Chapter 126: Chapter 126: Repeated Planting
Zhou Wenzhi let out a breath and shook his head. "You have done nothing wrong."
"Go get some rest. It must have been tiring for you," he added.
Zhou Anran nodded and picked up the sleepy Xiao Qingya, heading toward their room. After the pair of mother and daughter left, Zhou Wenzhi rubbed his temples.
He hadn’t considered it enough about the protection part. Thinking about it, his preparations were indeed lacking.
They were currently in the county and not Hejia Village where people were more simple, honest, and straightforward. In the county, there were more all kinds of people mixed in, and not all of them had simple identities.
Had they been targeted by malicious individuals, they would have been defenseless.
Zhou Wenzhi thought about his eldest son, and he could feel his headache worsening.
The next day, Shun Zi went to visit the Zhou family’s old house. Zhou Wenzhi had invited him. Meanwhile, the rest of the family went to the fields.
They still needed to tend them a bit and took care of wild grass, not letting them compete with the paddy rice for nutrition. Besides the lush and healthy paddy rice plants, the downside were the wild grass and vegetation.
Xiao Qingya examined the paddy rice plant in front of her.
[System, scan it and provide the plant’s detailed condition for me.]
System:...
It couldn’t resist materializing into a white cat and rubbed its head in Xiao Qingya’s feet almost instinctively. Everyone had acknowledged it as a clever cat and no one would doubt it even if it suddenly appeared beside Xiao Qingya.
As long as they didn’t see it materialized out of empty air, they would just think that the clingy white cat had followed Xiao Qingya secretly.
It had happened several times that even Zhou Wenzhi or Zhou Shuran weren’t surprised by its appearance anymore.
The System’s voice was full of helplessness. [Host, I don’t have that function.]
It wasn’t some kind of advanced AI from the interstellar era. Still, it tried to provide an explanation for the little one.
[Host, look at the grain heads, don’t they look a bit bigger and more numerous compared to the previous batch? Your family’s harvest yield should be higher again this time.]
Xiao Qingya touched the grain’s heads and nodded in agreement. [I will keep on giving them the liquid fertilizer.]
Since the Xiao family’s lives had been quite peaceful lately, they hadn’t received any new missions, and the remaining points were also pitiful. So, they tried to rely on a few bottles of fertilizer.
The System taught her to use the fertilizer liquid in smaller amounts but more frequently—it was similar to eating for humans; they ate three times a day in moderate amounts instead of one meal in a large amount.
However, in order to achieve better resistance to pests, they would need to repeatedly plant the rice seeds through selective breeding.
[There are more pests since we didn’t use the pesticide, but it won’t affect the harvest yield much.]
Xiao Qingya nodded in understanding. Behind her, the Ling siblings followed.
They also stared at the green rice plants in front of them. The plants seemed to be higher compared to the neighbouring fields, and the stem also looked stronger.
The two were a little dazed; the fields were really well-taken care of by the Xiao family. When it was them who owned the fields, their harvest often failed. The rice plants yielded lower amounts compared to other fields, pitifully at fifty jin or even less.
They thought they weren’t really cut to be farmers and had to find other jobs.
Only after they received the confession from their uncle did they finally find out it was him who sabotaged their fields.
[Ling Yu, Ling Bo! What do you think of the fields?] Xiao Qingya asked the Ling siblings, the corner of her eyes crinkling slightly due to a smile.
[Little Master, your family really takes better care of it compared to us.]
Xiao Qingya chatted around with the System and the Ling siblings as she helped her family to pull some wild grass. Alas, her small arms had meager strength, so she could only do the best she could.
[Mother seems to be absentminded lately. Did any of you know what had happened?] Xiao Qingya asked the Ling siblings.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t provide an answer. They weren’t by her side when Zhou Anran spotted the man with similar facial features to her husband.
[Little Master, do you want us to investigate?] Ling Bo asked.
The little one scrunched her face. She didn’t want to spy on her own mother’s affairs. [There is no need. Just tell me if you notice something.]
There was no need to deliberately investigate it.
The Ling siblings nodded, and the topic shifted to Qiu Mu’s case. Tomorrow, they will return to Hejia Village.
[Little Master. I have thought about it. Perhaps we can ask the conscious ghosts around about Qiu Mu’s case.] Ling Yu said after a moment of hesitation.
She hadn’t thought about this before, because these water ghosts were really ruthless. Some of them tried to drag them both deeper into the water.
Although it wouldn’t kill them, they noticeably had grown weaker, and if they were subjected to such torture continously, their souls might eventually scatter—even if it would take a long time.
[We will have to see if we can find some decent ghosts...] Ling Bo trailed off.
The little one’s eyes lit up. [Let’s do it! If they dare to harm people, I will just take my Master’s talisman to punish them!]
Early in the morning, the Xiao family returned to Hejia Village. They arrived at noon, and Xiao Qingya already couldn’t help from dragging her eldest brother to the river.
The Ling siblings were also more relieved by Xiao Jingran’s presence. He had returned to the house yesterday before them.
At this moment, they were interrogating a few ghosts.
[You really want to know about how that female ghost died? Give me a few cattle and goats as a sacrifice, and I will...]
Xiao Qingya took a talisman from her small woven bag and threw it to the audacious ghost. In an instant, the ghost wailed in pain, howling madly.
She said loudly, "Next!"
"Brother Jingran, what are you doing here with your sister?" Suddenly, someone approached them, looking at Xiao Qingya strangely.
