Chapter 7

Proofread by Cloud Chip Cake

The afternoon shoot went very smoothly.

Ye Chen couldn’t remember how many times he had studied the script, but his notebooks were worn out from flipping through them. These days, he even remembered his lines while farming. Whenever he felt inspired, he would drop the hoe and perform a scene in the field. All these efforts were not in vain. After the brief episode with Shen Mofeng, Ye Chen wholeheartedly immersed himself in the role, pushing his acting skills to the utmost. Moreover, the emotions of the characters in the scenes scheduled for the afternoon happened to be quite coherent, covering up Ye Chen’s shortcomings. Even the usually picky Chen Jing’an couldn’t find any flaws.

Work finished early that day. After returning home, Ye Chen heated up the three boxed lunches that Xiao Gao almost threw away, divided them into four equal portions, and also made braised chicken legs for the cubs, one for each, with great generosity!

“I’ll be bringing boxed lunches for you every day during this shooting period.” Ye Chen’s face showed a loving expression.

The crew needed to ensure an adequate supply of food. They would order more boxed lunches than the actual number of people. Otherwise, with the chaotic environment on set, if someone with a big appetite took an extra box, someone else would go without. Moreover, some actors would cook their own food, which often resulted in a small amount of leftovers at the end of the day. However, Ye Chen couldn’t take all the leftovers away; after all, it wouldn’t look good.

“If only there were a Qiankun bag^[1]a bag in cultivation stories that can hold much more than it looks like. Like the Mokeskin pouch in Harry Potter to hold the leftovers,” Ye Chen lamented.

—When thinking of a Qiankun bag, a high-end and mysterious magic item, Ye Chen’s first reaction was to use it to hold the leftovers.

Faced with a sumptuous feast with lots of meat, the divine beast cubs were so excited that they transformed on the spot. Hou Cub turned into a chubby little furball with long ears, jumping around and chirping; Qiongqi Cub turned into a young tiger with wings and horns, running around the courtyard and roaring; Xuanwu Cub lay on its back, stretching out its four short legs, slowly rotating like a windmill around the center of its shell, expressing its inner joy… However, every time Qiongqi Cub dashed past, it would swipe its paw to give Xuanwu Cub a speed boost.

A minute later, Xuanwu Cub, with residual images of its rotation, cried out in panic,”Help… me… too… fast… too…”

Ye Chen hurried over and turned Xuanwu Cub over. The rescued Xuanwu Cub flopped on the ground, too dizzy to get up.

“Qi Qi!” Ye Chen exclaimed angrily, “Stop spinning Xuan Xuan like that!”

Qiongqi Cub, oblivious to Ye Chen’s scolding, flew over and landed on Ye Chen’s head, grabbing his hair with its four meaty pads and innocently howling to the sky, “Awoo… let’s eat chicken legs la!”

“You’ve gone too far! Don’t bully Xuan Xuan, or you won’t get any food!” Ye Chen lifted the little Qiongqi Cub off and spanked its furry little bottom a few times. Hearing that it wouldn’t get any food, Qiongqi Cub immediately backed down, shaking its head and biting the air a few times in frustration, its sharp teeth clicking.

After feeding the four cubs, Ye Chen entered the independent space in the eastern wing’s room where he stored the divine spirits of the divine beasts and checked on their condition.

Since moving into the courtyard, Jing Ling hadn’t given him a hard time. The current task was simply to “take care of the revived divine beast cubs,” without forcing Ye Chen to immediately plant spirit plants to restore the Mountain and Sea Realm.

After all, unlike a computer that strictly follows algorithms, Jing Ling could understand a bit of human emotion. Ye Chen had exhausted his talent for speech, spending over 140 million yuan of his acting remuneration. Until this huge sum was paid off, all of Ye Chen’s acting-related remuneration would be swallowed up by Jing Ling directly. With such a bleak financial situation, he really didn’t have the capacity to plant a large number of spirit plants.

The glowing bubbles enclosing the divine spirits would enlarge when a divine beast was about to awaken. Currently, the largest one was Hundun^[2]Hundun 混沌 was semantically extended from a mythic “primordial chaos; nebulous state of the universe before heaven and earth separated” to mean “unintelligible; chaotic; messy; … Continue reading Cub. Apart from four tiny wings, Hundun Cub didn’t have any visible organs on its body; it was just a round, fluffy orange ball with four wings, resembling a rolled-up orange cat.

