Chapter 34
The cram school has loose regulations, so Paopao doesn’t have to go to evening self-study and can get home in time for dinner.
He finished filling the nutrient solution at the door, crumpled the packaging bag into a ball, stuffed it into his pocket, and walked in.
Unexpectedly, there was only a bowl of noodles on the table.
The aunt came out of the kitchen with chopsticks in her hand, and when she saw him, she hurriedly pushed him to the dining table.
"Master Ming, why didn't you tell me you were back? I'll go make two dishes right away."
"Wait, where's my brother?"
"I went out with you the day before yesterday and haven't come back since. He said he had urgent work to do and asked Master Ming to be careful on the way to and from school."
Paopao's heart tightened, as there were indeed several missed calls from his brother on his phone.
"What did you say?"
Auntie stared at Paopao for a moment and said, "When I was cleaning my room, I saw the monthly lease agreement for the arena. Master Ming, are you playing games secretly?"
Paopao became even more nervous: "Did you tell my brother?"
"No, no, I told you you've been home on time every day." Auntie sighed. "I know you don't want to continue taking exams, but playing games... isn't a stable job. Master Ming, Master Zheng is doing this for your own good."
Paopao lowered his head, and when he raised it, his face flushed red.
"I can make money now! I made tens of thousands in just two days! My brother can play games, so why can't I? You don't need a diploma to play games!"
Auntie opened her mouth: "But..."
"Please, don't tell my brother, or else..." an 18-year-old boy is still a boy after all, "I will run away from home!"
“Ah, this…”
Auntie has been working in this house since Paopao was born, and has watched him grow up. After hesitating for a moment, she softened her heart.
"Then Master Ming, can you promise me that you will be home on time for dinner every night? Otherwise, if Master Zheng finds out, I won't be able to explain it to you!"
Paopao's red eyes curved up and he smiled through his tears: "No problem!"
In the following days, he returned home on time. Finally, on the third night, my brother came back, his figure still straight, but his expression could not hide his fatigue.
"Brother?" Paopao heard the noise downstairs, walked out of the room, and looked down while holding onto the handrail of the stairs.
"Why aren't you sleeping yet?"
Paopao asked back, "What took you so long to come back? Did something big happen?"
"Study hard and don't worry about trivial things."
Paopao, unwilling to give up, tried to probe, "I saw the news. Are Oli and Garl arguing so badly that they're... going to resort to diplomatic relations? Will you, Longyan, mediate?"
My brother's brows were deeply furrowed, then relaxed and his tone became more serious.
"I've already told you that your current task is the college entrance exam. How are you going to keep up with the others if you keep looking around all the time?"
“There are only a few people left in the class…” Paopao muttered.
"So, you want to play games like everyone else? I told you, no!"
Paopao pouted: "I'm going to sleep."
*
I ran out of the room, feeling refreshed, but my hunger level was a little high.
He walked to the kitchen as usual. On the table stood a bowl of white porridge, still warm to the touch. Next to it was a pile of shredded pork and stir-fried pickled cabbage, glistening with oil.
Paopao finished the porridge in one breath, and as for the sauerkraut, he didn't dare to touch it with a single chopstick.
I always feel that... it's not very clean and it's toxic.
It's a deadly poison mixed with corpse poison and arsenic!
The small courtyard was surrounded by bungalows on three sides. I ran around but couldn't find anyone. It was only when I walked to the sauerkraut shed that I saw a familiar figure.
A gap was opened in the fence, and a three-meter-high gate with a small gable roof was erected.
An Rou squatted under the door, muttering to herself, "A little more here, just a little bit will do. Don't peel off a big piece like last time!"
"Yes, that's it, perfect! Wait, and this corner, it's a little slanted..."
The bone knife emerged from the ground and cut along the direction she pointed, bringing up bits of wood.
"Boss, what are you doing?" Paopao came over.
An Rou's eyes lit up, and she greeted him with a smile: "You're here just in time. Come on, write a few words for me."
