Upon returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan felt a lingering sense of unease, so he hurried to the herb garden to check on Xu Wenwu, lest the fellow do something earth-shattering again.
The moment he entered the herb garden's formation, Wei Yuan immediately sensed something amiss. Today, the formation's strength seemed considerably weakened.
Either the garden's area had expanded significantly, or it had just been attacked or sabotaged from the shadows, causing damage to the formation.
Wei Yuan swept his divine sense across the grounds—and unexpectedly failed to cover the entire herb garden. He paused in surprise. The garden's area had doubled in size! What was going on here?
Sweeping his divine sense once more, he located Perfected Chuhe and flashed over.
Under the shade of an ancient tree, Perfected Chuhe and Xu Wenwu sat upon a soft carpet of golden silk grass. The table and chairs were crafted from spiritual wood at least five centuries old, and atop the table sat a red-copper hot pot. Steam billowed from the pot as the old Daoist and Xu Wenwu sat around the table, feasting heartily.
Looking closer, Wei Yuan realized there were not just two of them: Xu Shiba was also there, alongside the sable, the cat, and the snake. Three humans and three beasts were eating with absolute delight.
Multi-colored lights twinkled across the sky—a specialized grand formation that enveloped and protected the entire herb garden. Such formations were exorbitantly expensive, far beyond what Perfected Chuhe could afford. Under some dubious pretext or another, he had managed to con this formation worth millions out of the Hall of Jianmu and deploy it in Qingming.
Later, True Monarch Huangyun had passed away here, so the seniors managing the Hall of Jianmu stopped bringing up the matter of the formation, even sending over a batch of spiritual wood saplings instead.
At present, the True Monarch's seat at the Hall of Jianmu remained vacant. Beneath it were over twenty Perfected Persons, including three or four at the peak of the Dharma Idol realm, yet none of them raised the matter of succession, leaving the hall master position empty.
Many disciples in the hall already knew that the Perfected Persons were waiting for an exceptionally rare immortal tree to inherit the mantle of hall master. The old Daoist, being nearest to the waters, enjoyed the advantage first. Right now, the hot pot boiled with spiritual spring water, cooking sliced spiritual herbs, and the party of humans and beasts relished every bite.
Seeing Wei Yuan arrive, Perfected Chuhe immediately invited him to sit down. The flying sable leapt straight onto Wei Yuan's shoulder, gesturing vigorously with its little paws. Between its frantic gesturing and chittering, Wei Yuan finally understood its meaning:
*The meat of those things working in the fields is delicious. If you want, I can go grab one in a bit to serve at the table.*
Wei Yuan looked in the direction the flying sable pointed and saw a vast expanse of newly cleared land, nearly double the size of the original herb garden. Expanding so abruptly, however, had pushed past the natural boundaries of Qingming's innate spiritual fields. Near the edges of the newly opened land, spiritual qi was thin, making it difficult for spiritual herbs to survive. Wei Yuan had no idea why Perfected Chuhe had cleared such a massive tract.
As if reading Wei Yuan's thoughts, Old Daoist Chuhe chuckled and mysteriously produced a small wooden box, placing it before Wei Yuan. Opening it, Wei Yuan found six palm-sized saplings resting inside, translucent and lustrous as jade.
Wei Yuan was thoroughly astonished!
These saplings were called Spirit-Caging Jade Trees. Once mature, they could naturally absorb the origin qi of heaven and earth, transforming the land around them into spiritual fields. These jade trees were the absolute pinnacle of herb garden infrastructure; the main garden at the Palace of Grand Beginning's ancestral mountain was planted entirely with them.
Spirit-Caging Jade Trees could not be purchased anywhere. They could only be propagated by True Monarchs of the Hall of Jianmu through their natal divine abilities. With True Monarch Huangyun's passing, the propagation lineage of Spirit-Caging Jade Trees in the Hall of Jianmu had temporarily been severed. The six saplings in Perfected Chuhe's hands might very well be the hall's final reserve.
These items were far too precious. Wei Yuan asked solemnly, "Where did you get these?"
Recognizing this was no time for jokes, Perfected Chuhe replied, "Before Grandmaster passed away, she specifically entrusted this small wooden box to me, telling me to take it out and use it whenever I felt the time was right. Today, Brother Wenwu and I hit it off splendidly. On a sudden whim, I knew it was time to put this treasure box to use."
