"Clang!"
A crisp ring spread across the shaded slope behind Emerald Mountain.
Lin He clung to the slick rock face like a gecko. The brand-new sickle he had spent ten copper coins on was now wedged in a crack between two slabs of granite.
He tugged hard. It would not come out...
He heaved again-
With a crack, the sickle came free, but its blade had curled back into a gruesomely large notch.
"Fuck..." Lin He stared at the notch, his heart aching in spasms. This was not just a rolled blade-it had practically rolled away what little fortune and life he had left!
Were the rocks in this cultivation world mixed with titanium alloy?
"Lin He! A little to your left! There's a big clump in that crack on the left! Oh, don't just yank it! You're snapping the roots!"
Below the cliff, Su Qiuran sat in the battered wooden wheelchair, craning her neck to direct him.
"Lady! Easy for you to say when you're sitting down!" Lin He wiped the sweat from his forehead and shouted down at her.
"This crack's too narrow! I can't even get my hand inside, and there's no room to use this lousy sickle!"
He looked down at the burlap sack hanging at his waist.
After sharpening their blades, the two of them had come behind the mountain to cut grass. He had spent over two hours scrambling up and down, and sharp rock edges and unknown thorn bushes had scored bloody lines across his hands and arms, leaving them burning with pain.
And the result? The sack hung limp, barely holding two jin of green spike grass. At Spring Restoration Hall's purchase price of five copper coins per jin, the net profit for those two hours was... ten copper coins.
Just enough to cover the cost of the ruined sickle in his hand.
He had worked for nothing.
"Nope. Retreat, retreat, retreat. This work really isn't fit for humans." Lin He carefully slid down the rock face. When his feet touched the ground, his calves were trembling uncontrollably.
In his previous life, he had been a squishy programmer with skinny arms and legs who spent his days coding at a computer. Though this body was young, years of poor meals in the Lin Household had left it malnourished. This sudden bout of intense extreme rock climbing and manual labor had drained his HP bar long ago.
He walked over to Su Qiuran, plopped onto the ground, tossed the mangled sickle beside his feet, and gasped for breath.
Seeing his dusty, bedraggled state, Su Qiuran had been about to make a couple of cutting remarks. But when her gaze swept over the blood-seeping red lines on his forearms, she swallowed the words on her lips.
Her brows creased slightly, and she reached out to rummage through the limp sack.
"Two jin?" Su Qiuran's tone was cool. "Young Master Lin, our input-output ratio deserves a place in a business case study as a cautionary example. Even if you cut ten jin a day, that's only fifty copper coins. Subtract wear and tear on the sickles and our food, and we'll be starving to death by next month."
"You think I want this?" Lin He rolled his eyes irritably and sprawled on his back in the dry grass.
"This stuff picks the trickiest cracks to grow in. No wonder the villagers can't be bothered with all this backbreaking trouble. Only we're poor enough to have lost our minds."
The two stared at each other over the pitiful two jin of green spike grass. A mountain breeze swept past, carrying a hint of chill and chilling their hearts right through.
"Wait." Su Qiuran suddenly straightened, an unusual gleam flashing through her peach-blossom eyes. "Lin He, have we fallen into a mental trap?"
"What trap? Isn't being broke a fact?"
"No, I mean our money-making logic is wrong." Su Qiuran pointed at the grass in the sack, still topped with little green spikes. "The villagers cut grass to sell because finished medicinal herbs are all they can sell. But we're different!"
Lin He froze, his mind instantly spinning into motion. "You mean..."
"We have a cheat, dude!" Su Qiuran lowered her voice excitedly. "What's the Jade Gourd's 'essence of the sun' for? Accelerating growth! Why are we grinding away like laborers, dead set on digging up whole plants? All we need are seeds!"
Lin He shot upright and slapped his thigh. "Holy shit! You're right!"
Her words had truly jolted a dreamer awake!
