Chapter 110 Fruit

After the professors from Xiadu Agricultural University took the seeds away, they would occasionally send Li Chang'an updates on the progress.

Besides trying to crossbreed these seeds with high-yield, superior seeds from outside, they also tried planting those seeds directly. However, when the premium seeds were harvested for the first time, the quality of the vegetables was completely inferior to that of the premium vegetables from the Immortal Mountain Farm, though they were slightly better than the ordinary vegetables already available in the Cangxuan Realm.

For example, the cabbages and bok choy they grow have stems that are not as hard as ordinary ones; they are very crisp, comparable to the cabbages and bok choy from Xianshan Farm, only they are not as sweet.

This is the first round of planting, and these seeds have remained largely disease-free during the planting process.

In the second round, these seeds behaved no differently from ordinary seeds in the Cangxuan Realm, as if the spiritual energy they contained was completely consumed during the first round of planting.

When the spirit seeds were planted for the first time, they sprouted by absorbing the sparse spiritual energy in the soil. However, they withered and died as soon as they emerged from the soil because of insufficient spiritual energy.

—The growth of spirit seeds requires spiritual energy, and the minimum requirement for soil is inferior spiritual soil. However, the spiritual energy in the Cangxuan Realm is scarce and cannot meet the needs of spirit seeds.

The researchers borrowed some demon beast pills from the Cultivation Alliance, but they were still unable to create inferior spiritual soil like Li Chang'an.

Li Chang'an gave them some high-quality spiritual soil, but that soil could only support the first round of growth of the spiritual seeds. During this process, the spiritual energy was also dissipating rapidly, eventually turning into ordinary soil.

Researchers tried to crossbreed these newly grown spiritual vegetables with premium vegetables from the Fairy Mountain Farm, but found that the two could not successfully pollinate and produce seeds.

Ultimately, the only option was to hybridize premium seeds with high-quality seeds from the Cangxuan Realm.

This hybridization went very smoothly. After the two plants matured, they were artificially pollinated, eventually resulting in the "Xianshan Generation 1" hybrid.

Professor Wang couldn't wait to send a message to Li Chang'an. At this time, a year and a half had passed since they took the seeds from the immortal mountain, and it was the first month of the new year.

When Li Chang'an received the message, he had just finished checking the condition of the mulberry and fruit trees on Jiarong Mountain.

Surrounded by spiritual energy, the fruit trees grew nearly three meters tall in two years, and the mulberry trees also grew to more than three meters tall, sprouting tender leaves.

However, these mulberry trees are only of ordinary quality and have not reached the spiritual quality, so their leaves cannot be picked to feed the spiritual silkworms.

Li Chang'an was originally very confident in growing the spirit mulberry tree, but after discovering that the soil of Jiarong Mountain could not be transformed into spirit soil with demon beast pills like that of Wolu Mountain, he had a premonition of the current situation.

The ancient books and basic manuals of the Cultivation Alliance do not contain any methods to turn ordinary plants into spiritual plants.

Looking back now, the fact that Mount Wolu and the open space at its foot leading to the Ningjing River were able to cultivate crops of spiritual quality was perhaps solely due to the blessings of the Ningjing River and the mountain god of Mount Wolu.

Since the blessings of the mountain god of Wolu Mountain could not reach Jiarong Mountain, he could only wait for the Ningjing River to take effect.

Upon receiving this result, Li Chang'an suddenly thought of the trees his parents planted with him and his younger brother in the yard when he was a child.

It was an osmanthus tree, dug up from the mountains. At first, the osmanthus tree was just a small sapling, only as long as his arm. After it was planted, it took two years for his parents and younger brother to leave, and the osmanthus tree only grew to be one section taller than him, and the trunk was not even as thick as his arm.

Li Chang'an understood that planting trees required patience.

Moreover, the fruit trees he planted were still seedlings, and it would take at least three to five years for them to grow tall and bear fruit in the Cangxuan Realm.

If the spiritual energy in the immortal mountain is abundant, the growth time of plants can be shortened by half. It would still take at least one and a half to two years for them to grow tall and bear fruit, not to mention that they would not become spiritual quality plants.

After walking around the hillside where fruit trees were planted, Li Chang'an sat down on a tree halfway up the mountain and received a WeChat message from Professor Wang the next second.

[Mr. Li Chang'an, good news! We have successfully hybridized our first batch of seeds using your premium seeds.]

She sent Li Chang'an a series of data and materials, ending with a video.