Paopao looked at the wooden board in her hand and asked, "What do you want to write?"
"A signboard." An Rou said, "Our farm needs a name when it opens, right? I've already thought of one. It's called Yong'an Farm!"
"Yong'an? Yong'an Baokang... Boss, are you from Yong'an Province too?"
"……The same to you?"
"Yes!" Paopao was very excited.
They both tried it on a discarded wooden board, and after comparing, they found that An Rou's handwriting was better looking, which made Paopao feel embarrassed.
He laughed dryly: "Boss's handwriting is so majestic and domineering!"
An Rou wasn't conceited. In terms of academic performance, she definitely couldn't compare to this repeater who had been "top of the class" for six consecutive years. The only thing she had going for her was her handwriting.
After all, he was forced to do this by his father since he was young.
She dipped the brush in ink, brushed it a few times on the wooden board, and wrote the four big words "Yong'an Farm".
The wooden board was the leftover material used to make the door head yesterday. It had not been polished or painted. The edges of the words were blurred on the rough surface, which added a bit of softness to An Rou's words.
"It's so beautiful!" Paopao exclaimed sincerely.
"I leave it to you, hang it up."
A rope was fixed behind the wooden board. Paopao used his swift steps and leaped two meters high, hanging it securely under the door. After several adjustments, he finally got it right.
"Boss, it's hung up."
Paopao looked at Anrou, only to see her writing something on another board. He moved closer out of curiosity.
【Chicken, duck, fish and meat】
【Fresh Vegetable Sauerkraut】
The board was vertical, and the two lines of text only took up a small area. An Rou's pen tip stopped at the blank space and paused.
"Boss, this is... our farm's main business? Why don't you write any further?"
An Rou sighed, "There's also rice, flour, grain, oil, natural picking, and tourism and vacations. But right now, all the farm can do is sell pickled vegetables."
What's more, the sauerkraut is copied from finished products, which is much higher than the market price. It is a complete loss-making business.
If you want to make a huge profit, you’d better go for the money tree!
An Rou felt deeply conflicted.
She just wanted to build a self-sufficient farm and had no interest in doing business. However, with today's technology, if she wanted to be self-sufficient, her living standards would inevitably regress by hundreds of years.
Anrou's dream farm is not just about growing crops and raising chickens and ducks, but a modern farm with complete water, electricity, and living facilities.
Paopao thought for a while and asked the question again: "Boss, are you really planning to make money by running a farm?"
He was a little worried. "Compared to real-world prices, Soul Realm prices are indeed too high. It's not unfeasible. But we've already spent so much money just on repairing the farm. Raising poultry and livestock, growing crops and vegetables will also require a lot of start-up capital. I'm afraid it will take a long time to make a profit..."
"Not only will we have to wait a long time." An Rou shook her head, "Our products cost too much. Even if we sell them at market price, we'll still lose money. We can only rely on the profits from the sauerkraut shed to fill the gap. It's a bottomless pit."
"Maybe it's better to hold on until the crops on the farm are ripe?"
"The problem is we can't make it that far. Three more chicks died in the hen house this morning."
Paopao's eyes widened. "Dead again?! What happened? Is it chicken plague? Or did someone poison the chicken coop?"
An Rou's eyes fell on the gray-black soil on the ground: "I think it's a problem with the soil. Remember the rapeseed we planted on the first day? There's no sign of germination yet."
She picked up the handkerchief lying beside her, which contained a little damp soil.
After a careful inspection, Paopao saw that the rapeseed in the soil was rotten.
"This land is poisonous," An Rou said.
She had just understood why An Younian had said the eight acres of land was worthless. If nothing could be grown on it, of course it was worthless.
The two of them arrived at the plot of land next to the sauerkraut shed. Compared to the surrounding area, this plot of land was significantly higher, with loose soil, a testament to the sudden wealth. It had over twenty bone blades that could sink into the ground, turning its body over and becoming a natural tiller.
When Paopao was checking the rapeseed in the soil, a voice came from afar.