Ye Chen gently stroked the bubble enclosing the Hundun divine spirit, his eyes filled with kindness and affection.

Even without having grown a mouth yet, it was obvious that he was a good child who could save food.

—Thought the impoverished old father with relief.

Next, Ye Chen walked to another smaller bubble and gently measured its circumference with a measuring tape. Seeing that the bubble’s circumference was the same as yesterday’s, indicating no signs of revival yet, Ye Chen let out a sigh of relief.

This bubble contained the gluttonous divine beast, Taotie, which was known for its enormous appetite. According to the educational articles sent by Jing Ling, a Taotie cub needed to eat five meals a day, each meal consisting of food weighing about ten times its body weight. As it grew, its appetite would increase geometrically. If the Taotie cub awakened soon, Ye Chen wouldn’t be able to afford to feed it.

“Taotao, please wake up a bit later,” Ye Chen murmured to Taotie Cub, engaging in prenatal education. “Otherwise, big brother can only feed you dirt…”

At the mention of eating dirt, Taotie Cub’s chewing motion in its dream paused for a moment!

…

In the following two days, Ye Chen still went to the morning market to set up his stall at four in the morning. After going to the morning market three times, he had sold almost all the extra vegetables. Before the newly planted crops matured, Ye Chen temporarily didn’t plan to sell any more vegetables. That day, at six o’clock, after closing his stall, he carried the vegetable basket and went to find a few stalls where eggs were sold.

These days, it was rare to find vendors in the city selling live chicks. Even if there were any, they would only sell male chicks that couldn’t lay eggs. If you wanted to buy high-quality female chicks, you had to go to the villages and find poultry farmers, but the transportation costs for this back and forth journey were too painful. Ye Chen thought that egg sellers must know poultry farmers who raised chickens, so he asked the nearby big sisters who sold eggs to help him get some chicks.

“Jiejie,” Ye Chen sweetened his tone, “have you brought me the chicks?”

“Here you go.” The big sister lifted a large cardboard box from under the stall, and the fluffy chicks opened their tender beaks and chirped loudly. However, the moment they sensed Ye Chen’s aura, they collectively fell silent.

“How many males and how many females…” Ye Chen’s words trailed off as the chicks in the large cardboard box suddenly became restless. About a dozen fluffy chicks crowded in the bottom right corner of the box, while three others squeezed into the top left corner, automatically separating themselves into two distinct groups.

The big sister chuckled, “Seventeen females and three males.”

Ye Chen looked at the chicks automatically grouped by gender in the cardboard box, slightly taken aback.

“I also brought you some fruit tree seedlings.” The big sister brought out three half-height saplings enthusiastically. “Red Fuji, Golden Delicious, and one Crystal Sugar Heart. They are all genuine five-year seedlings. Once planted, they’ll bear fruit. Don’t worry.”

In the past few days, Ye Chen had been diligently analyzing the vegetable market and felt that selling fruits was the way to long-term profit. Vegetables were limited by their own variety of ingredients, and even if they tasted delicious, they were still just vegetables. People might long for fruits with sweet tastes, but they rarely remembered whose carrots and cabbage they bought. Selling fruits should be easier to build a reputation, and with reputation comes the ability to gradually raise prices.

Ye Chen was filled with enthusiasm, and determined to become the big brother of the fruit market in the Xilin Street Morning Market Realm!

His determination was even stronger than becoming the top artist in Xinghan Media…

“Thank you, Jiejie.” Ye Chen thanked the big sister obediently, paid her the remaining amount for the goods, and also handed over three large, ripe spiritually enhanced tomatoes. He said earnestly, “These are grown at home, sweet and sour, delicious to eat raw.”

The big sister happily accepted them and said, “Just let me know what you need next time.”

Ye Chen took the chicks and saplings home. The chicks remained quiet throughout the journey.

Once inside the courtyard, Ye Chen placed the large cardboard box containing the chicks on the ground, rubbed his hands eagerly, and commanded, “Sit down.”

The chicks immediately flattened themselves on the ground.

Ye Chen said, “Stand up.”

The chicks stood up energetically on their two tiny legs.