Wei Yuan turned his gaze to Xu Wenwu, wondering what the fellow had spouted this time. Looking somewhat guilty, Xu Wenwu mumbled softly, "I just chatted with Big Brother Chuhe about what modernized agriculture is. The more we talked, the more inspired we got, so Big Brother expanded the grand formation and decided to open up this tract of land."
Wei Yuan was just about to point out that such a vast piece of land was nearly ten thousand mu—how could they possibly clear it with so few hands? Just then, a rumble echoed in the distance, and a plume of smoke shot straight into the sky.
Wei Yuan looked over and saw Xu Wenwu's Toad-style chariot trundling forward. Shrouded in swirling light, it dragged a frame behind it, upon which eight immortal swords were mounted side by side. As the chariot rolled ahead, the eight immortal swords tilled the soil in its wake.
The immortal swords radiated sword qi continuously, plowing a trench one zhang wide and seven chi deep in a single pass. While the old Daoist's eight swords were rather mediocre for slaying enemies, using them to plow fields was truly overkill.
Behind this sword-plow trailed a pack of guinea pigs of unknown breed, their fur gleaming with an eerie sheen—clearly no ordinary beasts. Numbering several hundred, the largest were the size of small foals, while the smallest were merely fist-sized. They burrowed in and out of the freshly plowed earth with extraordinary agility, tilling the soil even finer.
The residual sword qi left behind in the earth by the old Daoist's immortal swords was entirely devoured by these guinea pigs. Wherever they burrowed through, the soil's fertility shot up, and the ambient spiritual qi grew noticeably denser. Evidently, these guinea pigs were naturally gifted at tending to spiritual herbs and grasses, sustaining themselves on spiritual fruits and grass seeds.
Behind the swarm of guinea pigs followed dozens of cultivators. Several of Perfected Chuhe's fellow sect members walked at the front, constantly planting seeds or herb saplings into the soil. A row of cultivators behind them watered the seedlings, while another row behind them cast Daoist techniques to stimulate the herbs' growth.
Moving forward in this coordinated procession, tilling, planting, and nurturing were accomplished in a single unified sweep, steadily expanding an eight-zhang-wide swath of herb garden in their wake.
Though Perfected Chuhe and Xu Wenwu appeared to be idling over food and drink, their Dao Foundations were actually hard at work, so they dined with clean consciences and zero guilt.
Judging by this efficiency, Wei Yuan estimated the entire tract would be fully cultivated in about ten days. Once the Spirit-Caging Jade Trees were planted, it would become a high-grade herb garden in just a few years, reaching a scale roughly one-tenth of the ancestral mountain at the Palace of Grand Beginning. And the Palace of Grand Beginning's ancestral grounds had accumulated over three thousand years and seen multiple Immortal Monarchs pass away to achieve their present grandeur.
Holding the treasure box in his hands, Wei Yuan suddenly felt a pang of sorrow.
He understood that True Monarch Huangyun had been worried about Chuhe, which was why she had used Chuhe's hands to pass these jade trees to Wei Yuan. With this contribution, no matter how Qingming developed in the future, Chuhe would always have a place here.
Wei Yuan did not point this out. He sat down, tasted a few mouthfuls of the food, and then asked how the two had come up with this idea.
Perfected Chuhe explained, "Didn't I just visit the loom workshop? I was deeply inspired at the time, remembering the phrase 'mass production' from Brother Wenwu's notes. Then Brother Wenwu brought up modernized agriculture, and isn't an herb garden just agriculture?
"The core of modernized agriculture in the outer world is something called a tractor. It just so happens that Little Brother Wenwu's dharma idol can serve as a tractor, so I fashioned a plow, called over my fellow sect members to lend a hand, and brought in a few new Dao Foundation cultivators who needed to stabilize their cultivation to assist. That pretty much covered it.
"The only trouble is that doing this makes us hungry fast, so we have to eat a meal every two hours. Hey, Brother Cat, what are you doing? You've already snatched three guinea pigs! They still have work to do—you can't eat them all!"
The cat reluctantly returned to the table, occasionally eyeing the guinea pigs burrowing in and out of the fields, no longer interested in eating vegetables.
"What is most suitable to grow in this batch of herb gardens?" Wei Yuan asked.
Perfected Chuhe replied, "I already discussed this with Xu Henshui. Since this garden was newly opened, time has been too short and the spiritual qi is insufficient, so it cannot produce high-grade herbs. For now, Five Elements Spirit Ginseng is the most appropriate. As long as these spirit ginsengs pass a century in age, they become rank three herbs. Water and Wood Spirit Ginseng are exceptionally suited to this realm's environment, while Earth Spirit Ginseng enhances soil fertility—both are excellent choices."
