"All right, my eyes are closed!"
Xiao Yi Xian waited quietly for a moment. When she felt nothing unusual around her, she could not help softly reminding Xia Kong.
"Mm, Xian'er, you can open your eyes now."
A smile played at the corners of Xia Kong's lips. He secretly looked forward to seeing Xiao Yi Xian so shocked that she lost her composure at the sight of this world.
Xiao Yi Xian still had no idea that she had been brought into an entirely unfamiliar alternate space. Her clear eyes slowly opened, filled with bewilderment. In the next instant, her pupils abruptly contracted, and disbelief covered her face.
"Oh! Where are we?"
The first thing that caught her eye was the exquisitely crafted, two-story pavilion at the center of the space.
"How did you bring me here? I didn't notice even the slightest movement!"
"Hehe, this is my greatest secret." Xia Kong grinned smugly. "This is a strange space bound tightly to my soul that I carry with me. You can think of it as a special Storage Ring that living people can stay inside."
A flash of realization struck Xiao Yi Xian, and fragments of the past instantly flooded her mind. She remembered several occasions when Xia Kong had vanished into thin air right before her eyes. It had not been because he moved too fast for her to perceive him-he had simply hidden inside this portable space.
Once she understood what had happened, Xiao Yi Xian calmed down a little. With his mischievous streak thoroughly satisfied, Xia Kong led her on a leisurely tour of the pavilion's interior. He even made a point of showing her the room they could live in together in the future, along with the large bed, far softer and more comfortable than the one in the Mountain Valley's wooden cabin.
Of course, within the farm space, the central pavilion was merely a sideshow. The farmland and crops, with their heaven-defying effects, were the true main attraction.
After touring the pavilion, the two headed outside, where thirty neat plots of farmland were evenly arranged around it.
The level-three crops planted ten days earlier had all fully ripened. Their plentiful fruits were large and plump, their colors bright, and their sweet, fresh fragrance filled the air, refreshing the heart and soul.
"So all those spiritual plant ingredients we usually eat come from here."
Xiao Yi Xian immediately grew interested and crouched down. One moment, she carefully compared the differences between the level-three radish and level-three potato plants; the next, she leaned closer to inhale the rich fragrance of the Level-Three Strawberries and level-three blueberries. As a physician, she was intensely curious about every plant and medicinal herb here and eager to investigate them.
Level-three blueberries had the unusual ability to accelerate the healing of external injuries. Back in Wutan City, Xia Kong rarely fought or suffered injuries, so he had not planted any. Only after arriving in the Magical Beast Mountain Range and frequently battling magic beasts had he added blueberries to his planting list.
"All right, Xian'er, you'll have plenty of time to study them later. Right now, we need to hurry and harvest all these ripe crops so we can plant the next batch."
As Xia Kong spoke, he took a Herb-Digging Trowel from the warehouse, bent down to dig up a level-three potato plant, and plucked off its heavy tubers.
Under Xiao Yi Xian's astonished gaze, the stems and leaves that had been lush, green, and brimming with life just a moment earlier vanished without a trace.
"The plant just disappeared into thin air?"
"That's right. All the nutrients the plant absorbed were concentrated into the essence of its fruit." Xia Kong nodded and patiently explained.
As his words fell, he summoned the Farm Shop panel with a thought and displayed it before Xiao Yi Xian. "Right now, I can buy seven types of crop seeds in total. You've already eaten five of them."
He looked at Xiao Yi Xian with a hint of teasing in his eyes, without explaining the other two varieties she had never tasted.
But Xiao Yi Xian could see them clearly. One of the two she had never eaten was the blueberry she had just been studying, which had remarkable healing effects.
She had seen the other one too: the cucumber Xia Kong always took out and munched on after they were intimate. And the cucumber's effect was detoxification.
At this sight, Xiao Yi Xian's feelings became terribly complicated. She did not know whether to cry or laugh, whether to feel upset or touched.
To think she had always suspected that Xia Kong was unaffected by the toxins in her body because he possessed a poison immunity similar to hers-only without the woeful poison body, which meant he could not rapidly improve his cultivation by consuming poison.
Now it seemed he had no poison immunity at all. He was relying entirely on those little detoxifying cucumbers to keep going.
Yet even so, Xia Kong was still so... so eager to ask her for a sweet kiss at every opportunity, and he never turned her down when she occasionally lost herself in passion.
