Song Tan’s Chronicle - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: I Am a Landowner!

The small town’s police station didn’t have a line, so it only took Song Tan ten minutes to get her ID card reissued. She efficiently picked out a domestic phone for 3,000 yuan, and as she pondered over the money in her pocket, she felt a bit melancholic.

She had a total of sixty thousand yuan (to be precise, sixty-two thousand, plus the two thousand yuan subsidy from Wu Lan, making it sixty-four thousand). Last night, Song Tan had made some plans.

How should she plan?

Buy a phone, farm tools, seeds, and fertilizer…

Could she save the rest? No, she needed to hire people to dig the mountains and fields for all the places she wanted to plant…

This money wouldn’t last long for labor costs.

“Dad, Mom said I could use the fields and the mountains, but the vegetable garden stays untouched—are there any machines that can till the land?”

If she couldn’t afford to buy one, she could rent one!

Song Sancheng was still hesitant: “Tan Tan, do you really want to farm? Just try it out on one or two plots. If you take on too much, people in the village will say you’re being too ambitious.”

Song Tan didn’t mind, but her parents had lived here all their lives, and it was impossible for them not to care about gossip.

So she persuaded, “Dad, even if I only farm one plot, people will still talk. Since that’s the case, why not go all out?”

Song Sancheng was at a loss for words and could only sigh again: “Your mom and I discussed it last night. We can’t touch the twenty thousand yuan we have saved for retirement; we can only give you sixty thousand.”

“Tan Tan, making money isn’t easy. Don’t waste it.”

Song Tan’s eyes welled up.

She knew her dad wasn’t lying. In a rural family, supporting a university student and a son with special needs, with both parents working in turns, how much could they save?

This was truly their entire savings.

Song Sancheng didn’t know what was on his daughter’s mind and continued to worry:

“If you’re going to do it, you have to think about why you can make money. Otherwise, with so many people farming in the village, why would you be better than them?”

“If you’re not confident, think it over again.”

Song Tan also fell silent.

In the cultivation world, it didn’t matter what you did as long as your cultivation level was high enough. Just like when she used her Water and Wood Spiritual Techniques to grow spiritual plants for a hundred years at the Moon Peak to seek breakthroughs.

There were many like her.

But now she was in the ordinary world. She could squander sixty thousand yuan, but she couldn’t let her parents’ hard-earned money go to waste and make them worry.

But how could she explain cultivation?

Song Tan pondered for a moment: “Dad, to be honest, I’ve wanted to come back for a long time. Our village is close to a water source, and with its winding mountain roads, it hasn’t been polluted all these years, making it a particularly good place.”

That was true, but it was still a remote area with mountains that weren’t grand or dangerous. The forests and fields were mostly randomly planted, with much of it lying fallow…

Even if someone wanted to develop it, there was no way to start.

There really wasn’t much pollution over the years.

Otherwise, Song Tan wouldn’t have been able to draw in spiritual energy so easily last night.

“What’s so great about that?” Song Sancheng dismissed: “There are plenty of villages like ours nearby.”

But Song Tan said quietly, “Dad, the reason I dare to come back and farm is that an expert came here to test the soil and water quality, and they found it to be very high. Crops grown here taste better than those from other places.”

“They were professionals, and what would they gain from lying? So when I felt I couldn’t stand my job anymore, I decided to come back and try.”

“Dad, if I succeed, I can stay in the village with you and Mom.”

Her last sentence moved Song Sancheng.

Raising a son and daughter, didn’t he want the family to be together? But since middle school, his daughter had been living in town for school, then high school, university, and work… The time they spent together was very little.

Now that his daughter said this, Song Sancheng couldn’t help but believe—yes, if professionals tested it, what if it worked?

So he persuaded himself and agreed: “Yes, the vegetables we grow here taste better than the ones sold in your supermarkets!”

Father and daughter, filled with enthusiasm, went to look at farm tools.

“By the way, Dad, how much do the tilling machines cost here?”

Song Sancheng thought for a moment: “I think you can get one for about five thousand yuan…”

Song Tan immediately decided, “I’ll buy one!”

“Buy what?!” Song Sancheng glared at her: “These machines need frequent repairs after a few uses. Besides, from our bamboo forest to the pond, we have seven or eight large fields. Can you handle them all at once?”

Their fields were terraced, suitable only for small farm machines. Small ones were cheap but prone to problems.

In this regard, Song Sancheng had more experience than Song Tan, who only knew how to use spells.

So Song Tan followed her dad, watching him enter a farm equipment store. After a few words, he secured a price of 500 yuan per day for tilling.

“So expensive…”

Song Sancheng muttered as he left the store.

There were still people farming, and now was the time to prepare for spring plowing, so it was a busy season.

Besides, they were not just renting the machine but also hiring workers. Their fields were half-abandoned and hadn’t been maintained for years, so this price made Song Sancheng click his tongue.

But he was an optimist and soon cheered up: “With the machine, it’s easier. Their price is high, but they till deeper than others, which is good.”

Actually, this was the only farm equipment rental shop in town. The next closest was in the neighboring town.

Song Tan looked at her dad and found him endearing in every way.

“Tan Tan, what do you plan to plant first? If it’s rice, we need to clear out the top pond. It hasn’t been maintained for years and is full of water chestnuts.”

People here used to love eating rice. They planted both rice and wheat, but mostly rice.

Of course, now no one planted it anymore!

Song Tan looked at her dad and felt like a low-key rich kid: “That pond is ours too?”

The pond had weeping willows and wild grass and vegetables around it. The water was clear and clean.

In Song Tan’s memory, although the water chestnuts inside were small, only the size of chestnuts, their sweet and fresh taste was different from those sold in the market. She hadn’t tasted them for many years!

“Of course!” Song Sancheng said matter-of-factly: “Our family used to plant rice. If we couldn’t use others’ ponds for water, how could we grow rice?”

“Besides that, the bamboo forest area, including the pond at the entrance, is ours.”

“Your dad is the youngest, so when the land was divided, your uncle took the mountains, and our family stayed nearby.”

“Only the pond on the distant hillside was dug by the former brigade.”

Song Sancheng sighed, clearly worrying about money again.

Song Tan was too shocked to speak.

She had planned to come back and lease some fields and mountains, but now it seemed, why lease anything?

She was, indeed, a landowner!

At this moment, Song Tan felt high-spirited and pointed to the seed store ahead:

“Dad, let’s buy a few dozen pounds of Chinese milk vetch seeds first!”