Wei Yuan wracked his brain to recall his limited knowledge of medicinal herbs and pills. The cultivation world uniformly centered on pills, and herb ranks followed pill ranks. Rank one medicinal herbs corresponded to Body Casting; rank two corresponded to Dao Foundation pills; ranks three, four, and five corresponded to Dharma Idol, Scenery Command, and the manifestation of a Scenery Command mindscape world; anything above that was an immortal pill.
Five Elements Spirit Ginseng provided pure spiritual qi and served as an essential supplementary ingredient in many pills, sometimes even substituting directly for primary herbs. At twenty years, Five Elements Spirit Ginseng reached rank two; past a century, it reached rank three. Rank three Five Elements Spirit Ginseng was one of the standard currencies throughout the cultivation world, often even more useful than immortal silver.
When Wei Yuan had first established his herb garden, he had planted Five Elements Spirit Ginseng in large quantities. The batch planted in the core area of Qingming's main garden, accelerated by more than tenfold growth speed, already possessed the potency of sixty to seventy years.
Wei Yuan naturally had no objections to planting Five Elements Spirit Ginseng. Moreover, this was Xu Henshui's recommendation; when it came to which herbs sold well, pill refiners ultimately had the final say.
Still, planting ten thousand mu in one go? Wei Yuan felt that in the future, Qingming's Five Elements Spirit Ginseng might have to be sold by the jin.
After listening to Old Daoist Chuhe finish explaining his concept, Wei Yuan pondered for a moment and asked, "Does planting these spirit ginsengs help your dharma idol?"
Old Daoist Chuhe said, "A little, but not much. But with an ample supply of nether crystals, I don't really need it anymore. Here, take a look at my dharma idol!"
As he spoke, Old Daoist Chuhe manifested his dharma idol. Normally, Wei Yuan had only seen the eight immortal swords; this was the first time he had ever witnessed Perfected Chuhe's complete dharma idol.
The old Daoist's dharma idol was exceedingly peculiar. At its center was a jade pedestal sword stand with eight sword racks, though at the moment the racks stood empty, as all the swords were outside plowing the fields.
Surrounding the sword stand was an expanse of twisted black forest, steeped in pervasive yin qi. Resentful spirits and ferocious ghosts flickered through the woods from time to time. The blades of grass on the ground were grotesque and menacing, constantly exhaling plumes of black vapor. Ordinary creatures that caught a whiff would instantly faint dead away, becoming food for the grass.
Looking at this forest with its soaring baleful qi and shadowy demonic silhouettes, hardly anyone would believe the old Daoist wasn't a demonic cultivator. Yet despite its sinister appearance, the old Daoist's dharma idol possessed extraordinary spirituality. It was just that compared to the demonic forest, the sword pedestal seemed genuinely inconspicuous—the setting had overshadowed the centerpiece.
Having inspected Chuhe's dharma idol, Wei Yuan understood the situation and gained a touch more confidence.
Patriarch Huangyun bestowing the six Spirit-Caging Jade Trees had not been mere benevolence; she also hoped Old Daoist Chuhe's Dao path could be extended a step further. Wei Yuan had always adhered to the principle of never accepting rewards without merit, so he naturally understood True Monarch Huangyun's intention.
With things clear in mind, Wei Yuan left the herb garden to inspect the land reclamation. The land settlement by the last batch of displaced commoners he had purchased was proceeding smoothly. Of the sixth phase's one million mu of land, over one hundred thousand mu had already been cleared. Progress was steadily accelerating, contributing more and more human karmic luck to Wei Yuan by the day.
Wei Yuan was well pleased after his inspection. After touring through several cities, finding nothing left to inspect and no one to talk to, he prepared to make another trip to the Nether Cold Realm to see if those two fellows were up to anything unusual.
Just then, a cultivator arrived to report that the Desolate Ancestor Tribe's caravan had arrived. Wei Yuan found it rather odd: he hadn't yet instructed anyone to worship Tianyu, so why had the caravan arrived already? Could someone have worshipped him in secret behind his back?
Wei Yuan flew straight to the border. There, he saw Tianyu stepping slowly down from an ornate carriage, supported by two Shaman beauties, while two more beauties trailed behind carrying his long tail.
Chapter 579