After Yunxi returned to her tent, she flashed straight into the space.
It was almost September now. For vegetable seeds, she could plant white radishes, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, garlic sprouts, and the like.
Sweet potatoes and potatoes could also be planted. This place never snowed, so if they were planted now, they would be ready to dig up in three months.
She bought every kind of vegetable seed she could think of. For anything unavailable, she submitted a request to have it listed in the supermarket.
She also purchased fifty jin of grain seeds. Even if their first attempt failed and only half of them survived, it would still be enough to plant twenty to thirty mu of land.
She cut all the sweet potato vines in the vegetable garden—several large bundles in total—which should be enough to plant quite a lot of land.
She also harvested the radishes and cabbages, keeping some in the space and taking the rest out for everyone to eat slowly.
After putting away all the vegetables, she collapsed from exhaustion.
Why couldn’t it be like a farm game, with a one-click harvest? That would be so fast!
Looking at the sweet potatoes that hadn’t been dug up yet, she had no strength left. She decided she would drag Nangong An in another day to help her do the work.
As for the dug-up sweet potatoes, she didn’t plan to give them to everyone. She would keep them. It wouldn’t be easy to explain where they came from. As for the sweet potato vines, she planned to say that an old man had given them to her on the way back and taught her how to plant them.
Yunxi sat in the courtyard like this, looking at the vegetable plots. She wondered whether she could try planting grain seeds as well. If it succeeded, she wouldn’t need to buy rice anymore and could eat fragrant rice every day.
Without hesitation, she got to work. She fenced off a small plot at the innermost part of the vegetable garden, poured water into it, mixed the mud and water together, and casually scattered the rice seeds.
She treated it as an experiment and didn’t expect much of a harvest anyway.
On the other side, Nangong An and his three subordinates were at the river embankment. Their expressions were serious, as if they were discussing something important.
Nangong An said solemnly, “You three should go on ahead. Xi’er and I will set off in a couple of days.”
Leiting, who was bolder than the rest, immediately refused. “My lord, I am your personal guard. How can I go ahead first? If we go, we go together. If we stay, we stay together.”
Feng Ying also chimed in, “Exactly. Last time we failed in our duty and caused the general to fall off a cliff. We already feel deeply ashamed. If anything happens again, the old general would skin us alive.”
Thinking of how much his father valued him, Nangong An said nothing more. He, Nangong An, was his father’s only son—there truly couldn’t be any accidents.
At that moment, he thought of the little woman who rolled into his arms every night. He wondered when he would finally bring the beauty home and give his father a few grandsons. Then his father wouldn’t worry about him so much anymore.
What he didn’t know was that the little woman in his thoughts had not yet developed any romantic feelings for him at all. Although she had been attracted by his looks and figure before, that was merely a normal reaction. His road to winning her heart was still a long one.
The next day, everyone got up early in the morning.
They saw a large pile of unknown vines in front of the thatched house and wondered whether these things were edible.
But judging by their appearance, they didn’t look very tasty.
So everyone squatted there, studying them.
This was the scene Yunxi saw when she came out.
“Alright, everyone, stop squatting there. Take your hoes and come with me,” she said.
Everyone picked up their hoes and followed Yunxi to the prepared fields.
Because the land here was close to the river, the newly reclaimed soil below was a sandy-mud mix, so she decided it was best for planting sweet potatoes and potatoes.
The pure clay soil near the thatched house above would be used to plant vegetables.
She picked up a hoe and pulled the soil up, piling it into small mounds, forming long ridges across the field.
As she worked, she explained, “This is called ridging. Sweet potatoes must be planted on ridges to get a high yield.”
Everyone followed her example and pulled up the soil. With more than twenty people working, it took less than the time of burning one stick of incense to finish ridging about one mu of land. The speed was indeed impressive.
After the ridges were done, it was time to plant the sweet potato vines.
At this point, Yunxi emphasized, “Before planting, the vines need to be cut into pieces about twenty to thirty centimeters long. Each vine must have five or six nodes. Bury three nodes in the soil and leave two or three above ground. Put two or three vines in each hole. Finally, after planting, remember to water them with wood ash water to help them take root.”
Although everyone was a farmer, none of them had planted sweet potatoes before. So they did exactly as Yunxi instructed. After spending some time together, they had grown to trust her.
After a full day of hard work, the sweet potatoes, potatoes, and all the vegetable seeds that needed to be sown were planted.
Next, it would depend on their own efforts—watering, fertilizing, and weeding. These were not things they could slack off on.
That evening during dinner, Nangong An took out a piece of paper from his robe and handed it to Lin Hai. “This is the household registration document approved by the authorities. From now on, you can settle here with peace of mind.”
When Lin Hai heard this, tears streamed down his face. He never imagined that Nangong An would actually help them secure the official documents.
Not only that—he had also bought them grain, cloth, and basically everything needed for daily life.
How could they deserve to meet someone so good?
It was only much later that they learned the Nangong brother who had helped them was the famously renowned Iron-Faced General.
After dinner, Yunxi returned to the tent. Just as she was about to enter the space, Nangong An followed her in.
Because he hadn’t been able to hold the little woman while sleeping the night before, his whole body felt uncomfortable. So when he saw her enter the tent, he immediately followed.
Yunxi had been thinking of finding time to bring him into the space to dig up sweet potatoes for her. Since he was already here, this was perfect.
After all, there was no distinction between day and night in the space—it was bright all the time.
Without another word, she grabbed his hand and flashed into the space, arriving at the vegetable garden.
Pointing at the sweet potato field, Yunxi said to Nangong An, “These sweet potatoes are your responsibility. You’re in charge of digging them up.”
After saying that, she picked up a special sweet potato digging tool, demonstrated once, and then became a hands-off boss.
Nangong An looked at the field of sweet potatoes, then at Yunxi, whose face was flushed from exertion. “Xi’er, after I finish digging all these sweet potatoes, is there any reward?”
Yunxi looked at him and asked, “What kind of reward do you want? How about I make you a late-night snack?”
Looking at her lips moving as she spoke, Nangong An blurted out, “Xi’er, how about you give your husband a kiss to cheer him on?”
Seeing Nangong An becoming more and more slick-tongued, as if they really were a married couple, and seeing the eager look on his face, Yunxi found herself unable to refuse. So she gave him a flying kiss and said, “Alright, I’ll go make you a late-night snack. Hurry up and get to work!”
With that, she ran off quickly.
After receiving the flying kiss, Nangong An worked especially fast. In less than the time it took to burn one stick of incense, he dug up the entire sweet potato field and piled them neatly together.
Meanwhile, Yunxi was in the courtyard, making barbecue for him.
She bought oysters, prawns, lamb skewers, and some vegetables. Most importantly, beer and yogurt were absolutely essential.