Chapter 84: Building a Beast Pen, Sweet Fruit

Chapter 84: Chapter 84: Building a Beast Pen, Sweet Fruit

"Water them once a day with Rootless Spirit Water, and with the nourishment of Spiritual Qi, they’ll be grown in just a few days."

Looking at the tender shoots sprouting from the field, Li Changsheng nodded in satisfaction.

He then turned and went back to the front yard, entering the beast pen.

He opened the pen that originally belonged to Little Xiaohua, took out his Spirit Beast Bag, and with a slight thought...

One ram and three ewes—four adult snow sheep—appeared inside the pen.

BAA...

As soon as they appeared, the four snow sheep ran around frantically like headless chickens, bleating and crying out.

Li Changsheng closed the pen, flipped his hand to produce two handfuls of Spirit Rice, and tossed them inside. He paid them no more mind and walked over to the Red Fox’s pen.

He gazed at the playful cub inside.

[Target: Cub]

[Race: Red Fox (Female)]

[Rank: Unranked]

[Talent: Agile.]

[Status: Healthy.]

The Red Fox cub was almost four months old. In a few more days, it would be time for it to leave the pen.

By then, three pens would definitely not be enough.

Besides, the snow sheep would also be breeding lambs in the future, so he had to expand the pens.

Thinking of this, Li Changsheng decided to first chop down some ironwood and then slowly build the new pens.

He turned, walked out of the pen area, and returned to the courtyard.

Li Changsheng walked straight to the courtyard gate, straddled Xiaohua, and patted its back. "Let’s go, Xiaohua."

OINK OINK...

Xiaohua grunted and walked out the gate, heading toward the mountain forest to the side.

Big Flower and Little Xiaohua ambled along behind it.

This time, he planned to chop down a lot of ironwood to build the pens, so he had brought Big Flower and Little Xiaohua along.

Just as Li Changsheng was leaving to chop the ironwood, an old man with sallow skin and a deeply wrinkled face slowly approached around a bend in the path, supporting a young girl whose head was wrapped in a black veil.

The old man was none other than Dong Xing.

When he encountered familiar Spirit Farmers on the road, Dong Xing merely gave them a stiff nod.

The person he was supporting had a vacant gaze, and her entire being exuded an air of listlessness.

Soon, they were back at their own small courtyard.

Dong Xing helped her sit down on a chair. He looked at her with a pained expression and asked softly, "Are you hungry, Yaoyao?"

Dong Yao sat on the chair, her chin resting in her hands, her head slightly lowered as she stared blankly at the ground.

After a few moments of silence, Dong Yao gave a soft "mm."

"Good... good... Grandpa will go make you something to eat."

Hearing this, Dong Xing’s expression relaxed slightly, and he walked quickly into the wooden house.

Before long, smoke began to rise from the chimney.

The aroma of cooking food wafted out.

"Coming through!"

With a shout, Dong Xing walked out carrying a plate of brightly colored, red-and-yellow scrambled eggs with tomatoes and placed it on the wooden table.

He then brought out several more dishes.

Although they were all ordinary home-cooked dishes without any Spiritual Qi, the drifting aroma made Dong Yao slowly lift her head and fix her gaze on the wooden table.

「A moment later.」

Dong Xing came out of the kitchen again, this time with a small basin of Spirit Rice, and put it on the table.

Dong Xing seemed quite happy. He ladled a bowl of rice for Dong Yao, handed her a pair of chopsticks, and said with a cheerful smile, "Go on, eat. It’s all your favorite food."

"Mm."

Dong Yao came back to her senses. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached up to remove the black veil from her head.

On her exposed, fair-skinned arms, several purplish-black scars were visible, like writhing centipedes, a horrifying sight.

As the black veil slipped off, it revealed a face covered in fine knife scars. A sharp weapon had sliced off half of the girl’s nose, and several crisscrossing slash marks marred the space between her eyebrows.

Judging by how fresh the wounds looked, she had clearly been injured only a few days ago.

"I..."

Dong Xing’s eyes instantly turned red, and his hands began to tremble uncontrollably.

Dong Yao placed the black veil on the table and said softly, "Thank you, Grandpa."

