Chapter 318: It’s Ready

Chapter 318 -319: It’s Ready

“The Iron Wire Grass… it looks like it has flowered, hasn’t it?” Li Yang suddenly asked.

“That’s right, some of them have flowered and borne fruit!” Chen Quan replied. “A lot of them have. But… what does that have to do with anything?”

Chen Quan was actually a little surprised.

‘This young man knows that Iron Wire Grass flowers and bears fruit. That’s quite impressive.’

“It looks to me like all the fruit is gone from these plants…” Li Yang said lightly.

The Iron Wire Grass Fruit wasn’t large, no bigger than the tip of one’s pinky finger, but now there wasn’t a single fruit left on the plants.

“Uh… maybe some birds or other animals from the mountain ate them…” Chen Quan didn’t understand either, shaking his head as he answered.

“Birds?” Li Yang laughed and shook his head. “But there aren’t any dead birds around here. The Iron Wire Grass Fruit is poisonous. It has a fragrant scent that attracts some animals, that’s true, but the stuff is toxic. Small animals die easily from it, so little birds generally won’t eat it. If they do, they die. Unless… it was a large animal…”

A large animal might be able to resist the poison.

This was an eye-opener for Zhou Jianlin; he didn’t know any of this.

By the time the Iron Wire Grass was sold to him, it was already dried. Forget fruit, there was nothing left but a stalk. How could he have known? Naturally, he was in the dark about these things.

“But there don’t seem to be any footprints from large animals either…” Chen Quan and the others shone their flashlights on the ground.

“A scent…” Li Yang closed his eyes. He suddenly caught a peculiar smell and jolted. “Do you guys smell something strange?”

Everyone looked bewildered, shaking their heads to indicate they didn’t.

‘No footprints… no footprints…’ Li Yang thought for a moment. As he considered the scent, his expression suddenly changed.

It was as if he understood something.

“What is it?” Chen Quan stepped forward and asked.

After everything Li Yang had told them, Chen Quan had subconsciously started to see him as their backbone here.

“Alright…” Li Yang mused for a moment, then took out a mineral water bottle. Unobserved, he let a single drop fall into it before going from plant to plant and watering them. “Let’s head back for now,” he finally said. “We can come back and look tomorrow. I’ve watered them. They should recover by morning.”

Huh?

Chen Quan and the others were stunned.

“Aren’t you just spouting nonsense!” They had originally placed a great deal of trust in Li Yang, but now that he’d said this, another villager spoke up in dissatisfaction. “If watering them was the answer, do you think we’d need you to do it? We’ve already watered them who knows how many times! You’re just trying to fool us.”

Chen Quan spoke up, “Alright, alright. Since there’s nothing else we can do, let’s all head back for now.”

With shakes of their heads and sighs, there was nothing to be done. The group could only head back.

It was almost midnight by the time they got back to the village.

Li Yang and Zhou Jianlin had no choice but to stay the night there.

Chen Quan’s family was well-off. After all, Iron Wire Grass was valuable stuff, and Zhou Jianlin’s purchase price wasn’t low, so their living conditions were quite good.

But ever since the Iron Wire Grass had gotten sick, the family knew they might lose this source of income in the future, and they all had long faces.

Li Yang didn’t know how to console them, but he figured it would be easier to explain once they saw the results tomorrow.

When they woke the next day, after breakfast, Li Yang said, “Brother Quan, let’s go. Let’s head up the mountain and see if that Iron Wire Grass has recovered.”

Chen Quan looked at him with a helpless expression. “Young man, it’s not that I doubt you. Since you know so much about Iron Wire Grass, you must be an expert, not just talking nonsense. But saying you can cure it just by watering it? That really is nonsense. If it were that easy, we would have cured it long ago. We wouldn’t have needed you, right?”

Zhou Jianlin was also a bit skeptical. He said, “Alright, if there’s no solution, we’ll just have to find another way.”

But Li Yang just smiled and said, “Brother Quan, not all watering is the same. Come on, it was nighttime yesterday. Let’s go take a look in the daylight today. It might be clearer. Besides, the plants were about to die anyway. If I really did fix them, your family will have another source of income. Wouldn’t that be better?”

Chen Quan thought for a moment, then finally stood up. “Fine. This is the last time I’m taking you up the mountain. After this, don’t bother coming back.”

Zhou Jianlin gave a wry smile. It looked like this profitable business was coming to an end.

Li Yang just smiled. “Alright, alright. Good or bad, we won’t come again after this.”

Soon, Chen Quan was leading them up the mountain again.

When they arrived at the spot, Chen Quan was just about to speak when he suddenly froze.

The Iron Wire Grass, which had been withered and looked like it could die at any moment, was now bursting with renewed life. A lush, green patch was growing vigorously.

“This…” Chen Quan was dumbfounded. He looked all around and saw that many of the plants had been brought back from the brink of death.

“My God, what’s going on?” Zhou Jianlin was so happy he almost shouted. “It couldn’t be because you watered them, could it? This is too miraculous! What kind of immortal water was that? They came back to life with just one watering!”