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All place names and personal names in this book are fictional. Please do not associate them with reality.

There will be lots of missing words later. A mess, right? A mess is exactly right. Guess why.

"Xiao Huan, when are you planning to head back to the city?" An old man with a head full of silver hair sat in a bamboo chair in the courtyard, kindly questioning the young man washing vegetables.

"Grandpa, I want to stay here a few more days and keep you company. I'll figure things out later." Ye Huan deftly handled the cucumbers and tomatoes in his hands as he looked up, a warm smile spreading across his face.

"Good, good. Staying a few more days is good too." The old man nodded in satisfaction. His children were all away working, leaving the house terribly quiet. Having Ye Huan with him really did make him feel less lonely.

This was a quiet, remote village in Chuanqian Province, Huaxia, on Blue Star. Although the village had fewer than a hundred households, its permanent population was small, since most of the young people chose to work elsewhere.

Most of those in the village were elderly people, women, and children.

Ever since graduating from Shencheng University in the year 2011 of the Blue Star calendar, Ye Huan had stayed in that bustling place, working hard and rarely returning home. Four years had now passed.

However, one evening in June 2015, he had picked up his bags and set off for home. This time, he had not told his grandfather or parents that he had already quit his job there, determined to put down roots on this land.

The reason was actually very simple. After an unexpected car accident took Ye Huan for a stroll along the edge of life and death, he had discovered, to his surprise, a miraculous spring-water space inside his body. It was not large, about one mu.

To his delight, Ye Huan had also discovered the trick: as long as he concentrated, he would appear inside the space. There was a spring, a thatched cottage, and that small patch of black soil.

He tried putting some objects inside. After repeated checks, he discovered to his astonishment that time in this space did not flow at the same rate as on Blue Star. The difference was outrageous: roughly one day outside equaled ten days inside.

Even more miraculously, he discovered that he could choose to enter the space with his entire body or with only his mind. Within this small space, his mental power was like a creator god, able to control everything, including life.

This discovery gave Ye Huan a glimpse of his future, one different from his present. He also discovered that the piece of jade he had worn since childhood, which he and his grandfather had dug up while treasure hunting deep in the mountains, had disappeared after his car accident. So he guessed that this space was probably connected to that jade.

But now was not the time to explore or ponder these things. At least, after a day of checking, he had confirmed that the space truly existed. After an hour of not knowing what to do, his shock had indeed turned to delight.

Why the hell would I keep going to work? That lousy job ran from eight in the morning to ten at night every day, sometimes even until midnight with overtime. The boss was a tightfisted bastard, completely unreasonable, and gave neither overtime pay nor time off in lieu.

So, the day after obtaining the space, Ye Huan had been planning to resign at the company. But the instant his left foot crossed the threshold, he was scolded again for no reason. Ye Huan exploded, showering that disgusting manager's face with spit as he berated him. Then he was fired, and returned to his rural hometown with a tiny bit of compensation and the twenty-odd thousand yuan he had saved over several years of hard work.

Ye Huan decided to return home and farm. He chose to come back, chose to stay, and would no longer work for someone else for a few measly scraps.

"Grandpa, I'm going into the mountains for another look around in a bit. I won't come over tonight, so remember to come to my place," Ye Huan said over the lunch he had made for his grandfather. He had gone into the mountains twice since returning, with unexpectedly enormous gains, so he wanted to look around again.

"Mm, go take care of your own things." His grandfather nodded.

Their family had roughly ten mu of grain fields, over ten mu of vegetable plots at the foot of the mountain behind them, and more than thirty mu of woodland on the mountain. No one farmed it, so his grandfather had planted some fruit trees in the woodland. The fields and vegetable plots were simple enough to manage; after all, during the busy farming season, harvesters helped bring in the grain~

"When's the autumn planting?" Ye Huan looked up and asked.

"In another ten days or so. Why do you ask?" his grandfather asked.

Ye Huan nodded. He could hardly tell his grandfather that he had better seed varieties in his space, could he? With the time ratio between his space and the outside world reaching ten days to one, he had already bought plenty of seeds and planted them inside.

"When I came back this time, a classmate working at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences sent me some good seeds. Let's plant those this year," Ye Huan told his grandfather.

"Sure. It's just me, so I haven't planted much. I planted less than five mu in the first half of the year. The rest is all sitting empty. It's enough to eat." His grandfather nodded.

"All right, I'll bring the seeds over tomorrow for you to handle. I really don't know how to do that." Ye Huan smiled.

His grandfather's home stood in the central part of the far end of the village, while Ye Huan's house lay tucked away in a secluded spot at the foot of the mountain beyond it. They were not very far apart, a little over two hundred meters.

Their family's thirty-odd mu of woodland lay on the mountain behind Ye Huan's house. Following a small path uphill brought one straight to the plot. There were quite a few fruit trees, but after no one tended them, the land had become overgrown.

Back in the day, Ye Huan's parents had also worked this land diligently, raising livestock and growing crops side by side.

However, because the road was remote and in disrepair, the fruit that should have fetched some money could only rot silently in the mountains, unable to leave this little mountain village.

Fruit merchants did come here, but the prices they offered were heartbreakingly low.

Ye Huan's parents had also tried transporting the fruit to town themselves to sell it. Yet even after spending more than two full hours getting out of the village and reaching town, their fruit still failed to fetch the prices they wanted.

