Chapter 20: Manor Level 20

After Yuan Muchen left, Ai Ling cleaned and arranged her little wooden house.

To prevent water accumulation and to avoid insects and ants on the ground, the wooden house was raised, with a half-height waterproof platform. The platform extended to the front and back, creating two wooden decks.

Inside, there were three simple rooms: two on the sides and a main room in the center.

Ai Ling also made two wooden beds, a few wooden stools, and a set of round-wooden long sofas and a tea table using the wood.

On the tea table, she placed a small ceramic vase, filling it with different wildflowers she picked every day to decorate the house.

The glowing branches He Xi brought back were just enough for each room—one branch per room. Although they weren’t very bright, they gave off a faint, warm light at night, which felt comfortable.

To the right of the wooden house, she built a kitchen with clay and stone, forming an earthen stove.

The current problem was the lack of a large iron pot, so for now, the earthen stove had to make do with large shells.

In the past few days, Ai Ling tried to scold the demon king to change his damage value, but as expected, it was all for nothing.

When she asked Fluffy Ball about it, Fluffy Ball said the demon king had been distant lately, not in his cave, so the system couldn’t determine if her actions were assassination attempts.

Speaking of this, Fluffy Ball had been urging Ai Ling to assassinate the demon king more and more frequently, mentioning it every two hours, twenty-four hours a day.

Ai Ling was too lazy to bother with him. As long as it didn’t interfere with her farming, she let him nag on.

Just as the room was tidied up, a fierce wind suddenly blew, followed by thunder and heavy rain.

Ai Ling loved the rain, especially the moments just before it started, when the sky darkened and the wind howled. It gave her a feeling that something big was about to happen.

In her quiet and lonely childhood, only during these times did she feel excitement rise within her, as though the rain were falling just for her, and she should greet it with excitement.

Now, Ai Ling was no different. She opened the front and back doors, stood barefoot with her arms spread wide inside her little wooden house, letting the wild wind carry the distant scent of mountains and seas across her.

The warm, refreshing, and quickly cooling touch made her feel like an elf in the rain, dancing along with it in nature.

The mountain rain was coming, and the wind filled the building.

After the first gust of wind and rain, the excitement in her heart faded, and only then did the heavy rain truly begin to fall.

Ai Ling made herself a cup of cool herbal water and, satisfied, lay down on the round-wooden sofa she had made herself. She began to enjoy the view of the rain outside.

It was just like when she was a child—when it rained heavily, she would sit on the doorstep, watching the large raindrops fall from the eaves, creating little puddles in the dirt in front of the door.

She would just sit there, watching for hours.

However, this time, as she watched, Ai Ling began to feel a little nervous.

This was the first time she had seen such heavy rain in this world. There had been rain occasionally before, but it was always light, like spring rain, small and brief.

This time, the rain was truly frightening, as if the sky had torn open and someone was pouring water down from above.

Soon, the yard and vegetable garden outside began to accumulate a lot of water.

Ai Ling had chosen this place because it was a flat area, not particularly high in elevation, especially the vegetable garden at the back door, which was even lower than the yard in front. Once the water started accumulating, it wasn’t easy to drain it out right away.

Seeing the water nearly submerging the sweet potato vines and herbs in the vegetable garden, Ai Ling, who had initially planned to leisurely enjoy the rain, could no longer stay still.

She walked to the back door, watching the fruit tree saplings and vegetables, thinking that as long as the water didn’t rise any further, she wouldn’t need to worry.

Unfortunately, the rain seemed to be deliberately opposing her, showing no signs of stopping and only getting heavier and heavier.

Just moments ago, she could still see the tips of the sweet potato vines, now, they were completely submerged.

She waited patiently for most of the day, but the rain grew even more fierce, no longer resembling a normal downpour—it was more like a flood breaking through a dam.

Ai Ling knew she couldn’t wait any longer. If this continued, her vegetable garden and fruit trees would be ruined.

Gritting her teeth, she found an ugly, large-mouthed ceramic bowl that was poorly made and used it as a hat, carrying it on her head. She grabbed a hoe from the tool shed and ran out into the rain.

The rain was so heavy that it felt like stones were hitting her, causing sharp pain. The ceramic bowl on her head sounded like a drum, pounding relentlessly, making her ears ache.

She took the hoe and observed the terrain, realizing that the area toward the east was much lower.

So, she started digging a water channel from the fence area to the east, trying to drain the water from the garden.

The rain was heavy, but it couldn’t dampen Ai Ling’s determination.

Just thinking about her precious little plants being drowned gave her boundless energy. She swung the hoe with all her strength, not even noticing when the ceramic bowl fell off her head.