Ye Chen cleared his throat, and like a stern drill instructor, he paced in front of the chicks, commanding, “Left turn!”

The chicks all turned to the left silently, like a well-trained army.

Incredibly, I can even train chickens! Ye Chen felt the power of the bloodline of the ancient god Fuxi, suddenly feeling like he indeed had the potential to be an up and coming male lead, bubbling with excitement.

Today, Ye Chen had night scenes, so he had no arrangements for the entire day, which was perfect for doing farm work.

He started by soaking millet to feed the chicks. While feeding them, he suddenly heard the sound of a rooster coming from Qiongqi Cub’s mouth. He then resorted to force to suppress Qiongqi Cub, forcibly prying open its mouth and pulling out a terrified little chick.

In the morning, Qiongqi Cub was made to stand in the courtyard as punishment. Ye Chen applied a thin layer of sunscreen meticulously, resembling the application of gold foil, and put on a straw hat to plant trees in the Mountain and Sea Realm, which theoretically had nine suns. He spent the whole morning following the steps to plant apple seedlings outlined in the “Wealth Creation Guide for Apple Seedlings” on his phone. First, he soaked the seedlings, then accurately mixed and applied a solution of carbendazim, rooting agent, and indoleacetic acid to kill fruit tree pathogens and promote root growth. Finally, he dug planting pits and systematically planted three apple seedlings.

“Phew… exhausted.” Ye Chen squatted on the edge of the field, and wiped his sweaty neck with a towel, intending to catch his breath first, then he’d plant two rows of cream strawberries next to the vegetable garden while the sun wasn’t too strong.

So, Ye Chen opened a small account on Weibo and reposted a few giveaways, then logged in to his main account to check the comments. He hadn’t been active on his main Weibo account for the past few days, and the comments section was filled with pleas like “Chen Chen, come out and let Mom see you.” After hesitating for a moment, Ye Chen returned to the courtyard, looked at himself in the mirror, and found that he still looked good. He took off his straw hat, ran his hand through his hair, wiped off the sweat carefully, held a towel in his left hand as if wiping his face, and raised his phone with his right hand to take a selfie.

This selfie didn’t have much of a recognizable background, and the tank top was mostly blocked by the towel and his arm. The only clear thing was Ye Chen’s face: his cheeks were porcelain-white, with a hint of peach-like blush, his eyes appeared particularly bright due to the post-exercise vigor, and his slightly damp forehead, along with his sleek and firm arms, exuded a lively and refreshing youthfulness.

Ye Chen: “Back from working out.”

The comments section instantly exploded, with fans expressing their love and showering him with rainbow farts:

“Chen Chen is running on the treadmill, and I’m sprinting 100 meters on Chen Chen’s eyelashes!”

“Chen Chen, you’re still young, Mom won’t allow you to show so much of your arms! QAQ”

“This is an ice-carved and jade-like little prince!”

“What a milky and sweet cream strawberry!”

Ye Chen casually replied to a few fans, while also analyzing and memorizing some innovative rainbow farts in the comments section, ready to use them on Shen Mofeng in the future. Then, he put his straw hat back on, picked up his hoe, and went to the field to plant cream strawberries. 

The author has something to say:

Ye Qiongqiong: In the future, I’ll be the fruit overlord of the morning market! ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Ye Qiongqiong’s account book today:

Today’s expenses: 20 yuan per fruit tree seedling for 3 seedlings + 2.5 yuan per high-quality chick for 20 chicks = 110 yuan

Today’s income: Selling vegetables at the morning market for two consecutive days, totaling: 5 yuan per catties of cucumbers * 9 catties  + 3 yuan per catty of tomatoes * 8 catties + 2 yuan per catty of bok choy for 8 catties + 4 yuan per catty of eggplants * 7 catties + 2.5 yuan per catty of scallions * 2 catties + 3 yuan per catty of green beans * 7 catties = 129 yuan

Balance: 86.5 yuan + 129 yuan – 110 yuan = 105.5 yuan

Ye Qiongqiong: Not only have I become a hundred-yuan household, but I also raised chickens, planted apple trees, and walked on the road to prosperity!

In the next chapter  Si Feng will make an appearance again.  you might not believe what I say, but this is a farming story… (。

TN:

Crystal Sugar Heart

Golden Delicious

Red Fuji