Insisting on cuddling even if it means getting poisoned-is this the pleasure mixed with pain people talk about?
Feeling deeply guilty, Xiao Yi Xian stole a glance at Xia Kong.
Xia Kong had no idea that Xiao Yi Xian's thoughts had once again flown beyond the nine heavens. He continued introducing her to the farm space.
"Buying seeds costs gold coins, and you can exchange ripe produce for gold coins. The exchange price of the produce is ten times the price of the seeds, so under normal circumstances, there's no need to worry about running short. Just remember one thing: it's best not to let the gold coin balance fall below the warning threshold."
Xiao Yi Xian gradually came back to her senses and listened fairly attentively.
Xia Kong glanced at the panel. His current gold coin balance was 2,600. That left only 1,100 above the level-three warning threshold of 1,500 he had set for himself.
Once he had briefly explained the basic rules, Xiao Yi Xian's accumulated curiosity came pouring out, and she asked one question after another.
For instance, she asked what lay beyond the chaotic mist at the edge of the space.
Xia Kong frankly admitted that he did not know either. He had thrown objects into the mist before, and even unconscious small animals. Yet when he broke through and the space expanded, clearing away the mist, everything he had thrown inside was gone without a trace, as though it had vanished into thin air.
For that reason, he very solemnly warned Xiao Yi Xian never to approach or enter the mist.
Xiao Yi Xian looked equally serious and firmly agreed.
Then she asked about the conditions for entering this space.
Xia Kong answered, "You need to trust me completely and be willing to entrust your life to me."
Upon hearing this prerequisite for entering the space, Xiao Yi Xian's cheeks instantly turned as red as the evening clouds, and she did not dare lift her eyes to meet Xia Kong's gaze. Although she had long since told him that she trusted him completely, having her feelings confirmed in this way still left her terribly bashful.
Faced with Xiao Yi Xian's endless questions, Xia Kong carefully answered everything he knew and never made up answers for anything he did not. Amid their questions and answers, they finished harvesting all thirty plots.
Xia Kong tried having Xiao Yi Xian summon the panel herself, exchange the produce, and purchase seeds, but the interface showed no response whatsoever.
For now, he could not determine whether only he could operate the panel or whether some other hidden conditions were involved. It seemed his plan to slack off and leave the entire farm in Xiao Yi Xian's care would not work just yet.
Xia Kong had no choice but to buy the seeds himself, then hand them to Xiao Yi Xian so she could dig holes and plant them.
He followed behind her, watering the newly buried level-three seeds with sacred water. A batch of level-three crops took ten days to mature, which corresponded to a cost of ten drops of sacred water.
The moment Xiao Yi Xian buried a level-three rice seed in the soil, Xia Kong poured ten drops of sacred water onto it. The seed beneath their feet immediately broke through the soil, rapidly sprouting stems and leaves before flowering and bearing fruit. Xia Kong then harvested the produce and stored it in his backpack warehouse.
Watering with sacred water and harvesting the produce was far faster than Xiao Yi Xian's planting process of digging, placing the seeds, and covering them with soil.
By the time Xiao Yi Xian had painstakingly planted all thirty seeds, Xia Kong had already harvested and stored the thirtieth crop.
Xiao Yi Xian had wanted to admire the results of her own labor, only to find nothing but bare plots before her, as though all her hard work had just flowed away down the river.
Of course, she understood why, but she still shot an annoyed glare at Xia Kong, who was intent on slacking off.
But when Xia Kong spent another three hundred gold coins and handed her thirty level-one crop seeds, Xiao Yi Xian nearly rolled her eyes all the way up to the heavens.
Xia Kong also realized that this was rather excessive. He immediately divided off half the seeds, picked up his little trowel, and joined Xiao Yi Xian in working the fields.
After those two rounds of expenditure, his gold coin balance had fallen below the level-three warning threshold, leaving only nine hundred coins.
Thus, the purpose of planting level-one crops this time was to replenish his coffers by exchanging the produce.
Level-one crops matured in just one day. Exchanging the entire harvest would bring in three thousand gold coins, for a net profit of two thousand seven hundred. After just a few consecutive rounds of planting, his balance would easily climb past ten thousand again, and he would no longer need to worry about running short of gold coins.
Before you continue