Chen Xi turned left and right until he arrived at a farm within the city. Well, calling it a farm was a bit of a stretch—it was actually a dozen hastily built large houses, but they were fitted with plenty of glass windows and had a good number of coal stoves inside.
"How are things?" Chen Xi pushed open the door, and a warm breeze carrying the sour odor of coal stoves, along with a feeling of suffocation, hit him directly. "Good heavens! Qu Hanmo, what are you doing?" Chen Xi dragged out Qu Hanmo, whose face was flushed with blood.
"Zichuan, what are you doing!" Qu Qi shouted angrily, "I’m observing!"
"Observing what? If you keep observing, you’ll die. Don’t you realize that staying in there makes you dizzy, with ringing in your ears? Isn’t it difficult to breathe?" Chen Xi scolded furiously.
"Eh, how did you know that?" Qu Qi was stunned, "But you’re right, I do feel much better after coming out for some air. What’s going on? Well, it makes sense. After all, this method goes against the routine of planting in spring, harvesting in fall, and storing in winter. Some danger is to be expected—we don’t have the Emperor to stabilize our fortunes."
Before Chen Xi had a chance to explain what carbon monoxide poisoning was, the guy had already started to figure it out for himself.
"Okay, your explanation is also correct, it’s more or less the same thing. Did the vegetables I had you plant sprout?" Chen Xi had just entered and dragged Qu Qi out, so he hadn’t taken a closer look around.
"The vegetables did grow, but the peach and apricot trees you had me transplant with the soil are a bit off. They only flower but don’t bear fruit!" Qu Qi said with a hint of panic, which was utterly illogical. Not to mention that blooming at this time was shocking enough, but the blooming without bearing fruit was even more so.
"Didn’t I tell you to pollinate them when thinning the flowers? How could they possibly not bear fruit?" Chen Xi said in astonishment, "It’s impossible for them not to bear fruit. Even without pollination, there should still be a fruit or two."
"Zichuan, do you think we’re going against the Ghostly Deity by doing this? The peach and apricot trees are blooming but not bearing fruit—isn’t that the heavens warning us not to continue?" Qu Qi said with a look of awe.
Chen Xi rolled his eyes—what was this all about? But to the ancient people, it seemed quite terrifying indeed.
"Rest assured, if there are really problems, I’ll take the fall. Right, and don’t let those few peach trees blossom. I need them for the flower petal rain when I get married." Chen Xi looked at Qu Qi with disdain. The guy really had a small heart. Just a few days ago, he had the courage to say he would squat with him at Shennong Temple, and now he was scared stiff —these ancients, tsk tsk tsk~
"You want peach blossoms for a flower petal rain during your wedding? You really are extravagant!" Qu Qi exclaimed, "You’ve built more than a dozen huge houses and fitted so many crystals on the walls, sinking billions into this just to see flower petal rain in winter. Are you crazy? With billions, you could have married in spring!"
"Scram, as if the wedding date of a Duke and Marquis could just be changed on a whim! I can only get married in an intercalary November, of which there have been only fifty in five thousand years. It’s not easy to find a good day," Chen Xi bluntly rejected Qu Qi’s suggestion, especially since he hadn’t really spent billions.
"I can’t understand you rich folk. Let it be, let’s talk about what I’m good at." Qu Qi said this with a clearly sour tone, his prowess in farming apparently having been surpassed by someone else.
"Go ahead, I’m listening! But I think you’d better do as I say. It would be better to open the windows and air the place out periodically. Otherwise, one day you might just end up dead, and it’s quite possible." Chen Xi spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness as he gave Qu Qi enough scary thoughts to potentially frighten him to death.
"Damn it, I quit! If you want to challenge the laws of life, why drag me into this? I’m out!" Upon hearing about the risk of dying, Qu Qi immediately got angry. Why wasn’t this mentioned earlier? Even growing vegetables could be life-threatening, for crying out loud!
"I told you that you wouldn’t have any trouble if you followed my method. You clearly didn’t ventilate on schedule, did you!" Chen Xi said, grabbing Qu Qi’s collar, and speaking of which, Chen Xi’s fatigue has diminished a lot recently. He’s no longer as constantly sleepy as he was during the early days of Liu Bei’s rise.
"Explain this to me clearly, what’s going on? And what’s with those black stones?" Qu Qi turned his head to look at Chen Xi and asked.
"Those black stones are actually wood, just wood that’s been buried for millions of years and then compressed, so they can burn. However, there’s something else inside them. If they don’t burn completely, they emit a type of qi that can kill you." Chen Xi couldn’t exactly explain carbon monoxide to Qu Qi, so he kept it simple.
"You could have just said they’ve been buried for millions of years and burning them incompletely releases resentful qi, I get it now." Qu Qi’s analysis was simple and direct.
"That works too," Chen Xi muttered, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"Tell me why peach blossoms bloom, why most don’t yield fruit, and why seeds sprout now?" Qu Qi asked another question.
"Because of temperature and humidity. In spring, the temperature rises, so seeds sprout. Right now, we’re just simulating spring climate conditions to make them sprout, just like you can farm vegetables in Jiangnan even in winter." Chen Xi found this easy to explain, and Qu Qi understood him. "About blooming without fruiting, to put it simply, flowers are divided into yin and yang, just like people. But unlike spring, there are no insects like bees and butterflies around now."
"Okay, I see. So you’re saying there’s matchmaking involved, and even a peach blossom has to consider these things." Qu Qi indicated his understanding, although he found the explanation somewhat unreasonable. But as long as it stopped Qu Qi from digging deeper, it was fine.
"How’s the bean sprout cultivation going?" Chen Xi changed the subject to a safer topic. Bean sprouts should have been sorted out already; without vegetables to eat, aren’t they perfect? Soybeans have never been scarce throughout history, they’re fodder!
"That’s not a problem. I found a doctor who has already sprouted a lot for us. But are you sure we can eat these? I remember reading in Shennong’s Materia Medica that this is a medicinal herb, used for boosting qi. Medicinal herbs shouldn’t be consumed carelessly," Qu Qi said confidently as he had recruited an experienced doctor to sprout a whole wooden basin full of black soybean sprouts, and then he ordered someone to bring them to Chen Xi.
"..." Chen Xi looked at the basin of black-skinned bean sprouts, rather small but definitely organic. The problem was they had already rooted and turned green, which would make them bitter. If not used for medicine, then what?
"Forget it, just dry them and make medicine. When you sprout the yellow ones, bring them to me. And can’t you use your brain a bit? Carrot seeds can sprout, so can mung beans, and soybeans..." Chen Xi said resignedly, "when the time comes, sprout any edible seeds you can find and see which taste best."
"Eh, right!" Qu Qi was obviously fixated on the two-thousand-year-old black soybeans and hadn’t thought about sprouting anything else.
"What about the other things I told you to grow? The black fungus from the rotting wood and the like, any success?" Chen Xi asked curiously.
"I switched to planting other things. Mushrooms and black fungus are everywhere in the mountains, easily bought with some money. Why bother with the hassle? I’ve requisitioned the land to research how to grow vegetables that shouldn’t be growing at this time," Qu Qi said, clearly annoyed, displeased with Chen Xi’s wastefulness.
"Do as you please, but if you fail to grow what I want, you’ll pay for it. I’m taking back all the greenhouses I allocated to you," Chen Xi said with a raised eyebrow, clearly not pleased. After all, he could manage without Qu Qi, who now had a bunch of students from Mount Tai. (To be continued. If you work, you are welcome to vote and support on Qidian ). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)