Summer of the first year, 7th-8th

Sunday is the start of the week and a good day for harvest.

You picked a chili pepper that was long enough to be used as a belt, but you didn't dare to eat a whole one on its own, afraid that it would be so spicy that you would feel like you were about to burst and smoke from your seven orifices.

The radishes are cooked, so they can be eaten directly; they're crisp and refreshing, though a bit spicy. Since you can't eat raw radishes, you've decided to put them in a jar to make pickled radishes. If only there were a Chinese food mod that could make a bowl of congee with them!

You regretfully put away the radish, placed the chili peppers to be offered in the wooden box, and took the crystal balls you had collected by mining during this time to the blacksmith shop.

This time you've accumulated quite a lot. When you put the crystal balls on the cutting board, you always suspect that the HDB flats are trying to smash you with a hammer. So the action of putting them down and then stopping is getting faster and faster, to the point that some people in the live stream suspect that you've used a speed mod.

After filling my backpack, I went to the museum to donate. When I came back, I sold what I could and threw away what I couldn't. I did this several times until I had opened all the crystal balls and reaped a rich harvest. I had accumulated three rows of rewards waiting to be claimed at the museum.

Most of them are decorations, along with seeds and abstract scarecrows. For a player like you who has played through many times, they're nothing new. So you pick and choose a few packets of seeds to take home. For decorations, you only pick out musical crystals and stone drums that make sounds. You have no musical talent, but you like to play instruments to entertain yourself. It's just for fun.

After leaving the museum, you go back to your room to put your things down, and then set off for the mine again.

Through diligent practice, you have basically adapted to the attack rhythm of the various monsters in the iron ore layer, rarely lose health, and gradually become addicted to mining.

You've been working until the early hours of the morning when it suddenly dawns on you that you went to the blacksmith during the day not only to open crystal spheres, but also to bring 5 gold ingots to upgrade your pickaxe!

[Standard procedure, standard procedure]

[Blacksmith: Damn it, I've been smashing crystal balls for this kid all day and haven't gotten a single decent job]

[3:50 PM is the time when Stardew Valley players are most likely to remember that they haven't upgraded their farming tools yet, followed by 1:50 AM]

[So true, haha]

[With these opening hours, how dare he complain about his poor business! (From a wronged farmer who's been shut out countless times)]

You awkwardly replied, "Definitely tomorrow!"

————

Summer 8 is destined to be a busy day from the morning onwards. You open the door to find Jody, panting, who has come to your farm to invite you to dinner.

Important note: Dinner requires a largemouth bass; she wants to use the fish you brought to make a stew in a clay pot.

[Bring your own food when hosting a dinner party]

[Willie: Is this why you don't buy fish from my shop anymore?]

[Don't do that, friends. It's normal to bring some ingredients when you go to a friend's house for dinner.]

[But we usually only ask friends to bring things like scallions, ginger, and garlic. Bigmouth sea bass is considered the main dish, right? It's a bit much to prepare a steamer and vinegar for you to bring hairy crabs.]

You spoke up for Jody: "Willy's place probably only sells seafood. It's hard enough for her to even walk to the farm, let alone climb up the mountain to fish. Being a housewife is tough, I don't think she should mind doing such a small favor."

There's new mail in the mailbox; you go and open it before you start working.

There were two letters. One was a recipe from Grandpa Huzhang, nothing special. The other letter included a gift from Nanami Kento—a box of instant stir-fried green peppers from Joja Supermarket. The production date wasn't recent, but at least it wasn't expired.

You see a familiar description on the packaging of stir-fried green peppers: spicy green peppers covered in breadcrumbs and filled with cheese.

Ah... still that perplexing translation. It sounds like a Latin American version of stuffed green peppers in Typhoon Shelter style. It's a bit strange, but thinking about it carefully, it actually sounds delicious.

What should I do? I'm tempted to try it right now, but is it really okay to just throw this kind of frozen solid food into my mouth, since I can tell from the cardboard box that it's a frozen lump?

So why bother with such meticulous attention to detail?! The original game just included a dish with the mail, right? This mod is toxic!

Due to the dimensional barrier, the live stream cannot empathize with you.

Why are you always holding up pictures of stir-fried green peppers? Just eat them if you want!

[Yes, although the +2 to farming is a waste, the +1 speed is not bad. Let's run faster to the mountains to catch bigmouth bass for our aunt.]

[We mountain folks love to have a plate of chili peppers and a cup of coffee for breakfast—it's so satisfying!]

【Ha ha ha ha】

You quietly put away the stir-fried green peppers and decided to keep the gift in the refrigerator forever.

Even though you're practically skinny now, you still want to eat some fresh fruit or hot food if conditions allow...

Or, caviar would be nice too. You haven't tasted this famous delicacy yet, and now you can even make it yourself on the farm!

