Chapter 695: Prosperous Dayu City

Ye Qianning couldn’t understand why Dapao had started yearning for the land. She was still a little worried and resolved to find a way to rid him of the idea for good.

With Dapao, the ship traveled thousands of miles a day.

They had been delayed by two days; otherwise, they would have reached the shore in another four or five days.

Her master and the others had received the message in the bottle that Jiang Yue had mentioned, so they probably knew she was coming back.

The four kingdoms were all gradually growing stronger. Xi Yan was now the foremost among them, the most powerful nation on the continent. She had learned from Jiang Chenyi that East Shu, however, seemed to have been struggling in recent years.

War between East Shu and Beili erupted annually, and the fighting was incredibly fierce.

The border regions between the two countries were almost devoid of civilians, occupied entirely by large armies. East Shu had already lost many cities.

Now, the most declining nation among the four wasn’t Nanyuan, but East Shu.

The Immortal Sea Building also operated in East Shu. However, whether for its restaurant services or Nanyuan’s seafood, the prices charged to East Shu were triple those in other cities.

Ye Qianning could more or less guess some of the reasons behind this.

’The four kingdoms are becoming more and more interesting.’

「Four days later」

More and more ships appeared on the sea.

Ye Qianning stopped letting Dapao escort her. She repeatedly and earnestly urged him to return to the Rashamon Sea Area. She spent an entire day trying to persuade him with words, but in the end, it was her fists that settled the matter.

With Dapao gone, Ye Qianning’s boat sailed with a fleet of fishing vessels for another two days before reaching the coast at Dayu City.

From a distance, the port was incredibly bustling. The entire harbor was packed with ships, and load after load of seafood was being unloaded.

Ye Qianning moored her boat in a remote corner, placed Dun Dun into her space, and then vaulted onto the shore.

The scene at the port astonished her. She had never seen anything like it in Nanyuan before. In just a few short years, the country had become incredibly prosperous.

Not far from the port was a bustling street, lined mostly with stalls selling seafood.

The fish and shrimp were all freshly caught, still wriggling and jumping.

All along the street were fruits grown from the seeds she had given Gu Shuo. The bright red hawthorns were particularly lovely, and the sand pears were from the last harvest of the year.

"Miss, would you like some sand pears? They’re delicious." The female vendor could tell at a glance that Ye Qianning wasn’t a local. She held out a fruit. "Try one before you buy."

Ye Qianning took one and took a bite. The sand pear was indeed quite good. ’Though not as good as the ones from my space, for an ordinary fruit, the flavor is already top-tier.’

Back when she was cultivating the seeds in her space, she had irrigated them with water from the Spiritual Spring for several days to help them adapt to Nanyuan’s climate.

The resulting fruits were much better than she had anticipated.

"Miss, these are a unique specialty of Nanyuan. We also have black grapes. Don’t be put off by their dark color; they’re delicious too. You can only get them in Nanyuan during the winter and spring. They’re not available anywhere else."

Ye Qianning noticed the black grapes were growing vigorously and were quite large. ’Winter is when every country has the greatest shortage of fruit. It’s easy to imagine the craze Nanyuan’s cold-resistant black grapes would create.’

"How much?"

"Fifteen copper coins a pound for hawthorns, twenty copper coins a pound for sand pears, and forty copper coins a pound for black grapes."

’The prices are quite high.’

’That’s several times the price of seafood. A large part of Nanyuan’s new wealth must be coming from these fruits.’

"Miss, my prices are the lowest you’ll find. Outside of Nanyuan, these fruits cost twice as much! You can take these hawthorns home to make jam or candied fruit. There are lots of ways to prepare them, and they’re all delicious. And they’re all unique to Nanyuan."

"I’ll take some of each."

"You got it!" The vendor was delighted. She took out a cloth bag and started busily weighing the fruit.