Planting Orange Trees

On an autumn morning, thick fog enveloped the whole summit of Mount Jiuhua. Down in Jiuhua Village, wisps of cooking smoke were already rising from every household, and now and then a rooster's crow rang out from the village.

Meanwhile, in the vegetable garden, Zhang Erhu, Su Ye, and the others had already begun planning where to plant the saplings.

That day, Zhang Erhu had brought in two men in their forties to help plant the orange saplings. It was the busy autumn harvest season, when it was usually hard to find anyone to help, and he had had to use every argument he could to persuade the two men to come.

Beside the greenhouse below the watermelon patch, several pigpens had already been built, and the five wild boar piglets were being kept and fed inside.

After Zhang Erhu, Su Ye, and the others carried the saplings over, they began planting them.

Each orange tree occupied a little over three square meters, which made the planting seem a little sparse while the saplings were still less than a meter tall.

By the end of the day, the four of them had planted nearly half the orange trees.

The same four continued planting the next day. Su Ye had filled the pool in the orange grove with water the day before, and the Spirit Gathering Array had already begun to take effect, although the spiritual energy in the pool water could not compare in concentration with the spiritual energy water in the Immortal Spirit Space.

But Su Ye had learned to rein himself in. His vegetables in the past had been rather earth-shattering, so, to keep unnecessary trouble from coming knocking, he decided to use this watered-down version of spiritual energy water.

Judging by the rate at which the Spirit Gathering Array consumed spirit stones, these ten stones should last more than a year. When the time came, Su Ye would only need to put in another ten, conserving energy while avoiding unwanted attention.

After planting the orange trees, Su Ye and Zhang Erhu each watered them with the lower-grade spiritual energy water from the pool.

Seven days passed like this. During that time, Su Ye and Zhang Erhu watered the orange trees from the spiritual energy pool now and then, and before their eyes, the trees all took root and put out tender green shoots.

Over those seven days, Su Ye also learned a spell recorded in the Taihe Sixteen Grotto-Heavens, called the Beast Taming Art.

The Taihe Sixteen Grotto-Heavens was a Qi Refining method that could lead directly to the immortal path. It recorded not only many spells, but also some divine abilities. However, Su Ye was clearly unable to learn divine abilities at present, and even if he learned them, he lacked the corresponding spiritual energy to sustain their use.

As its name suggested, the Beast Taming Art was a spell that could command beasts and other animals. It used spiritual consciousness to place a subconscious imprint in an animal's mind, making the beast or demon beast obey the user.

More powerful cultivators liked to imprint demon beasts with superior bloodlines and make them mounts or battle companions. But to raise one, they had to start when it was young; otherwise, the stronger the demon beast, the stronger its spiritual consciousness, and the greater the danger of a backlash.

Come to think of it, neither Su Ye's father, Su Weicheng, nor his mother, Ye Xiaoning, was originally from Jiuhua Village. Both were from Nanhua Town, next to Nanping Town.

Years ago, Su Weicheng had gone away to work and met Ye Xiaoning, who was from the same town. The two had fallen in love at first sight.

At the time, Su Weicheng's eldest brother, Su Weilan, and second brother, Su Weiqiang, were both unmarried. Old Master Su was somewhat old-fashioned and said that the eldest and second sons had to marry before it was the third son Su Weicheng's turn.

Unable to win the argument with Old Master Su, Su Weicheng took Ye Xiaoning and left home to work in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

After working away for three years, Su Weicheng returned and attended both his eldest brother's wedding and his second brother's wedding feast. The countryside was still fairly poor at the time, and a so-called wedding feast was just relatives and friends getting together to celebrate. Once the couple had bowed to heaven and earth and shared the nuptial wine, they were considered married.

The Su Family had relatively little land at the time, and after the eldest and second brothers divided it, there was not much left.

So Old Master Su gave all his savings to Su Weicheng and divided the remaining land between his eldest and second sons.

With the five hundred yuan Old Master Su had given him and the savings he and Ye Xiaoning had put aside over several years of work, Su Weicheng came to Jiuhua Village and put down roots.

Those five hundred yuan Old Master Su had given him were not to be underestimated; in today's money, they would be worth fifty or sixty thousand.

On this day, Su Ye's mother, Ye Xiaoning, brought him four freshly weaned black puppies, saying they were for guarding his vegetable garden.

All four black puppies were purebred Chinese rural dogs, with little black noses set in their tiny heads, four short, stubby legs, and big, sparkling eyes. Wagging their tails, they were utterly adorable.

Su Ye looked at the four suckling pups, extended his divine sense, and used the Beast Taming Art he had just learned to plant an imprint in their minds.

After he used the Beast Taming Art, the puppies seemed closer to Su Ye. Wagging their tails, they kept coming over and tugging at his pant legs.

Su Ye, for his part, felt that he seemed to have a special connection with the puppies.

Figuring they were probably hungry, Su Ye took a bowl of spiritual energy water from the space and set it in front of the four puppies.

When the four puppies saw the spiritual energy water Su Ye had brought out, their noses twitched, and they ran over and began lapping it up.

Before long, the four puppies had emptied the bowl of roughly two liters of spiritual energy water. Looking at their round, bulging bellies, Su Ye gave up the idea of giving them another bowl.

Su Ye squatted down and played with the puppies for a while, then went to water the orange trees. The puppies ran along behind him, full of energy.

Su Ye looked at the lower-grade spiritual energy water in the pool. He reckoned its spiritual energy concentration was only about a tenth of that in the Immortal Spirit Space, but its effects were still top-notch.

Only seven days had passed, and the orange saplings had begun growing like crazy, as though they had tapped into the earth's main artery. They were already a little over a meter tall, and because Su Ye was afraid the villagers would grow suspicious, he had only scattered a few bags of organic fertilizer as a token gesture.

Whenever anyone asked, Su Ye simply attributed it all to the laboratory.

Five days earlier, Elder Xiao had called Su Ye to say that the crop research laboratory in Lingnan County had been built and put into operation, with his daughter Xiao Xiao helping to oversee it. In the future, Xiao Xiao would also be Su Ye's contact for the crops produced in his vegetable garden.

Elder Xiao seemed to be trying, intentionally or otherwise, to bring Xiao Xiao and Su Ye together.

Actually, Elder Xiao could not be blamed for that. Most of the Xiao Family already had matters on their hands, and then Su Ye had suddenly appeared wanting to cooperate with him. It also had to be someone trustworthy, so Xiao Qiujun could not spare a trusted aide to manage the matter at such short notice.

As it happened, Xiao Xiao was building her career in Lingnan, and Su Ye was young and promising. In Xiao Qiujun's eyes, this was a good arrangement that served both purposes.

As for those who had previously tried to use the restaurant to find out about Su Ye, Xiao Qiujun had turned them all away. Even the state had sent people to check whether the information was true, and Xiao Qiujun had held them off as well.

After all, the Xiao Family was a well-known major family in Guanhai Province, and it was said that a Grandmaster stood guard within the family.

This Grandmaster was a close friend of Elder Xiao, Xiao Qiujun. When they were young and serving in the army, they had formed a bond through life-and-death trials.