This morning, the sturgeon in the fishpond produced its first batch of roe, only 8 pieces, but each one was as big as a pigeon egg. It would be so satisfying to eat caviar made from this. However, how it tastes depends on how reliable the canning process is.

You built your house on the spot without stockpiling wood and stone, so you don't have the materials to make a canning jar. You have to postpone making caviar and go fishing in the mountains and visit a carpenter first.

It wasn't 9 a.m. yet, so you scheduled fishing for the first activity. That was a mistake. Because when you'd caught every kind of fish you could in the lake and finally landed a bigmouth bass, and were excitedly carrying the fish into the carpenter's shop to buy something, you saw Kugizaki Nobara walking half-asleep toward the lab in slippers. Instinctively, you went up to her and stopped her, intending to give her a gift.

What happened next is probably familiar to Stardew Valley players—you accidentally gave away the Bigmouth Bass you just caught as a gift.

Kugizaki Nobara, looking disgusted, held the bigmouth bass by its gills and complained, "Where am I supposed to put this?"

[Put it in your mouth]

[Place on the bed]

[Place in the laboratory water tank]

You restrained yourself and gave the most serious answer, "Put it in the refrigerator," then bypassed her and headed straight for the counter, quickly buying the stones and wood and making a reservation to build a well tomorrow. You angrily rushed back to the lake to continue casting your line.

At 1:50 pm, you return to the farm with a backpack that looks like you've just robbed a fish market, and start dumping fish into the harvest box.

At 3:10 pm, you were playing with the stone drum in the house, feeling depressed, when suddenly a spectator reminded you that you hadn't upgraded your farm tools yet. You rushed to the mine cart and made it to the blacksmith shop before closing time.

At 4:00 pm, I passed by an ice cream stand and bought two ice creams to give to Jody's kids when I went to her house for dinner... But halfway there, I remembered that I had already brought enough Big Mouth Bass, and that it was pointless to be so formal in the game world. So I happily shared the ice creams I had just bought with Rika, who was passing by.

A beloved summer treat, this tricolor ice cream cone can be made with just milk and sugar, and it's undeniably sweet and delicious. There are other adjectives to describe it, but one bite isn't enough to discern the flavors clearly; you have to guess from the colors that it's a scoop of strawberry, honeydew melon, and vanilla ice cream. The cone itself seems quite crispy.

Pelican Town is small. Even if you stroll there at the slowest pace, stopping for ice cream along the way, you won't arrive at Jody's house until just after 5 p.m., which is still a long way from 7 p.m.

If you're really going to a friend's house for dinner, arriving early allows you to chat and help with cooking. But Jody is a meticulous NPC; if it's not time yet, she'll assume you're just passing by and won't mention the giant bass casserole at all.

You glanced at Jody, who was standing in the kitchen lost in thought, and began to seriously tour her house.

"This should be a photo of Jody when she was a teenager. She's quite pretty, and she's wearing a bow in her hair." You point to a framed photo hanging in the hallway leading from the kitchen to the bedroom and introduce it to the viewers in the live stream: "And this is Gojo Satoru, with a very unconventional look, making a peace sign with both hands, see?"

Is it possible that we can only see pixels?

[If the host says so, then so be it. Anyway, what I saw was Sam with a half-shaved head and an off-shoulder top.]

[Don't make it too abstract]

So which picture are you referring to?

You used to visit villagers' homes to complete quests, unlike those who play extreme builds who meticulously study routes and fill empty spaces with barrels, or those who decorate every house for decorative mods. So this is the first time you've discovered so many picture frames in Jody's house—mostly portraits, but the largest one is a landscape photo... This instantly reminds you of the subtle disharmony you felt when you delivered gold ingots last time, as if someone was missing from these picture frames.

The room at the end of the corridor was closed. Theoretically, as Jody's friend, you could come and go as you pleased, but you did not enter the mistress's bedroom without permission.

There's not much to see inside anyway. It's not like it's Manny's bedroom where you can find the mayor's underwear. The mayor doesn't sleep in the ranch owner's bed every day, otherwise everyone would have found out long ago.

As a former player, you have some morals, but not many. If you could get an ice cream machine from Jody's bedroom, you would definitely go in.

You wonder, somewhat uncertainly, if there really aren't any hidden Easter eggs on Jody's side? It seems like there's just a letter her husband sent her... nothing much to see.

Unable to trust your memory, you try to check the live stream for clues, only to find, unsurprisingly, that these people are just rambling and talking nonsense again.

[Maybe Kent has already "returned"]

[That's right, there were her husband's letters on the bedside table, and his belongings were stuffed in the cabinet. Was it her husband's vengeful spirit that returned home, or his lover in disguise?]

Jody couldn't help but think that her youngest son was growing more and more like the person who couldn't be brought to light. Late at night, she stood by the boy's bedside, her gaze increasingly complex...