"girl--"
An Rou originally thought it was Uncle Xiang, but after looking carefully, she realized it wasn't him, so she turned around.
The man came from the other side, leading a cow in his hand. He was dressed in a shabby farmer's clothes and wore a conical hat.
He stopped by the fence and called out to An Rou from afar, "After all these years, I never thought someone would come and farm this land. Girl, is this land bought or rented? You've fallen into a trap!"
An Rou and Paopao looked at each other and walked over.
On the way, she saw a line of green in the distance and realized that he was coming from that direction. The farm had finally attracted the attention of others as houses were being built.
Fortunately, it's not a player.
The old farmer had a simple identification message on his head: [Li Xiang, tenant farmer].
An Rou didn't call out his name directly, but showed a gentle smile: "Old man, why do you say that?"
"Hey! This land was haunted by ghouls over a decade ago! They were so densely packed, so many people died! The soil is soaked in ghouls' blood, how can we grow anything there?!"
The old farmer cursed at the end, "That kid from the An family is such a piece of shit! Can you rent or sell this kind of land?!"
I see.
When a ghoul dies, it turns into liquid. I didn't expect that liquid would have this side effect.
The old farmer was kindly reminding her, so An Rou couldn't get angry. She just put away her smile and said calmly, "An Younian is my father."
The old farmer was stunned and laughed awkwardly.
But he didn't leave.
The wrinkles on his dark brown skin revealed a bit of shrewdness and commercialism: "Girl, if you want to do this kind of thing, there is a way."
"Just scrape off the surface, put some oil paper underneath, and then spread some good soil on top, and maybe you can grow something. You can dig up some soil from the old man's field... and sell it to the girl."
An Rou laughed again.
So that's the plan. NPCs all love money, and it turns out no one can escape the game's settings.
She remained calm: "How much? It's too expensive for me to afford."
"Not expensive, not expensive." The old farmer waved his hands repeatedly. "A pound of soil is one gold coin. It depends on how much you want to grow."
The unit price is indeed not expensive.
"What if I want to pave all eight acres?"
"Ah? Then it must be at least 5,000 kilograms... Girl, if you want to plant trees or something, the soil layer needs to be thicker, so it will probably be more." The old farmer's turbid eyes began to shine.
Five thousand jin, 5,000 gold, is not expensive in terms of the total amount. What is expensive is the oil paper that can cover eight mu of land, which is estimated to be tens of thousands of gold.
An Rou can take it out.
But price isn't the point.
How long can oil paper keep out toxins? Furthermore, it's hard to say what the quality of something grown this way will be.
An Rou didn't want to pay any more attention to him. She turned around and paused again: "Old man, are you sure you can grow anything using your method?"
He used the word "maybe" in his previous words.
NPCs cannot lie.
Sure enough, the old farmer's expression froze for a moment before he smiled awkwardly and said, "Who can guarantee anything when their livelihood depends on the weather?"
An Rou sneered: "Then don't worry about it."
"Hmph, this old man comes here with good intentions to advise you, let's see what you can grow!" Just by listening to the voice, you can tell that the old farmer's face has changed.
An Rou was too lazy to argue with him and walked back. Only then did she realize that Paopao seemed to have discovered a new world. He jumped up excitedly, raised his hands, and gestured to her wildly.
"boss!"
An Rou made a gesture to keep quiet.
When he reached him, he looked back and saw the old farmer walking away with his cows. Then he asked, "What happened?"
"I heard everything he said!" Paopao, who has good hearing, said excitedly, "I remember that too. The liquid transformed by ghouls is poisonous. That's why the Land of No Life is called the Land of No Life. Only a few kinds of weeds and trees can grow there."
An Rou took a deep breath: "Is this discovery worth your happiness?"
The future of the farm is bleak!
In the short time she had walked back, she had already begun to think about the possibility of relocation.
"No, boss," Paopao took out two gold coins and threw them into the soil. "Look! Gold coins can change the soil quality!"
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