Chapter 71

It was quite a predicament for a prestigious dragon son to be reduced to raising chickens and feeding pigs, and Ya Zi was extremely frustrated. He understood that the reconstruction of the Mountain and Sea Realm was just beginning, and the scarcity of resources was an objective fact. To obtain spiritual plants, labor was required. Yet, his naturally petty nature made him feel wronged despite understanding the reasoning. He wanted to find a scapegoat to vent his anger, but Ye Chen was so resolute in his reluctance that it was inconvenient for Ya Zi to continue confronting him.

Suddenly, a gentle breeze blew across Ya Zi’s face, ruffling the bangs he couldn’t be bothered to manage.

Ya Zi finally found a target to bully. Puffing out his cheeks, he faced the wind and blew: “Hoo—hoo—”

The wind dared to blow at him, so he would blow back at the wind!

Even competing with the wind… Ye Chen was astonished.

“He’s got issues. Just ignore him when he’s like this,” Bi An’an whispered to Ye Chen.

With all the divine beasts gathered, Ye Chen planned to cook a big feast to welcome them and clean off the dust. They would officially start work the next day. Several of the divine beasts volunteered to help in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, washing them, and monitoring the cooking. Ya Zi, with his penchant for killing, was responsible for slaughtering chickens and catching fish.

Ya Zi, holding a live chicken, entered the kitchen and asked for a bowl to collect the chicken’s blood. Ye Chen quickly handed him a bowl. Ya Zi placed the bowl on the ground outside the kitchen door, extended his fingers like claws, and sharp nails like blades sprang out. The chicken, sensing its impending doom, mustered all its strength and pecked fiercely at Ya Zi’s hand.

Ya Zi: “……F*ck?”

The exclamation of “f*k” from Ya Zi was in the first tone ^[1]Different tones change the meaning of the words. The word used here is grass but in the first tone it becomes f*ck., expressing disdain and shock, indicating a good understanding of human culture.

Worried that Ya Zi might destroy the kitchen, Ye Chen coaxed, “Ya Ge, don’t get angry. Let’s not argue with the chicken…”

“Dare to peck me, huh?” Ya Zi ignored the advice, grasped the chicken’s beak, and with his pretty eyes narrowed dangerously, extended and retracted his neck, imitating the chicken’s pecking with his human mouth, and angrily said, “I’ll peck you back! Peck you to death!”

But human mouths can’t peck. Similarly, Ya Zi’s dragon form lacked a beak, making pecking similar to kissing. The rooster, in its final moments, was unexpectedly given a vigorous pecking by a human and was left stunned, like a wooden chicken.

Ye Chen silently averted his gaze and let Ya Zi deal with the chicken.

After Ya Zi had slaughtered several spiritual chickens, he went to catch Ranyi fish. Having not fought with Ranyi fish for many years, he underestimated them and ended up hooking seven or eight male fish. The fish, driven by their battle instincts, naturally formed three teams to encircle the enemy. Caught off guard, Ya Zi was slapped by a fish, and in his fury, he transformed and beat each fish into submission.

“Ya Ge… Are the fish done?” Ye Chen, wiping his hands with an apron, peeked out the window and saw eight Ranyi fish lined up against the wall, covering their heads with their fins, looking like a criminal gang apprehended by the police.

Ya Zi, rubbing his face, shouted angrily, “Apologize!”

Ranyi fish: “Hmph!”

“Still dare to scold me?” Ya Zi angrily poked the fish’s belly with his finger, “M.”

Ye Chen: “…”

A man has to be tough, even when scared, so Ye Chen decisively chose to prepare other dishes first!

……

From then on, Ye Chen’s underground supplement factory and illegal black farm finally got on track.

With some help, the scale of land cultivation expanded significantly, and the variety of crops increased as well. Ye Chen thoroughly enjoyed the pleasure of a bountiful harvest. Every day after finishing filming, he would change into work clothes and head home with a basket to collect the fruits of his labor. Plump and red tomatoes caused the branches to bend slightly; the water spinach, freshly cut with a sickle, exuded a crisp, refreshing aroma; a handful of green radish tops, with a flick of the wrist, would bring forth a burst of orange carrots from the soil. Washing them off and breaking them in half, they were sweet and crisp enough to be eaten like fruit… As a happy vegetable farmer, Ye Chen inspected the vegetable fields. Whenever he found any plants not growing well, he would personally tend to them, using his divine power to hasten their ripening.

That evening, Ye Chen and Bi An’an finished work early. The two of them helped Li Li in his workshop, planing wood strips. The popular young actor and the rising star carried out woodworking tasks while discussing the script for the next day’s shoot. They alternated between planing the wood and glancing at the script, creating a scene both magical and hardcore.