They did not need to struggle to pull the plants out by the roots, nor did they need to care how big the plants had grown.
What they truly needed were the grass seeds on those spikes! With seeds, they could find a patch of land back home, plant them, and water them with essence of the sun. Then they could have as much as they wanted!
"Wifey, you're the best!" Lin He gave her a thumbs-up, supplying emotional validation, his earlier exhaustion swept clean away.
With a change of strategy, their efficiency practically exploded exponentially.
Lin He abandoned even the half-ruined sickle and climbed straight onto the low rocks with his bare hands.
When he spotted green spike grass, he no longer struggled to dig out its roots. Instead, he grabbed the grass head and stripped upward along the spike as though stripping meat off a lamb skewer.
With a rustle, dozens of green grass seeds, barely larger than sesame seeds, fell into his palm.
There was no need to wrestle with rocks or expend much strength. All he needed were sharp eyes and quick hands.
For the next two hours and more, Lin He could be seen scrambling up and down among the rocks on the shaded slope behind the mountain.
Below, Su Qiuran directed him toward the fullest seed heads. Their teamwork was seamless.
Only when the sun sank behind the western mountains and dusk began to fall did Lin He jump down, still wanting more.
Excitedly, he held a little cloth bundle before Su Qiuran and carefully opened it.
Hundreds of plump green spike grass seeds lay packed inside.
"We've got the starting capital for our first pot of gold." Lin He grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.
"Come on, let's head back and build up!" His excitement infected Su Qiuran too, and she waved a hand grandly.
They returned to the dilapidated wooden hut that let in drafts on every side.
Without even stopping for a sip of water, they headed straight to the patch of wasteland behind the hut while daylight had yet to fade completely.
The place had once been a vegetable garden, now abandoned. It was just right for planting something.
Using the undamaged sickle as a hoe, Lin He dug little holes and broke up the clods as finely as he could.
Then he scattered the grass seeds evenly into them and covered them with a thin layer of soil.
"Here comes the most important step."
Lin He drew a deep breath and took the emerald-green Jade Gourd from where he had kept it against his chest.
The gourd had spent most of the day baking in the sun. Now, in the gathering night, an exceedingly faint golden halo seemed to flow around it.
That was the "essence of the sun" stored inside.
"How do we use it? Drip it straight on?" Sitting in her wheelchair, Su Qiuran nervously pinched the hem of her clothes.
"We can't drip it straight on. This is a spiritual treasure. Its potency is too strong-we don't want to burst ordinary grass." Lin He had a solid grasp of basic handling precautions. He drew a wooden basin of clear water from the well.
Uncorking the gourd, Lin He carefully controlled his thoughts. A golden droplet ten times smaller than a sesame seed squeezed out of the mouth like thick honey and slowly fell into the wooden basin.
"Hiss-"
An exceedingly faint hiss of vapor sounded. An almost imperceptible golden gleam instantly rippled through the entire basin of well water. Its temperature seemed to rise a little too, and it gave off a fresh scent of vegetation that refreshed the mind with a single breath.
"I'm watering it now." Lin He lifted the basin.
"Do it!"
Scoop after scoop, Lin He splashed the basinful of diluted essence of the sun evenly over the ground.
Then both held their breath, staring fixedly at the earth.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths...
"It moved! Lin He, the soil's moving!" Su Qiuran grabbed Lin He's sleeve, her voice trembling with excitement.
Before their incredulous eyes, little bulges suddenly rose across the hard, dry soil.
Immediately afterward, faint pops of breaking soil rang out one after another.
Tender emerald shoots pushed through the soil and emerged at a speed visible to the naked eye, like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Taking root, sprouting, unfurling leaves...
Ten breaths later.
A small patch of lush green spike grass had appeared on the formerly bare yellow earth!
It stood over three inches tall, its leaves thick and so vividly green they seemed ready to drip, countless times more fresh and succulent than the grass growing in the cracks behind the mountain!