Manager Zhou narrowed his small eyes and scanned Jiang Chan's face twice like a venomous snake.
Rules? Of course he knew the sect didn't have such a rule. But he was annoyed! A useless person born with blocked meridians, why wasn't she just being a useless person and instead wasting her time? The key point was that what she said seemed to make some sense... the soil in this lousy field was as hard as stone.
"Loosening the soil? Retaining water?" Steward Zhou sneered. "With this rubbish? Do you think you're some inner sect immortal master who can turn stones into gold? Useless trash is useless trash, just doing all this useless and despicable stuff!"
He cursed viciously, spitting almost onto Jiang Chan's face, "I'm warning you! If you do this filthy stuff and attract insects and rats, ruining the entire Spirit Medicine Peak, or delaying the growth of the Dew-Gathering Grass, you can forget about your pitiful food rations!"
He uttered those words fiercely, glared at the basket of fallen leaves with disgust, and then walked away with his hands behind his back, swaying as he went.
Watching Manager Zhou's retreating figure, Jiang Chan's tense body slowly relaxed. There was no point in arguing with this kind of person. She bent down and silently straightened the basket that had been kicked askew.
We can't give up! Composting is fundamental! He only said not to let the whole area stink, not that we can't do it in a corner. Let's find another place then!
She dragged her basket to a secluded corner on the back slope of the medicinal herb field. It was more remote and lower in elevation, with several large rocks blocking the way. She put down the basket, picked up the broken hoe, and gritted her teeth to start digging a hole.
The soil was still so hard, the shaking made her arms numb, and the blisters throbbed with pain. Sweat stung her eyes, making her blink repeatedly. She didn't bother wiping them away, and dug, stroke after stroke, a shallow pit barely big enough to hold half a basket of rotten leaves and weeds.
She emptied the contents of the basket into the container. It contained fallen leaves, weeds, and some bird droppings mixed with mud that she had secretly collected. She had risked her life to scrape them up bit by bit from the corners while cleaning the area around the aviary in the early morning, and the smell was indeed pungent.
After emptying the contents, she suppressed her nausea and used a hoe to briefly turn over the contents of the pit, trying to mix them as evenly as possible. By the time she finished, she was panting heavily, her arms aching so much she could barely lift them.
"Ptooey! It stinks!"
"A useless garbage collector..."
In the distance, she could faintly hear the mocking laughter of other menial disciples, but Jiang Chan pretended not to hear it. She walked to the nearby mountain stream, washed her face with the cool water, and then, enduring the pain, rubbed some of the mud off her palms.
Looking at the pit emitting a faint smell of decay, she silently prayed: Let it rot quickly... and become good fertilizer...
The composting was done, but Jiang Chan didn't rest. She shouldered her hoe and returned to her medicinal herb garden. The dew-covered grass was still wilting, but upon closer inspection, subtle differences could be seen. Some were slightly stronger, with a few more green leaves; others were weaker, with more yellow spots on their leaves.
Superior breeding! The term popped into her head from her knowledge base. Select the best seedlings, nurture them specially, and let them produce the best seeds! That way, the next generation will be even stronger!
She endured the pain in her back, bent over, and carefully examined each plant one by one, as if selecting gold. When she saw a plant with a slightly thicker stem and fewer insect holes on its leaves, she would carefully use the handle of her hoe to draw a small circle in the soil next to it as a mark.
She circled a plant with noticeably larger, darker green leaves. After inspecting the entire row, she marked seven or eight plants. These were the best of the worst in this barren field.
After marking the leaves, she remembered the pests mentioned in the knowledge base. She carefully examined the leaves. Sure enough! On the underside of the leaves, there were many tiny green insects, no bigger than pinheads, huddled together, feeding on the leaf sap! Aphids! They were one of the culprits causing the leaves to yellow and stunt growth!
They must be eliminated!
The knowledge base immediately provided a solution: wormwood! It has a strong, pungent odor that insects dislike! It grows in the mountains nearby!
Jiang Chan's eyes lit up. She immediately put down her hoe, and despite her exhaustion, scrambled up the hillside next to the medicinal herb field. She carefully searched through the weeds.
After searching for almost half an hour, I finally found a few clumps of grass with grayish-green leaves, serrated edges, and a pungent smell by a sunny crevice in the rocks. That's it!
She carefully cut several large bunches of wormwood and carried them back to the edge of the field. She found some stones and built a makeshift stove, placed the broken earthenware pot she had brought on it, added water from the stream, and lit the dry branches she had collected.
The bluish-green wormwood tumbled in the water, quickly boiling into a thick, dark green liquid. An extremely strong, bitter, and spicy aroma filled the air, causing even Jiang Chan to frown and take two steps back.
After the juice cooled down a bit, she used a rag to soak up the dark green wormwood water and carefully applied it to the leaves of the wormwood plants most severely affected by aphids, especially the undersides. She was even more meticulous with the few good seedlings she had selected, leaving no leaf untouched.
By the time she finished, it was almost dark. Jiang Chan was exhausted, her back felt like it was broken, and the scrapes on her hands were burning with pain.
She dragged her leaden legs back to her dilapidated room in the far corner of the servants' quarters. Without even taking a sip of water, she collapsed onto the hard bed and fell into a deep sleep.
Days passed by in repetitive, arduous work.
Jiang Chan is like a tireless spinning top:
Taking care of the compost pit: Every morning or evening, she would sneak to that corner, enduring the pungent smell, and use a twig to turn over the contents of the pit. The fermenting heat rose up, carrying a complex smell of decay and a hint of earth. Watching the fallen leaves and weeds slowly turn black and soften, she knew they were rotting, turning into fertilizer.
Care for the marked seedlings: Weed and loosen the soil around the selected dew-covered grasses, and carefully water them with rainwater collected from the tiles or clean stream water. Watch them grow taller little by little, their leaves seemingly more expansive than those around them.
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