The planed wood strips were stacked into a small hill, and the divine beast cubs sat neatly in a row on a nearby bench, each holding sandpaper and the planed wood strips, polishing away the rough edges.

As Xuanwu Cub continued sanding, the repetitive motion of his hands began to hypnotize him, and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier…

Xuanwu Cub: “Hoo—”

A few seconds later.

Xuanwu Cub: “Loo.”

Qiongqi Cub shook his head, gently placing Xuanwu Cub’s head on his shoulder, and quietly took away the six unfinished wood sticks that Xuanwu Cub had set as his goal for the night. Without a word, Qiongqi Cub continued to sand them for him.

Each time a divine beast cub finished sanding three small wood sticks, they could get a small bee stamp from Uncle Li Li. One bee stamp could be exchanged for a piece of candy, and five bee stamps could be exchanged for an ice cream. The bee stamps were part of Uncle Li Li’s reward system, which could bypass the snack standards set by Chen Chen Gege, allowing Uncle Li Li to redeem them at any time.

Qiongqi Cub worked swiftly, finishing the sanding of six sticks and nonchalantly placing them back on Xuanwu Cub’s legs. Xuanwu Cub’s little chubby legs felt a tickle, slowly waking him up. He looked up in surprise and said, “Hey… ah… it’s… you…”

“Keep sanding,” Qiongqi Cub said, handing him another unsanded stick. “This is your seventh.”

“But… but…” Xuanwu Cub tensed up, slowly frowning.

Qiongqi Cub glared at him, “Be quiet.”

Xuanwu Cub tried to return the six finished sticks, “I… don’t…”

Qiongqi Cub covered his ears and moved a meter away, making it impossible for Xuanwu Cub to catch up. “Not listening, not listening, the tortoise is chanting sutras ^[2]不聽不聽，王八念經 – (slang) An interjection used when making oneself ignore someone else’s words..”

“…” That’s exactly what it was! Ye Chen stifled a laugh and ruffled Xuanwu Cub’s head. “Xuan’er, take it and say thank you to Qi Qi Gege.”

Xuanwu Cub slowly repeated the phrase. This time, Qiongqi Cub didn’t interrupt and patiently listened until he was finished. With softened corners and tips of his horns and ears, he gruffly said, “Alright, no need to thank me.”

The fake eyes on the already humanoid Pu Lei Cub unblinkingly fixated on the wood stick in front of him. His two antennae drooped down, and he looked at the stick with a sense of grievance, saying, “I… also slow… boo…”

“… Then I’ll make you six too.” Qiongqi and Xuanwu Cub were the closest, but as the elder brother, he had to be fair and couldn’t let the younger ones feel unfairly treated.

“Lei Lei, remember to blink your eyes,” Ye Chen reminded him, noticing that the fake eyes on Pu Lei Cub’s face had reddened a bit, with some bloodshot veins.

“Ah…” Pu Lei Cub quickly closed his fake eyes and smiled, his antennae bending with the gesture. “Yesterday… I forgot to close them… while sleeping.”

Since the fake eyes couldn’t see anything, Pu Lei Cub often forgot that he had eyes on his face.

After Qiongqi Cub finished sanding six sticks, he remembered there was still the untransformed little sister, so he said to Tao Tao, who was lying on Bi An’an’s lap, trying to gnaw a piece of scrap iron into the shape of a Barbie doll, “I’ll get you six too. If you’re craving them, just ask Uncle for candy.”

Tao Tao shook her little goat horns and sweetly replied, “Xiu.”

After launching the hair growth devices, Chen Chen’s health and wellness shop was upgraded to a two-diamond store and quickly approached the three-diamond level. The hair growth devices were listed every day at 8 PM, with a stable output of at least fifty units, and sometimes up to seventy or eighty units. The daily revenue was at least fifteen thousand, and after deducting various expenses, Ye Chen earned nearly ten thousand a day.

With the extra funds, Ye Chen bought a tablet for the divine beast cubs to play games, and also spent five thousand on a 40-inch LCD TV. He generously subscribed to the platform’s annual membership for 388 yuan. On the first night after installing the TV, the divine beast cubs sat in two rows, high and low, in front of the TV, watching a 40-inch “Peppa Pig” and occasionally making babyish exclamations.

“Chen Chen Gege isn’t poor anymore!”

“Gege, invite Da Gege over to watch TV! One Migu fruit is enough to watch all night!”

“Gege also has a new bed from Uncle! Can you invite Da Gege to sleep over?”

