Chapter 28 – Rice to the Challenge: A New Quest

🙞❤︎🙜

I had not been idle these last few months. Though I did still get tired after half a morning’s work, I had managed to clear a decent-sized field near the house. I let my apprentices cut down a few trees the next two days, but after that we walked to the middle of my farming allotment to clear a new field for us to use.

“This is the place that I’ve chosen because it’s near the river, but not so near that it will flood during the rainy season. The place near the house will be for the stuff that I want to eat, while this field will be cleared for a cash crop,” I said.

“Great!” said Lari. It figured that he was the type who was excited about earning money since he had the [Ambitious] characteristic.

“What crop?” asked Kharli.

“I’m thinking… Sugarcane. We can make sugar on the farm, and I know that it’s a luxury item the nobles would love to buy,” I said.

The single beehive I had placed on the farm had produced two jars of honey thus far, which was nice, but I also wanted to have sugar for cooking.

“That sounds great,” said Lari. The others nodded.

[Sugarcane:

A giant grass with long, narrow leaves, green stems, and small, white flowers. The plant’s stalk is full of a sweet juice that can be extracted and refined to produce sugar.]

Now that the plan was clear, we continued woodcutting. The kids could only cut three trees, but I could cut twelve. This time, my apprentices got tired, but they didn’t collapse on the ground anymore. That was a good thing because they could immediately walk themselves back to the house where an early lunch was waiting for us.

Since I knew that the hot spring facility from the Cash Shop helped replenish energy, I built a new, smaller one for them in an empty room, because I didn’t want to share mine. It was the only place in the house where I had complete privacy, so I wanted to keep it to myself.

When I showed them the place, they were in awe of all the “magical” items and facilities. My three apprentices were especially fascinated by the soap and shampoo that never ran out, but it turned out that they couldn’t be taken out of the house. The same was true of all the other items from the System that I had used to furnish the residence. People inside could use them or even move them to various areas, but only inside the four walls of the courtyard house.

After yet another excellent meal from the Demon Chef, we all took a bath and had a long nap. Food, rest, and a good, long soak in the hot spring did wonders for our stamina, and by late afternoon we had recovered some energy, hence we went back to the field and cleared a little more land.

It might not be the most exciting lifestyle, but I found it really satisfying to gradually transform this wild forest into an agricultural showcase.

Lately, ever since my apprentices had arrived, I had been daydreaming a lot about what the farm would look like in the future: cultivated fields as far as the eye could see, vast orchards, dozens of processing machines, lovely gardens, a picture-perfect ranch house, and plenty of livestock.

One day, I promised myself, I would have all that and more.

***

However, when I told Shuye of my plan to manufacture sugar, he raised a lot of objections.

“Please don’t do that. I can’t force you, but I really think it would be a bad idea because the clans are expecting to receive three sacks of rice every day,” said Shuye.

We were in the main hall where we always met now that I had a proper place to receive guests.

“Why? You guys don’t even eat human food!” I said.

To make sugar, I would have to remove the rice mill since my low farming level meant that I could only have two buildings on the farm, my house and one other building. The plan was to grow sugarcane then use a machine from the System to process it into sugar. Of course, I could sell the sugarcane itself, but that would be less than ideal since finished products sold for a lot more than raw materials.

“Adults from the clans don’t eat human food, but it’s a different story for our children,” said Shuye. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to put too much pressure on you, but, unfortunately, the demand has far exceeded the supply, and I fear what would happen if it was cut off.”

“Oh?” In fact, wasn’t it a good thing that the clans wanted my rice that much?

Shuye got up from the chair and started pacing back and forth. “I went straight to the Lady when I had thirty sacks of rice. You see, I didn’t want to put her in a dilemma where she didn’t have enough to distribute among the clans. She had quite a difficult time with people trying to ask for a bigger rice allotment for various reasons.”

“Gosh, somehow I never would’ve thought that people from the God Beast clans would be quarreling over a bit of rice…” I said.

“Ha! If one of our oldest and most respected scholars hadn’t gone on record to say that one small rice ball every three days was all that our children could absorb properly, I fear what would happen if the parents thought their kids would benefit if they had more,” said Shuye. “I never in my life would’ve thought that I would be grateful that our fertility has been declining recently. As it is, we have barely enough to feed all the young ones.”

“Absorb?” Did their juveniles have undeveloped digestive systems?

“The rice is great because it contains very gentle qi, but there is still a limit to how much their young bodies can take in.”

Oh, so he was talking about qi. I remember that Fengying had said something about the qi in our food before, but I hadn’t paid any attention to it. After all, unlike the people of this world who had powers, I was not a cultivator. I had the System which meant that qi was irrelevant to me.

“Okay, I understand. It’s not a bad thing that the clans want my rice that badly. I can plant something else… by the way, what did they say about the potatoes?”

“Everyone agreed to overlook it because the harvest isn’t big enough to share with all the children,” said Shuye.

“Does this mean that I should plant rice?”

“No, we already have enough,” said Shuye. “Any more than what we have currently might pose a problem since people might start hoarding it.”

“Wow.” I was speechless. To think that the problem was that bad!

Shuye shook his head and sat down. “I hate to ask you to change your plans, but it’s been crazy. I’ve even heard a rumor that one of the children of the ruling family of the Deer Clan refused to eat anything but your spirit rice.”

“What happened?”

“Well…” Shuye lowered his voice even though it was only the two of us inside the room. “Allegedly, his clan members felt so sorry for him that all the other parents ‘voluntarily’ contributed a spoonful of rice each. The Lady had to put her foot down and return the rice to the others. She even wanted to ban that parent from future rice distributions, but the others persuaded her that it would be unfair to the child.”

“That’s crazy!”

“You’re not a parent, so you don’t know, but people will do anything if they think it will give their child an advantage,” said Shuye.

“Wait, what about you? Do you have kids?”

“I’ve been married for a long time, but we still haven’t had kids,” said Shuye. “We’re trying.”

He had barely finished speaking when the System pinged me with a [New Quest] notification.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.]

LinMeili

• Here's the followup to what happened to the rice she sold to the clans. :) I hope you like this new development.
• If you're wondering why the adults eat demons while the kids eat Violet's spiritual rice (and presumably regular food), the rice is stated to have "gentle qi" and I really can't imagine that demon meat's qi is in any way gentle.
• Thanks for reading my story!
• If you spot an error, please leave a comment, so I can fix it.

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