Unable to bear it any longer, you interrupt their horror story relay: "That's enough, everyone has a responsibility to maintain a normal family atmosphere in this healing farming game. Kent will be back next year."

At 6:40 pm, you leave the room and stand by the river, hesitating for a few seconds whether to take the opportunity to cast a line and gain some fishing experience. But you are afraid that you will miss the time when the plot will be triggered while you are fishing, so you linger at the door for a while and then go back in. This time, you have indeed caught Jody's attention.

Just then, the bigmouth bass in your backpack seemed to suddenly come back to life and jumped around vigorously, and the fishy smell came out from the hidden storage space behind you.

Help! What's with this sudden sense of realism?!

You feel as lost as if you were in a morning market, with your mother shoving a bag of live fish into your hand, saying that she's worried they might not be fresh and you should take them home first and kill them in the afternoon.

The fish stares at you through the gaps in the black plastic bag with its bright, round eyes, and then, with a splash, splashes water onto your chin, and all you can do is clutch the bag and pray that it will quiet down as soon as possible.

Gojo Satoru came out of the room and saved you. He carried the fish into the kitchen and, with unexpected skill, quickly processed the fish, which was about half the size of Otsukoshi Yuta, into even pieces, then coated it with breadcrumbs, fried it until golden and crispy, and served it with a secret sauce. It looked delicious.

Jody took the roasted vegetables she had prepared in advance out of the oven, then ladled the soup that was simmering on the stove into a light-colored soup bowl and placed it on the table along with the fish.

They didn't seem to treat you like a first-time guest. Gojo Satoru took a plate from a high cabinet while directing you to get a chair from the living room. There was a certain unfamiliar atmosphere in the kitchen, a feeling that came from home.

This is your first meal in Stardew Valley. Instead of rushing off to recharge your energy, you can sit down and enjoy a delicious meal.

You ate with great relish, almost completely immersed in the warm atmosphere of the family meal, unless Gojo Satoru suddenly asked about your sacrifice progress.

For students, the most dreaded thing about meals is when someone suddenly starts asking about their grades, because there's no escaping it and they have to answer awkwardly. And after becoming adults, the taboo topics at the dinner table only increase, ranging from work and marriage to children and the elderly, from health to life plans… Surprisingly, even in the game world, you'll still be relentlessly questioned during meals, only able to stammer that the sacrifice is progressing steadily.

Red Leaf Cabbage

I'm refreshing and refreshing. The traveling merchant will bring seeds sooner or later. Even if it's past the season, we can plant them in the greenhouse. It will definitely work this year.

No milking to make cheese

No rush, you can collect a large jug of milk and cow and sheep cheese after two days of building up goodwill.

Why isn't the jam ready yet?

What? You didn't want caviar? Uh, I misremembered, that was a movie theater sacrifice. Smima Sai, make it right away while I refresh the fruit from the Bat Cave.

...

You initially thought you were doing a great job with the sacrifice mission, but after being asked these questions, you realized that there were actually quite a few things that should have been sacrificed but were still empty.

That's why you like the Joja style; without proper planning, it's really easy to forget things! Many players see Grandpa but don't even know what the renovated Community Center looks like... Stardew Valley is practically two different games in the game libraries of P and J players.

After Gojo Satoru casually asked you a question that made you feel guilty and sweaty, he finally revealed his true intention: "You and Nanami have a good relationship, right? Hurry up and make your relationship official and get married. Leave these things to him, and you can focus on improving your strength."

Here we go again, the classic marriage-urging scenario... Wait, something doesn't seem right. Aren't spouses supposed to only do things like feeding animals and fixing fences? Helping to collect sacrificial offerings? Is this some kind of good thing?

You, who were originally adamant about not getting married, hesitated for a few seconds. After all, getting married in Stardew Valley is just a kiss and then sleeping in the same bed from then on. What's wrong with a best buddy kissing?! This is all for the sake of making Stardew Valley greater again!

Suppressing your longing as a former player to experience the new features, you reluctantly declined, saying, "I'll try my best... I don't need to get married, I can do it!"

Perhaps your emotional fluctuations caused the bugged game system to finally react. Before Gojo Satoru could reveal any more useful information, he was teleported back to his room.

You glance at Jody washing the dishes and the empty dining table, realizing the story is over.

We need to think carefully about what just happened, concerning our spouse and improving our capabilities.

Based on Gojo Satoru's words, this Stardew Valley game with the unknown mod allows the spouse to do more for the farmer than in the original game. And "ability" likely refers to skill level, which is related to encyclopedia unlocks and perfection ratings. Therefore, it can be roughly inferred that the spouse cannot achieve 100% perfection for the player, but may be able to handle other tasks.

The question is... is it really worth marrying Nanami Kento for all these benefits?

No, no, no, no, thinking about it carefully, we're definitely not close enough to live together! Let alone kissing in front of the whole town at a wedding—is that something I could actually do?!