The video shows two tomato plants. The leftmost branch is laden with red, fist-sized tomatoes, and the plant looks thicker and taller than the one on the right. The tomatoes from the left plant are also redder and rounder than those from the right.

A professor's introduction came over: "This Xianshan first-generation tomato is a hybrid of our premium Xianshan seeds and the most common Fengchan No. 3 variety in Xiaguo. It has the advantages of Fengchan No. 3, such as hard skin, good transportability, and high yield, as well as the advantages of Xianshan premium tomatoes, such as strong flavor, strong disease resistance, and cold and waterlogging resistance. The yield has increased to about 15,000 catties per mu, and it may be even higher when grown in greenhouses."

After watching the video, Li Chang'an was initially pleased, but soon noticed the name the professor had given to the hybrid seeds.

The Immortal Mountain region.

He rubbed his fingers together. He couldn't deny that seeing the name gave him a warm feeling that swelled slightly, and he felt like he was overflowing with happiness and satisfaction.

A moment later, Li Chang'an, with a smile on his face, replied to Professor Wang: "It's good that it succeeds."

Like other hybrids, the Xianshan 1st generation cannot be rotated, but fortunately, Li Chang'an has a lot of high-quality seeds, and a batch can be harvested in less than ten days.

Every time he harvests premium vegetables, he sends some seeds from the few plants he keeps to the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The seeds from Xianshan No. 1 from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences haven't been released to the market yet, but here in Li Chang'an's area, the fruit trees on Jiarong Mountain have produced their first batch of fruit.

It was May, and most of the fruit trees were beginning to bear fruit. The chestnut trees were covered in fuzzy flowers, and the squirrel spirit would come to see them every day.

The pomegranate trees have also blossomed, with bright red flowers hanging on the branches, like a sunset adorning the forest.

Li Chang'an, along with Jingjing and Huang Jinxu, thinned the fruit on the trees.

This is the first time the fruit trees have borne fruit, so it's not advisable to have too many fruits on each branch.

After thinning the fruit, Li Chang'an piled up some fertilizer and came to fertilize the fruit trees every few days.

He also planned to move the chicken coop to the foot of Jiarong Mountain, and give the original chicken coop to the ducks, raising several thousand more ducks.

The new chicken coop was built to be very large. Every morning, the spirits would open the coop door and let the chickens go up the hillside to eat weeds and wander around. At night, they would be herded back into the coop to sleep, which would help the chicken meat grow firmer.

By the end of June, mulberries, lychees, bayberries, apricots, plums, and peaches have all ripened and are ready for initial harvesting.

The mulberries, some dark black and some deep red, are hidden among the green leaves. Each one is about the size of a thumb, soft, juicy, and you can smell the rich, natural fruity aroma as you walk under the tree.

On the lychee tree, clusters of bright red fruits grow, each about the size of a ping-pong ball. When peeled open, you can see the translucent flesh, which has a fragrant aroma and a sweet and juicy taste.

There are two types of plums: Sanhua plum and Honey Plum.

Honey plums are naturally very sweet, but those grown on Jiarong Mountain are even sweeter, sweeter than the common ones in Cangxuan Realm. When you take a bite, you can see that the flesh is somewhat translucent, and then the honey-like sweetness bursts in your mouth.

The Sanhua plum is also very sweet, but it also has a slightly sour taste. This sourness doesn't make you feel nauseous; instead, it adds a layer to the flavor of the fruit, making it less cloying.

When ripe, the bright yellow apricots have soft, juicy flesh, a rich aroma, and a sweet but not cloying taste.

The bayberries are all quite large, with small pits, and they have a very fragrant and sweet taste, with only a slight sourness after that.

There are two types of peaches: water peach and eagle beak peach.

Both types of peaches are quite large. The nectarine has a tough skin that peels off easily, revealing flesh that melts in your mouth, sweet and juicy. The eagle beak peach has crisp flesh with a refreshing sweetness; after breaking it open, you can slowly chew it to taste the rich peach flavor.

Li Chang'an wasn't in a hurry to pick the fruit to sell.

Firstly, he was worried that the quality of the first batch of fruit from the fruit trees would be unstable. Secondly, he only planted about a hundred of each type of fruit tree, which was not a large quantity, so he wanted the members of the Immortal Mountain to have their fill first.

During this time, fresh fruit was always placed on the table, and the mushroom lovers could enjoy sweet juice or fruit tea with every meal.