【Number 5, if you had this kind of energy when killing the demon king, would you still be worried about He Xi not surviving?】

【Don’t worry, she won’t kill He Xi, not in this lifetime.】

【So, you’re just going to watch her go with the other He Xi killers to accompany He Xi to the grave?】

【He Xi is so strong, he’ll always think of a way to save her.】

【Haha, try bombing the planet and see if you can still survive. Even daydreaming has its limits.】

【The real question is… after He Xi comes out, then what? Fool?】

【Please use civilized language!】

【…】

【Seeing her like this, and looking at my useless self… I can’t take it anymore, I need to get up and read.】

The rain broke through all obstacles and poured down in a wild rush. The only place it avoided was a round area above the head of a man dressed in white—it could only flow around him.

Within a ten-meter radius around him, He Xi, who was surrounded by an invisible barrier, watched Ai Ling, who was swinging the hoe from a distance.

He watched for a long time, then cautiously took a couple of steps forward, wanting to help her, but in the end, he stopped.

In the midst of hesitation, a sudden red light shot up into the sky from deep within the northern forest.

Ai Ling was startled and quickly stopped to watch. Even through the thick rain, the red light was bright enough to be a little blinding.

But it was only a fleeting moment. After a flash, nothing happened.

This was, after all, a different world, and Ai Ling didn’t delve deeply into any strange occurrences.

She glanced at it briefly and then continued digging her water channel.

The rain lasted for three whole days before finally stopping. Fortunately, Ai Ling’s little wooden house had a high waterproof platform, or else her new house would have flooded.

The water channel leading to the lowland in the east was particularly timely. Without these channels, her fruit saplings, sweet potato vines, and herbs would all have perished.

Because the rain lasted so long, Ai Ling also moved a pig, two geese, and three chickens to a nearby unused thatched shed. Otherwise, those little creatures would have been drenched in the rain and died.

For these three days, Ai Ling had been living off a few eggs laid by wild chickens, along with some wild fruits she hadn’t finished eating.

Although the fruits were extremely unpleasant, she had grown accustomed to eating them after such a long time. With the eggs, they were barely tolerable.

Apart from turning the surrounding area into a muddy mess, the heavy rain did have one positive outcome: after the water receded, several lively fish appeared in the yard.

They came in various shapes—some with horns, some with wings—all of them were strange-looking.

But Ai Ling knew, despite their odd appearance, these fish tasted great!

Who cared what they looked like? She caught them all and put them into a large water tank to keep, planning to use them to vary her diet in the coming days.

After the rain stopped, the second thing Ai Ling did, after catching the fish, was to return the animals from the thatched shed to their respective places.

In just three days, the animals had managed to turn the shed into an unbearable stench, so foul that even approaching it required some mental preparation.

However, seeing the manure, Ai Ling immediately got to work. She dug a manure pit several hundred meters downwind behind the vegetable garden and dumped all the manure into it.

In addition, she collected many wild grasses that were prone to rotting, as well as wild animal manure, and filled the pit to the brim.

Fearing that small animals might accidentally fall in, and for environmental reasons, Ai Ling also made a wooden cover for the pit, which would help the manure decompose faster.

Considering the current weather, within half a month, the natural fertilizer in the pit would be ready.

The rain didn’t affect the growth of the fruit trees, the growth-promoting stone continued to work its magic.

In just over half a month, the fruit trees she had planted, regardless of season, had all bloomed, and it was clear that the fruit would soon follow.

Ai Ling had originally planned to graft the trees during this period, but she changed her mind. Since the flowers were already blooming, she decided to let them bear fruit naturally.

After all, she didn’t know when she would be able to earn damage points from the demon king again. If she didn’t get any damage points for a while and the grafting failed, she wouldn’t know where to get these fruit trees from.

It was better to wait until the fruits from this season matured, save the seeds, and then plant a new batch of saplings to graft.

That way, she could preserve the original fruit trees while also obtaining new varieties—wasn’t that the best of both worlds?

Ai Ling went to check on the rice she had planted in the eastern field. Fortunately, rice is a water-loving crop, and the lower part of the field further east had a better drainage system.

Aside from the soil in the rice field being softer and more moist, Ai Ling didn’t notice anything unusual.

Indeed, rice was relatively easy to grow.

Looking at the soft, tender, and serene rice seedlings, Ai Ling felt in a good mood. It had been a long time since she had eaten a proper meal, and once the rice was harvested, she would be able to enjoy fragrant rice.

When winter comes, she would also plant wheat seeds, and by next year, she would be able to make even more delicious food—bread, cakes, steamed buns, dumplings, noodles, and more. Just thinking about it made her mouth water.

Well, thinking about it was wonderful, but there was still a lot of preparation to be done.

She didn’t even have tools for threshing and grinding the grain. The thought of having to manually peel or grind the grains was quite a headache.

Just as she finished tidying up the remaining mess, Yuan Muchen arrived again. This time, he brought a little lamb and a little calf.

Ai Ling was, of course, grateful for the animals he brought, but she was also feeling troubled.

The livestock pen was simply too small, and there was no room to fit these new animals.

But expanding the pen didn’t seem like a good idea either, as it was too close to the small wooden house, and with so many animals, the smell would be unbearable.

So, Yuan Muchen suggested that they build a proper farm.