Chapter 5 : You Are Xiao Wang, Right?
Jiang He was jolted awake by dog barks by the next morning.
“Damn it! What are you barking at? I’ll break your doggie legs, trust me!”
Turning around and rising, he then found Dumbo sprawled in front of his bed and whimpering restlessly, even putting on a human grief look.
“What?” Jiang He was amused.
Dumbo continued its grunts and whimpers, but when it realized that it wasn’t conveying its message, it sat up and pointed a paw outside.
Jiang He turned to look.
He could see his orchard through the window, which was now a jade green field of corn.
“Woah…”
His mouth agape, Jiang He promptly jumped off his bed, put on his pants and slippers before dashing outside.
“It really works! The corn I just sowed last night is this tall already?!”
He walked up to the corn to find that each corn stalk was as tall as he was. Each of their shoots was thick, their leaves a lively green and showing signs of yielding crops. Jiang He did a count and found that there were only twenty-eight corn stalks.
“Wait, that’s not right! I didn’t pay attention when I just grabbed a handful of corn last night, but there were definitely more than twenty-eight seeds.”
Still, suddenly getting an idea, Jiang He dropped to a crouch and dug into the dirt.
He soon excavated one corn kernel out of the ground.
Hence, Jiang He walked a lap around the twenty-eight corn stalks, muttering in realization, “These twenty-eight corns were planted on the spot where I sprinkled the ashes of the cucumber tree. That’s why they grew so quickly.”
He then took a closer look at the corn kernel in his hand: it was already sprouting a shoot, and it would probably have extended out of the ground if he didn’t dig it out.
“Corn mature cycles are very long, so if I plant it in April or March when spring starts, I would only get my yield around October. Still, although corn kernels usually sprout around a week, this one sprouted in a day!”
“In other words… the System works on normal crops as well, and it greatly shortens the life cycles of the plants to about seven or eight times… But there’s no telling whether there are special effects yet.”
Jiang He hence turned toward the System.
[Name: Jiang He]
[Cultivation: Quasi Martial Artist]
[Ability: None]
[Owned Land: 888m²]
[Farm Level: 1 (EXP 1/50)]
[System Backpack: 3 boxes]
[System Shop: Unlocked]
[Farm Points: 499]
“Eh? Why is there an EXP now behind farm level?”
Jiang He’s eyes twinkled, before he got the idea. “Doesn’t that mean my farm can level up?”
“And if level one shortens the growth cycle of my crops up to eight times, what if I reach level 2?”
“That said, that’s not enough. I still have to know whether there would be some mystical effect after my normal crops were grown!”
Jiang He hence studied his System.
‘Owned land’ basically referred to the area of his orchard, and the 888㎡ area basically matched its one Mu size.
“Well, we’ll have to observe these twenty-eight corn stalks to know whether normal corps planted in my farm here would gain special effects.”
Jiang He made up his mind, before calling out to Dumbo and yelled, “Take good care of the corn. I’m holding you responsible if even one is missing!”
He then returned to his room to wash up, before whipping out a cucumber stick to crunch on for breakfast before leaving his house leisurely.
Behind him, Dumbo kept whimpering, its mouth hanging open and its tongue outstretched, salivating all over the ground.
Whoosh!
A small piece of cucumber flew into the yard just then.
It was what’s left of one cucumber that Jiang He had eaten, which he had then thrown to Dumbo.
***
Jiang He headed eastward, leaving the village. When he finally reached someplace quiet, he suddenly sprinted forward, and soon reached Two Dog Li’s breeder’s union.
“Amazing! It’s four kilometers from the village to the union, but I covered it in just four minutes… it is more or less the speed of fifteen meters per second.”
Jiang He’s heart was thumping wildly after getting the number!
Fifteen meters per second!
What the heck?
Usain Bolt’s 100 meters sprint record was 9.58s, therefore almost reaching 10.5 meters per second. In other words, Jiang He was going to easily break world records if he participates in track and field events now!
“But wait, this isn’t my full power yet!”
“If I go full power, I would be even quicker in a hundred-meter dash!”
“My physical stats had increased so much after becoming a Quasi Martial Artist. It’s not just my speed that changed—even my strength has increased considerably!”
Soon, he was knocking on the door of the breeder’s union chief office.
A slim and scintillating dressed woman opened the door, rubbing her red, swollen eyes.
“Who are you looking for?” She asked.
“Are you Two Dog… Li Fei’s wife?” Jiang He smiled. “I was his classmate and I have some business with him. Is he in?”
The woman, however, had started crying at the mention of Li Fei’s name.
“A bunch of goddamn bastards came out of nowhere and kidnapped him…”
???
“Li Fei was kidnapped?” Jiang He exclaimed in shock. “No way!”
Society is peaceful these days, after all.
It was true that Li Fei was a little rich, but there were so many wealthier people. Who had the time to bother with kidnapping him?
More importantly, he had revealed his incredible power in last night’s livestream.
So, who would dare to kidnap someone who could knock out a burly man with a single punch?
“What actually happened? Did you call the cops?”
“I did…”
Watching as Two Dog Li’s wife continued crying her heart out, Jiang He tried to console her, only to realize that he didn’t really know what to say. As such, he quickly said, “Sis, you don’t have to be sad. Two Dog Li has luck on his side, he’s not going to die…”
“Huh?”
Two Dog Li’s wife did a double take, before bawling even harder.
‘Forget it. I’m not doing this. I can’t bear to look at all this crying!’
Jiang He turned to leave.
“Still, Two Dog Li’s case serves as a warning to me.”
“The country is still keeping the revival of Spirit Qi a secret. I must be careful, or it won’t do if I get caught and become a lab rat for their experiments.”
Jiang He took his time returning home, quietly pondering how he should go about developing his farm.
However, when he reached his gates and looked up, he found a young, pretty girl standing in front of it, asking him with a blush, “J-Jiang He, have you seen my Dumbo?”
‘Is that… Old Wang’s daughter?’
Jiang He found her familiar but was unsure about her name, and therefore couldn’t help asking, “You are Xiao Wang, right?”