin Lin had borrowed several million to develop the villa, and that the rafting project would cost a lot too.
The villa had only just started taking off, so naturally she wanted him to spend the money where it mattered most.
Of course, she didn't know that Qin Lin had made money from business that required no capital, nor did she know he didn't owe anyone a thing.
But her heartfelt words filled Qin Lin with happiness. Compared with that troublemaking woman, Zhao Moqing was the finest gift Heaven had given him.
After dropping Zhao Moqing off at Dongcheng Mingyuan and watching her go upstairs, Qin Lin finally left with peace of mind.
In a good mood, Zhao Moqing hummed a cheerful tune as she headed upstairs.
Qin Lin's life was looking brighter and brighter, and the pressure she'd been carrying finally eased.
She'd secretly taken her household register and married Qin Lin because she truly loved him and believed they could work hard together and build a wonderful future.
Now everything was moving in a good direction.
Qin Lin was doing so well that her parents no longer had to worry she'd suffer if she married him.
When she got home, she saw her mother and sister-in-law watching a melodramatic Korean drama. It seemed to be about one shocking twist after another on the top floor of an apartment building.
"It's so late. Were you with Qin Lin again?" Chen Xiao asked the moment her daughter came in.
"Mom, you look so beautiful tonight. You look years younger," Zhao Moqing said at once, changing the subject.
"You're changing the subject again." Chen Xiao gave her a disgruntled look. "Tomorrow's the weekend. Come with me to Auntie Liu's birthday party."
"Mom, you can go to Auntie Liu's birthday by yourself. I have plans tomorrow." Zhao Moqing said this and immediately slipped away to her room.
She knew Auntie Liu had a son who'd just come back. Her mother watched Qin Lin as if he were a thief, so she thought she should talk it over with him and just come clean.
In the living room.
Seeing Zhao Moqing shut the door, Chen Xiao turned to Li Jiawen with an exasperated look. "She's definitely going to see Qin Lin again tomorrow. You're her sister-in-law—why don't you say something to her? I'm not saying Qin Lin is a bad person, but do you really want to watch your sister-in-law suffer with him?"
"Mom, Moqing gave me some tickets to the flower fields last time. My friends and I arranged to go see them tomorrow. One of them just sent me a voice message." Li Jiawen said this, then pretended to pick up her phone and talk to thin air.
To be honest, she and Zhao Moqing were about the same age, so she understood her sister-in-law's feelings.
And because of Zhao Moqing, she'd had some contact with Qin Lin. Setting his family circumstances aside, he was actually a very good person.
When Qin Lin got home, he saw his mother holding Wangcai and watching a melodramatic TV show. He glanced at the title. It seemed to be a drama full of one plot twist after another, all happening on the top floor of a building.
The show seemed to be quite popular lately, especially among women in their thirties to fifties.
"You're back?" Lin Fen saw her son return, turned off the TV, and stood up.
Wangcai sprang up and ran over to greet him, circling around him.
"Mom, how are you feeling today?" Qin Lin asked with a smile.
"Fine physically, but not fine emotionally!" Lin Fen huffed.
Qin Lin paused. "Mom, what's wrong? Who upset you? Was it Wangcai?"
"Woof, woof!" Wangcai immediately barked and hopped around, as if in a hurry to explain, It wasn't me!
Lin Fen snorted. "Don't blame Wangcai. You're the one who upset me. Don't you know people can't stay cooped up at home all day? They need to get out more and do a little work now and then, or they'll get sick from being cooped up. I'm not like Second Aunt Gen and Aunt Dalin, who have children to look after..."
"Mom, that's enough. I'll let you go to the villa tomorrow, okay?" Qin Lin saw what his mother was getting at.
She really wasn't going to let this go.
For the past month or so, he'd been giving his mother Quality 2 Wild Crucian Carp every day. With the +2 attribute boost, she'd gotten healthier, too. As long as it made her happy, he'd let her do a little light work at the front desk.
Seeing she'd gotten what she wanted, Lin Fen happily turned the TV back on and resumed watching the melodrama.
Qin Lin took a shower and went back to his room. He had just dried himself off when a notification appeared in the light screen in his mind.
He immediately looked at the game on the light screen. Another crop had ripened.
It was the six plots he'd set aside specifically to sell okra in the game for game coins. They took longer to mature than the other 24 level-one plots.
Qin Lin controlled the Game Character to harvest the okra from those six plots and sell it in the game. As soon as he planted new seeds, he received a system notification: [Character Level-Up!]
He'd leveled up again!
Qin Lin's face lit up with joy, and he immediately checked the light screen in his mind.
After this level-up, another six plots had opened up, and he could also upgrade six level-one plots to level two.
In other words, the number of level-one plots stayed the same, but he now had six more level-two plots.
Besides that, he could develop a single level-one paddy field.
Qin Lin was taken aback.
A paddy field?
This updated version had one of those?
The old version definitely hadn't.
Qin Lin didn't dwell on it. He directly controlled the Game Character to develop all six newly opened level-one plots, then upgraded them to level two.
For the past month or so, he'd sold the okra grown on six level-one plots in the game every day, so he had enough coins to upgrade the land.
Once the six plots had been upgraded to level two, he planted strawberry seeds in them.
There were more tourists now, and the 600-plus pounds of Quality 1 strawberries he harvested each day weren't enough. Many tourists bought some, and because they tasted so good, some even took a few pounds home with them. That meant plenty of others couldn't get any at all.
With six more level-two plots, he'd be able to harvest another 600-plus pounds of Quality 1 red strawberries tomorrow, increasing his income by around 25,000 yuan.
Next, Qin Lin controlled the Game Character to develop the level-one paddy field, then sent the Game Character to the seed shop in Mineral Town. Sure enough, more seeds were available: rice, wheat, soybeans, corn, and other staple crops.
He already had fruit, vegetables, and seafood. Now the game had added staple foods too?
Besides, the price of rice had apparently climbed quite a bit lately. It was already over four yuan per pound.
But as he looked at the newly available seeds, he noticed something surprising:
[☆Xiangshui Rice Seed: Quality 1] [This is a special rice seed, carefully selected through years of research, strict quality control, and continuous refinement. It can be grown to produce Xiangshui Tribute Rice! Modified by the game, it can be grown in any season and has a chance to mutate, allowing it to adapt to one change in its environment. (Restriction: Game Seed) Maturity time: 12 hours.]
Xiangshui Tribute Rice?
Qin Lin was genuinely surprised.
Ordinary rice might cost only two to four yuan per pound, but the prices of some top-tier varieties were beyond what ordinary people could imagine. For example:
Jingyang Rice: 8,400 yuan per pound.
Wannian Tribute Rice: 6,900 yuan per pound.
Imperial Field Rouge Rice: 2,000 yuan per pound.
Beidahuang "First Rice": 1,888 yuan per pound.
Zhefang Tribute Rice: 499 yuan per pound.
Fangshui County Cold-Water Red Rice: 368 yuan per pound.
Just seeing those prices was enough to make anyone gasp. They were foods for the tables of the wealthy. Ordinary people couldn't afford to eat them—and could hardly believe the prices even existed.
Xiangshui Tribute Rice, meanwhile, cost 500 yuan per pound.
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