Faced with this predicament, Ye Huan's parents were filled with helplessness and anger. But theirs was not the only household unwilling to accept it, nor was theirs the only village.

So, after a fierce argument, they resolutely left this land and went to distant Zhe Province to work.

Their departure left behind only that woodland, that lonely house, and Ye Huan's grandfather, an old man living alone.

Ye Huan had dared to quit because he had the security of a home to return to. With so much land and woodland, he refused to believe he could starve. Besides, there was a great mountain behind the house.

On Blue Star, there was no such thing as animal protection, except for giant pandas, rare tiger species such as South China tigers, and a mere dozen or so species of plants and animals. As for wild boars, wolves, and the like, as long as you could beat them, you were free to hunt them.

After all, forests covered 75 percent of Blue Star's land, while Huaxia, spanning more than ten million square kilometers, had a total population of fewer than 1.2 billion!

Now Ye Huan even possessed a mysterious spirit spring space. He called it a spirit spring because, when he first entered the space and tasted its water, he discovered that his years of hidden ailments and suboptimal health had been swept away.

The spring water seemed to contain endless life and vitality, restoring Ye Huan's body to its strongest condition and healing old injuries.

When Ye Huan entered the lone thatched cottage, he saw an ancient-looking jade tablet on a simple wooden table. The tablet lay quietly in a corner, covered in a layer of dust.

Ye Huan could not resist reaching out to touch it, its warmth and smoothness meeting his fingertips.

The instant his fingers touched the jade tablet, a strange power surged into his mind.

It turned out to be a classic called the "Shennong Scripture," but its contents were vast and varied. It included practical knowledge of farming and gathering herbs, profound theories of acupuncture points and meridians, and all kinds of strange arts: medicine and talismans, beast taming and sacrificial rites, ancient martial combat, pill refining, and qi refining.

What interested him most, however, was the "Longevity Dao Scripture," which he had already been quietly cultivating for more than a month.

Although Ye Huan did not know what this cultivation technique did, its name alone suggested it should be something good. He had practiced it for over a month now. Whatever else it did, he had personally felt his body grow lighter, his strength increase, and his skin improve. Even his slightly nearsighted eyes had recovered.

So Ye Huan knew full well that all these extraordinary encounters stemmed from that mysterious jade tablet. He resolved to turn this opportunity into strength of his own and become a true cultivator.

Ye Huan also discovered that drinking a few mouthfuls of spring water while practicing let him achieve twice the results with half the effort. That was why he had stayed at his own house these past few nights: he needed to enter the space to meditate and cultivate.

He not only drank it himself but also replaced his grandfather's drinking water with it. As for vegetables, he used those growing in his own backyard as cover, bringing vegetables grown in the space over every day to cook for his grandfather.

Ye Huan's grandfather had once been an expert mountain forager, which was how he had built up such a substantial family estate early on. Even without the space, Ye Huan really would not starve with all this farmland.

"Saihu~ Come on, head into the mountains with your big bro again!" After eating, Ye Huan called over the native dog his grandfather kept.

"Woof~~" Saihu finished the food in his bowl and came to his young master's side. Since cultivating the Beast Taming Art, Ye Huan could now roughly understand his meaning: "I'm done eating. Let's go." Then Saihu ran toward the foot of the mountain.

"We need to go home for a blade and a carrying basket first. What's the rush~" Ye Huan watched Saihu race off. The dog glanced at him, then ran toward Ye Huan's house without looking back.

"All that good water I gave you was wasted. You just run off by yourself, without even thinking to wait for me."

After returning home, he selected a custom-made machete, sharp and tough, then shouldered a small but sturdy bamboo carrying basket.

"Let's go." Anticipation flickered in Ye Huan's eyes. "Let's see if we can get anything today."

One man and one dog set off on their journey of exploration, one ahead of the other.

Starting directly from the woodland behind the house, they headed toward the unknown depths. Ye Huan could have navigated the first half hour's route accurately with his eyes closed. He had played in these woods since childhood, and every inch of land was etched deep in his heart.

Only after crossing that little peak, which was part of Ye Huan's family land, did they reach the starting point for entering the great mountains beyond.

Ye Huan searched carefully through the woods, examining every mushroom he saw. Those he recognized, he picked carefully and placed in his basket; those he did not, he dared not even touch, for he held these mysterious organisms in deep awe.

A childhood experience had left Ye Huan scared to death of them, so he always acted cautiously. After all, they had only been hallucinogenic mushrooms and had not taken his young life.

"There are pheasants. Saihu, go catch a couple so we can eat better tonight," Ye Huan called to the dog.

Saihu looked speechlessly at this fool. Ye Huan was deliberately teasing him. With a smile, he stuck his machete into the ground, set down his basket, and pulled a slingshot out of it.

He had bought it in the city and brought it back. It used steel balls, and he had bought three whole large bags of them, several thousand in all!

"Whoosh~~" The shot flew out. "Flap~" The pheasant flew away...

Saihu watched Ye Huan with an almost human look in his eyes. Ye Huan's face reddened. "A slipup. How long has it been since your big bro practiced? What are you looking at? If you're so good, you do it..."

Saihu ignored his young master and continued onward...

Ye Huan shouldered his basket, tucked the machete into his waistband, and held the slingshot in his hand, shooting as he walked to get a feel for it...

"Squawk~~" As a steel ball sailed casually into a thicket, something unexpected happened. Like a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse, he had actually hit a pheasant hiding inside~~