The spirits of Jiarong Mountain especially love these sweet fruits, since they grow under their daily care. With the satisfaction of harvesting, they only feel sweetness when eating each kind of fruit.

However, although there weren't many fruit trees, they bore a lot of fruit, and even if Li Chang'an and the others ate every day, they still couldn't finish it all.

Some fruits fall from the branches to the ground, where they either rot and become nutrients in the forest or are eaten by chickens that roam the hillside.

After a rain in the fairy mountain, many fruits that hadn't been picked in time fell to the ground.

Li Chang'an led the spirits to bury the fruit deep in the soil, and some were picked up and composted.

Afterwards, he and the spirits picked some of the fruit and took it home to make wine.

The picked apricots, peaches, and plums are mashed into a pulp, then mixed with hops and bottled for fermentation.

Afterwards, Li Chang'an washed the mulberries, lychees, and bayberries, and took out several large bottles of sorghum liquor from the warehouse.

He brewed this sorghum liquor after harvesting a batch of sorghum, and each bottle contains ten jin (5 kg).

At that time, Li Chang'an planted a lot of sorghum and brewed thousands of bottles of wine. He then stopped planting ordinary sorghum and instead cultivated a special type of sorghum. He used this special sorghum and fine wine flowers to brew wine to worship the mountain god of Qingyao Mountain.

Making wine from mulberries, lychees, and bayberries is very simple; just soak the fruit in the wine for a while.

The finished fruit wine is also stored in the warehouse.

By the time I finished all that, it was already evening.

Jingjing was cooking in the kitchen, and the aroma filled the house.

Li Chang'an sent messages to Xie Kuling and Yang Hao, the owner of Xiaoping'an Supermarket, asking if they wanted fruit.

He hadn't revealed any news about the fruit's ripening lately, partly to let the spirits eat their fill, and partly to observe the fruit trees' fruiting time and the amount that could be harvested.

The fruit trees bear fruit at roughly the same time as the ordinary fruit trees in the Cangxuan Realm, but they grow in batches. Once the fruit on one branch is picked, another batch grows out in half a month and ripens very quickly.

Now, on the fruit tree slope of Jiarong Mountain, these fruit trees are already bearing fruit for the second time.

Xie Kuling and Yang Hao were both surprised to see fruit on the fairy mountain.

Yang Hao: [Fruits?! What kinds are there?]

Xie Kuling: [Are they ripe already? Wait a moment, I'll be right there.]

Li Chang'an sent the existing varieties to Yang Hao and replied to Xie Kuling with an emoji.

Two minutes later, Xie Kuling arrived at Xuanling Immortal Mountain.

He and Xie Xuan were exceptionally talented, and later, Li Chang'an provided them, his old friends, with extra spiritual vegetables and immortal rice. They broke through to the Foundation Establishment stage this April, enabling them to fly and teleport.

Xie Kuling now looks quite different from his previous sickly appearance; he is healthier and more cheerful.

He walked into the courtyard with a smile, smelling the aroma of food. "You haven't had dinner yet?"

"It's being prepared, want to grab some food?"

Xie Kuling has already eaten; the Qingfeng Sect always eats at 5:30 pm sharp.

But he still clasped his hands in a fist and bowed, saying, "Then I won't stand on ceremony, I'll just freeload another meal off you."

Li Chang'an chuckled, "Go ahead and mooch off me."

The two walked into the restaurant together, and Cha Jing helped Jing Jing bring out the food and set it out.

Xie Kuling immediately noticed the fruit in the center of the table.

Several kinds of fruits are placed in a bamboo fruit plate. The aroma of the fruits is not overwhelmed by the fragrance of the food, but rather makes people feel more refreshed.

"These are the ripe fruits. Next month there will be grapes and dates."

The fruit trees planted the year before last are mostly expected to bear fruit this year, except for the cherry trees, which are slower to bear fruit and show no signs of bearing fruit yet.

Li Chang'an stroked his chin and said, "Currently, these fruits are growing in batches. If they are picked in time, the next batch will appear in half a month. I don't know if they will continue to grow like this. Each batch of each type of fruit can yield tens of thousands of catties."

Tens of thousands of kilograms isn't a large quantity. If it were all sold online, with a limit of one kilogram per person, only tens of thousands of people could buy it.

Compared to the fixed number of visitors to Xianshan Farm, this is already a very small number.

Nevertheless, Li Chang'an immediately thought of giving some to Qingfengpai and Xiaoping'an Supermarket.

Xie Kuling was stunned for a moment, then felt extremely grateful.