Song Tan’s Chronicle - Chapter 14

The fields were buzzing with the sounds of machinery as the villagers worked and chatted. Piles of weeds and wild trees grew along the field ridges. The moist brown soil, which hadn’t been plowed for a long time, released a fresh scent as it lay exposed under the morning sun.

The mountain village had come alive with activity again.

Wang Lifen opened the storage room in the corner of her yard. It was a mud-brick house built decades ago.

Back then, she had just given birth to her daughter, and Song Youde, along with his brothers, mixed yellow mud with straw to make bricks and slowly built the house.

Initially, it was their main house.

As the children grew older, they built a brick house, and this room was used for storing grains. Eventually, it turned into a storage room for miscellaneous items when they stopped farming.

“Grandma! Grandma!” Qiao Qiao ran over.

Wang Lifen had just found a few carrying poles when she heard him and replied, “Qiao Qiao!”

Soon, Qiao Qiao’s round, neatly trimmed head popped in, “Grandma, Sis said she will take me to the fields later and told me to borrow a small basket.”

He quickly got distracted by the stacked carrying poles, “Grandma, what are these?”

Wang Lifen chuckled as she handed him a small basket. Thinking for a moment, she also cut a piece of plastic rope, folded it a few times, and tied it around his waist. “Our Qiao Qiao is going to work in the fields now!”

Song Qiao proudly puffed out his chest.

But he kept asking persistently, “Grandma, one, two, three… seven, eight, eight of these… what are they for?”

“These are for hens to hatch chicks.”

Qiao Qiao’s eyes lit up, “I want to hatch chicks too!”

Wang Lifen sighed. This was why she hadn’t answered him right away. The child had too many questions.

Luckily, little kids liked to follow older ones around. When Song Qiao was three, Song Tan was eight. Even now, at eighteen, he still felt like he was three.

He should be playing with older kids.

Knowing his thoughts, Wang Lifen asked, “Do you want to follow your sister to the fields, or stay with grandma to hatch chicks?”

Such questions were a bit too difficult for Song Qiao.

He hesitated for a while, finally looking longingly in the direction of home, “I’ll go with sister to the fields.”

As he was about to leave, he reluctantly said, “Grandma, talk to the hens, don’t let them hatch too fast, wait for me to come back…”

Once the little troublemaker was finally gone, Wang Lifen took out four baskets from the storage room, lined them with a thick layer of dry grass, and placed about thirty eggs in each. Then she went to the chicken coop and grabbed four hens.

These free-range hens were lean and long-legged, and their pecks could be quite painful. Catching them wasn’t easy.

Unlike the plump, lazy broilers that would just sit down when chased, these hens were efficient layers and tastier, though not as easy to manage.

To catch them, Wang Lifen hadn’t opened the coop door all morning, and it had been noisy with clucking.

She put the four hens into large, open-weave baskets, covered each with another basket, and secured them tightly. In a few days, the hens would start brooding.

In twenty to thirty days, the chicks would hatch.

By then, it would be late March, the weather would be warm, and it would be the perfect time for the chicks to grow.

…

After two days of work, the oak trees on the back hill were cleared, and only the two outermost fields remained.

Seeing the weather was favorable, Song Tan decided to plant the milk vetch seeds.

Wu Lan was a bit hesitant, “It’s still quite cold early in the morning and at night…”

The temperature fluctuations could easily kill the young sprouts. They should wait at least another two weeks.

Song Tan thought, I know, but the spiritual energy almost made the seeds sprout when I first activated it the other day.

She sighed, realizing she lacked planting experience in this world and didn’t know how precious spiritual energy was to these plants.

If she waited any longer, the seeds would either lose their vitality or sprout in the storage.

So, she pretended to be determined, “Mom, milk vetch isn’t as delicate as rice. It’ll survive.”

She called out, “Qiao Qiao, are the seeds ready? If they are, let’s go to the fields.”

Qiao Qiao, not caring about the season or sprouting conditions, had a basket filled with ten pounds of milk vetch seeds mixed with sand strapped to his waist.

The seeds were small and flat, and despite being mixed with sand, ten pounds were enough for two acres of land. To Qiao Qiao, it was more like playing.

He looked excited and eager, “Sis, today I’ll plant the seeds!”

“Good boy, I knew you could do it!”

The siblings, looking carefree, headed out.

Wu Lan: …

…

Standing at the edge of the field, the smell of freshly turned soil filled the air. The overturned clods revealed wild grass with white roots already sprouting.

Song Tan, having eaten homemade food for days, found it much better than city food, and Wu Lan’s cooking was excellent. But as her spiritual cultivation progressed, she found the impurities in the food harder to tolerate…

What she ate every day turned into waste that needed to be expelled the next morning.

Sigh.

In short, it was nothing like the clean, minimal sustenance of an immortal cultivator.

With this in mind, Song Tan hurried up.

The two large bags of seeds in her hand were also eager to sprout. She could feel their vibrant life force through the bags.

Without hesitation, she grabbed a handful and scattered them. The moist seeds fell silently into the soil, blending in and becoming indistinguishable.

Unseen on the surface, the seeds’ vigorous life force surged, tiny cracks forming in their shells.

With a bit of morning dew and sunlight, they would grow vigorously without needing to be covered with soil.

The vibrant life force was calming. Song Tan looked at them and decided to gently increase the moisture to help them settle into the soil after planting.

In a month, the fields would be covered with purple flowers.

This was her first step to recouping her investment, starting with these milk vetch plants.

With this determination, Song Tan quickly finished sowing the seeds in one field and was about to move to the next when she saw Qiao Qiao squatting by the field ridge, closely examining the seeds.

“Qiao Qiao, what are you doing?”

Qiao Qiao replied seriously, “Sis, you’re planting them wrong. You need to dig a hole, place two seeds in, and cover them with soil.”

Song Tan was taken aback, then realized—wasn’t that how you plant corn?

So, Qiao Qiao only knew how to plant corn!

Let’s plant the fields together!