With that, she picked up a piece of food with her chopsticks and began to eat in big mouthfuls, her cheeks puffed out high with food.

The scars stretched taut by her full cheeks twisted and writhed, a shocking sight to behold.

Dong Yao squinted her eyes and mumbled through her full mouth, "So delicious, Grandpa... you should eat too."

Seeing his granddaughter like this, a sharp pain pierced Dong Xing’s heart. His face contorted uncontrollably as he turned away and vigorously rubbed his face.

"Grandpa, hurry up and eat."

"Okay, okay... Grandpa will eat."

Dong Xing turned back around and picked up his rice bowl. Instead of sitting on the chair, he squatted on the ground and began to shovel the food into his mouth.

The old man had toiled in the Spirit Fields for most of his life and always thought Yellow Seed Spirit Rice was the most delicious food in the world.

But he had never thought Yellow Seed Spirit Rice could taste so awful, so dry and hard to swallow.

"Hehe..."

Dong Yao copied him, shoveling some food into her bowl, and squatted on the ground with a silly giggle, wolfing down her food.

The meal lasted for a full two hours.

Dong Yao had eaten more than half of the large basin of Spirit Rice, while the old man had barely finished a small portion of the bowl in his hands.

"Phew... I’m so full, hehe..."

Dong Yao picked up the black veil, covered her face with it again, and slumped back in her chair, patting her stomach.

"Full?"

Dong Xing put down his bowl and chopsticks, rubbed his face, and forced a smile. "You wait here. Grandpa will go pick some fruit for you."

He said this as he walked toward the backyard, continuing, "Speaking of fruit, there’s our neighbor, Li Changsheng."

"He saw how delicious the fruit I chill with the Ice Condensation Daoist Technique is, so he bought the same one."

"Haha, do you know how he uses it?"

"I don’t know what goes on in that head of his, but he actually uses the Ice Condensation Daoist Technique to shovel dung..."

"The things he comes up with..."

Dong Xing rambled on as he walked to the backyard. He picked up a bamboo tray, entered the vegetable garden, and as he was about to pick a cucumber, he suddenly called out, "My dear, what do you want to eat?"

Silence...

"How about a cucumber... I remember you loved them when you were little..."

Dong Xing’s body stiffened for a moment. He squatted down, intending to pick a cucumber from the garden.

But his legs didn’t seem to obey him. They trembled, refusing to bend.

"Yaoyao, just a moment..."

Dong Xing pounded on his thighs, cursing, "Dammit, why won’t these legs listen to me..."

THUMP THUMP...

Dong Xing hammered his thighs with all his might until his legs suddenly gave out, and he plopped down onto his backside in the middle of the vegetable garden.

The old man’s face was ashen. He sat slumped in the garden as if his spine had dissolved, tears filling the deep ravines of his face as he muttered endlessly to himself.

’Grandpa is getting old...’

Teardrops pattered on the cucumber leaves, just like the old man’s heart...

A dozen breaths later.

"Grandpa, I want to eat some sweet fruit, too..."

Just then, a sweet, slightly naive-sounding voice came from the front yard.

"Sweet fruit?"

Dong Xing’s body froze for a moment.

In that instant, a flicker of life suddenly appeared on the old man’s face. Ignoring the tears on his cheeks, he scrambled to his feet.

He strode quickly to a two-meter-tall fruit tree covered in thumb-sized, bright red fruits.

"Yaoyao, you wait, Grandpa will pick them for you right now."

"Okay, Grandpa, hurry up."

Dong Yao’s voice, tinged with a hint of petulance, drifted over.

"Okay, okay, okay..."

Dong Xing hastily picked handfuls of the sweet fruit, along with several more cucumbers.

He lifted his robe to hastily wipe his face, put on a slightly stiff smile, and jogged back to the front yard.

"Coming, coming..."

Dong Xing jogged up to the dining table.

By now, Dong Yao had already wrapped the black veil around her face again.

Before Dong Xing could even set down the fruit tray, she eagerly snatched a sweet fruit, lifted her veil, and popped it into her mouth.

"Mmm, so sweet..."