The vegetables at the market this morning were noticeably more wilted than usual.

Many vendors still had their produce unsold and displayed at their stalls.

Ji He thought for a moment, then simply rode her tricycle over.

“Auntie, I’ll take all your vegetables. How much?”

The vendor, surprised and delighted, looked up. “Girl, it’s almost closing time. Normally, one bag goes for 1.5, but if you give me 14 yuan, you can take all ten bags!”

Ji He pulled out the money. “Auntie, could you help me load them onto my cart?”

“Of course!”

As the morning market was nearing its end, prices were extremely low. Vendors weren’t even selling by weight anymore—everything was being sold by the bag, with deals like three bags for two yuan.

Ji He pushed her tricycle along, buying up any decent-quality vegetables she spotted.

Since they were cheap, and she’d need them eventually, she decided to buy them all.

By the time she left the market, her cart was piled high with vegetables.

She squeezed through the crowd, hopped on her bike, and quickly disappeared.

Finding a secluded corner, she stored all her purchases, then headed back to pick up tofu.

By now, the tofu vendor had already packed everything into small plastic bags, so Ji He only needed to load them onto her cart.

After spending 165 yuan on three trays of tofu, she added another 35 yuan to round it up to 200, buying a good amount of dried tofu as well.

On her way back, many vendors were still sluggishly packing up due to poor sales that morning.

She saw a serious-looking man with a megaphone shouting, “Hurry up! Time’s up! Don’t make me remind you again!”

Ji He stopped her cart and bought out several more vegetable stalls.

“Buying out” wasn’t as expensive as it sounded—spending just 10 to 20 yuan could clear out an entire stall.

By the time she was done, she had swept up a large amount of vegetables, spending a little over 500 yuan in total.

Just as she was about to leave, she saw an elderly woman storming back toward the market, clutching something in her hand. She grabbed a vendor by the arm and shouted, “You’re not going anywhere! How dare you! The soy milk you sold me was spoiled!”

The vendor looked completely innocent. “My soy milk is freshly made every morning! How could it be spoiled?!”

“You think I’d lie over two yuan?! My child drank it and ended up in the hospital with acute gastroenteritis!” The old woman’s eyes were red with fury as she clung tightly to the vendor, insisting on reporting him to the police.

The vendor, equally frustrated, kept yelling that his soy milk was freshly made and hadn’t sat overnight.

Their argument attracted a crowd.

By now, it was already past 9 AM, and the scorching sun made everyone feel dizzy.

Ji He watched the commotion for a while before deciding to leave.

She took out her phone and checked the temperature—39 degrees Celsius.

She seriously doubted the accuracy of the weather forecast.

Sighing, she rode straight to the agricultural wholesale market. She couldn’t afford to stop now.

She was just six species away from upgrading her storage space, and for some reason, she couldn’t let it go. No matter what, she had to get all six today.

Upon arriving at the largest agricultural market, she wiped the sweat from her forehead, locked her tricycle, and didn’t rush inside.

Instead, she started counting her money.

Yes, counting money.

She had already spent most of what she had on hand. What remained was the 3,958 yuan she earned yesterday morning, plus today’s earnings.

Not knowing exactly how much she had could be embarrassing if she didn’t have enough to pay.

Sitting on the backseat of her tricycle, she reached into her backpack and started counting quickly. In no time, she had the total.

She had earned 8,538 yuan this morning!

She was thrilled—if she could keep this up, she’d be out of poverty in just a month!

With money in hand, Ji He headed straight into the market.

She didn’t go for eggs first but instead made a beeline for the fruit section.

Previously, she had bought only a limited variety of fruit, and she figured there were still plenty of uncommon ones she hadn’t purchased yet.

As soon as she entered the fruit section, a wave of heat hit her. The ventilation here was poor, making it even hotter than outside.

There were quite a few people around, but the fruit in the crates didn’t look fresh—most had clearly been sitting there for days, and even though the vendors kept spraying them with water, it didn’t help much.

Ji He had a clear goal—she was only looking for fruits she hadn’t bought before.

As it turned out, there were quite a few.

Soon, she had found six new types: passion fruit, kiwano (horned melon), pepino melon, rambutan, prickly pear, and Chinese date-plum. She bought one of each.

The vendor initially didn’t want to sell such small quantities, but since business had been bad, he figured selling was better than letting them rot.

Ji He grabbed her fruits and left immediately—she was eager to see the effects of her storage space upgrade.

She ducked into a public restroom, pinched her nose against the stench, and quickly shut the door.

Enduring the discomfort, she placed all the fruits into her storage space.

A moment later, a notification popped up: the upgrade was in progress.

She waited briefly, and soon, the upgrade was complete.

Immediately, she focused her consciousness on the planting space.

The first major change was the expansion of the black soil—it was now at least 100 square meters. Next to it, a large new area had appeared, ready for cultivation.

A little further away, there was now a grassland, roughly the same size as the black soil. Ji He quickly realized its purpose—this was for livestock. The animals that had been crammed into the black soil area could finally move.

Apart from these two major changes, the other three sections had also expanded noticeably. Ji He inspected everything and was quite satisfied.

This was starting to feel like the path to becoming a farming tycoon!

Finally, she turned her attention to the bulletin board, eager to see what was required for the next upgrade from Level 4 to Level 5.

What she saw made her mouth twitch uncontrollably.

To upgrade from Level 4 to Level 5, she needed gasoline, diesel, and natural gas.

No specific quantities were listed.

Ji He sighed. Looks like she’d have to keep selling her lamb soup.

Not for the money—she just enjoyed the feeling of earning it herself.

Oh well.

Despite the steep upgrade requirements, there was still plenty of good news.

Her time limit in the space had increased to four hours, which was the best part.

This meant she could accumulate much more time over multiple visits.

After checking the planting space, she took a quick glance at the storage space—it had doubled in size.

Her previously stockpiled supplies now occupied only a tiny corner.

Looks like she could store even more now.

Unfortunately, she had no money.

Even with just over 10,000 yuan in hand, a bigger space wouldn’t do much good without funds to fill it.

Ji He left the restroom and headed off to buy eggs.

The wholesale price was 3.8 yuan per jin (half a kilogram), so she bought 500 jin at once.

These eggs would last her until her own chickens started laying.

After that, she spent 500 yuan on grains and cornmeal.

She bought small amounts of grains she hadn’t purchased before—glutinous rice flour, millet, black sesame, white sesame—and spent the rest on cheap cornmeal for feeding livestock.

Finally, she decided to buy five tons of coal, spending 7,250 yuan.

Since it was summer, coal was cheaper at 1,450 yuan per ton.

She would have bought more, but she needed to save some money for fish feed.

Cows, sheep, and rabbits could graze on the new grassland, and chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs could eat chopped vegetables mixed with cornmeal.

The only thing she wasn’t sure about was the fish in her pond—she’d have to start with fish feed and figure it out from there.