“Hey,” Ye Chen’s face flushed, and he gently pinched the Rabbit Head Strategist’s ear. “Where did you learn ‘sleep over’? Kids shouldn’t say that.”

Hou Cub pulled back his ear, desperately hugging his head with his short arms, his tone soft and his eyes rolling, “Chen Chen Gege, I’m sorry.”

I won’t dare next time!

The divine beast cubs worked together to produce seventy hair growth devices overnight.

After the hair growth devices sold out, Ye Chen received a lot of gratitude from people with bald heads. The divine power steadily increased, currently growing enough to cover the daily planting of new spiritual plants by the divine beast workers, but reaching a significant increase still remained a challenge.

The balance of income and expenditure for “divine power—spiritual plant ripening” is not Ye Chen’s ultimate goal. After the Jing Ling app was upgraded to version 2.0, detailed information and data references about ancient divine bloodlines were added to the literature database. Ye Chen reviewed it systematically and realized that the divine power he currently possessed was still far from sufficient.

The “Classic of Mountains and Seas” recorded: “There is a mound called Yuanqiu Mountain, on which there is an immortal tree. Eating its fruit grants eternal life.” This describes a type of spiritual wood whose fruit grants immortality.

Internal data from Jing Ling indicates that such immortal trees do indeed exist in the Mountain and Sea Realm. Due to their extreme rarity, Jing Ling has unprecedentedly preserved ten saplings of the immortal tree in its space. The fruit of an immortal tree in a single season can make a mortal body youthful by about ten years. In theory, as long as enough trees are planted, the owner of the tree could potentially extend their lifespan to match that of the heavens and earth, and the sun and moon.

Therefore, among the past masters of the Mountain and Sea Realm, aside from the previous master who tragically died in a war, most have utilized the spiritual resources in the realm to cultivate and transcend, stepping out of the Three Realms and no longer constrained by the Five Elements.

As an ordinary student who often read male-centric fantasy novels during self-study periods, Ye Chen naturally harbored fantasies of immortality. He didn’t aspire to conquer the world, but he at least wanted to live a few more years. After all, if he endured these hardships and cultivated these lands, what was the point otherwise? Moreover, it wasn’t just for himself—if he successfully grew the immortal tree, he would first give the fruit to Shen Mofeng.

…I’m not in a hurry to rejuvenate, Ye Chen thought. I’m seven years younger than Shen Ge. Shen Ge is almost thirty, so he should eat it first.

However, growing the immortal tree is no easy task. If it were as simple as planting it in the ground, there would be immortals everywhere. The challenges of growing the immortal tree include the tree’s stringent requirements for humidity, temperature, nutrients, and most critically, divine power. Without divine power support, the fruiting cycle of an immortal tree can be nearly a century, but the fruit from a single tree only extends a person’s life by ten years. Ordinary people can’t wait for 10+ years and will die first, and the long growth period of a century is prone to natural disasters disrupting the tree’s growth.

What’s more challenging is that the higher the grade of the spiritual wood, the less it is affected by divine power. Therefore, if Ye Chen wants to consume the fruit of the immortal tree within his lifetime, he must continuously provide divine power to the saplings. The amount of divine power required to mature an immortal tree within a few years is astronomical, and Ye Chen’s current output is like a drop in the bucket.

First, he needs to expand and strengthen the health products. Once he has more labor and money, he can explore other ways to earn divine power… Ye Chen maintained a steady mindset, cheerfully sanding wood, and remained very practical.

The author has something to say:

[Little Theater]

When Chen Chen is present:
Chen Chen: “All the little friends who have been helped by Qi Qi, say thank you to Brother Qi Qi.”
Divine beast cubs: “Thank you, Brother Qi Qi——”
Qiongqi Cub: “No need to thank.”

When Chen Chen is not present:
Qiongqi Cub: “Call him Qi Ge, don’t call him Brother Qi Qi. How childish.”
Divine beast cubs: “Thank you, Qi Ge!”
Big Brother Qiongqi: “There’s nothing to thank for. In this line of work, it’s all about loyalty.”
Chen Chen, eavesdropping: “…”

Chen Chen, who knocks Qiongqi Cub down and spanks him: “What do you mean by ‘in this line of work’! What do you mean! I told you to stop watching gangster movies!”

The money is enough, but the divine power isn’t. Hehe, I’m such a wicked old lady.

But Daddy Shen is saved, and Shen Ge doesn’t have to worry about peeking at the secrets of heaven and shortening his life…

I initially wanted to end it at three hundred thousand words, but now it seems impossible. Just thinking about the divine beasts fills my head with ideas, so I’ll take my time writing it… sigh