The day of the harvest finally arrived after a week of careful observation. The emerald color of the ears, resembling green jade, and the way the rice stalks had begun to droop beneath the weight of their grains were enough to confirm that the time had come.
That morning, Ling Hua woke much earlier than usual, long before dawn. He quickly ate his breakfast, then took hold of the spiritual sickle that the Treasury Elder had provided him years ago and headed toward the field, his heart beating with excitement mixed with a strange sense of nostalgia.
He began from the northern edge, harvesting row after row with the steady movements he had learned through repetition over the course of an entire year. The first rays of sunlight slipped between the stalks, covering them in a mesmerizing golden glow. The sound of the sickle cutting through the stems created a peaceful rhythm that blended with the distant buzzing of the bees and the gentle murmur of the nearby stream—a complete symphony of life that he had built with his own hands.
He stopped several times to wipe the sweat from his forehead and look behind him at the growing piles of harvested stalks, feeling a quiet pride rising in his chest with every completed row. He noticed that his energy had become greater and more abundant now that his cultivation had reached the second level, which greatly helped accelerate his pace of work. He could now channel a thin thread of qi into the blade of the sickle, allowing it to cut through the stalks much more smoothly than it had the previous year without exhausting his energy nearly as quickly.
As he worked, he remembered those first days, when he could barely carry the spiritual shovel without feeling exhausted after only an hour. He remembered the nights sleeping on a rough bed inside his small cave, and the entire days he had spent fighting weeds that grew relentlessly despite all his efforts. He remembered that first black beetle that had nearly destroyed everything, that terrifying night when he had first faced death between the fangs of enraged bees, and that green arrow that had taken a man's life for the first time.
All of it had brought him to this exact moment—to this emerald field stretching before him, and to this small, complete life that he had built from almost nothing.
He continued harvesting until midday, stopping only to have a light meal and drink some spiritual water from the stream. Then he returned to work until the entire field had been harvested shortly before sunset. He gathered the piles into large bags made of sturdy cloth and stacked them beside the field.
Then he sat down on a nearby rock, exhausted but completely satisfied, waiting for the person who would officially evaluate his harvest.
The person who arrived this time was not the Treasury Elder himself, but a young man in his late twenties who radiated the aura of the first level of Qi Purification. He wore the simple family uniform designated for the hall's staff and arrived with a cart pulled by an ordinary ox. In his hands, he carried a small wooden tablet and a brush, while a friendly smile rested upon his round face.
"You must be Ling Hua, right? I've heard quite a lot about you lately."
Ling Hua stood and greeted him respectfully, wondering about his identity.
"Yes, that's me. Excuse me, may I ask who you are?"
"My name is Ling Xuan." The young man replied with a wider smile. "I've been working under the Treasury Elder for three years, responsible for evaluating the seasonal harvests of the farmers, especially recently, now that the Elder has become occupied with greater matters that require his full time and attention."
Ling Hua immediately understood the implication. The Treasury Elder must have been occupied with following the family's major affairs. It was only natural that the head of the Treasury Hall would not personally handle such work anymore, but would instead send the lower-ranking members serving under his authority.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Senior Brother Ling Xuan. I have quite a large harvest this year. I hope you'll be pleased with it."
Although Ling Xuan was stronger than him, Ling Hua did not dare look down on him or treat him lightly. The family placed great importance on respecting those older than oneself within the family, even if that person happened to be an ordinary mortal.
Ling Xuan chuckled softly as he approached the stacked bags.
"Everyone has been talking about your field lately. I'll admit, I was looking forward to seeing it for myself. Some of the younger members in the Treasury Hall even made bets on how much your harvest would weigh this year."
Ling Hua smiled awkwardly, still not accustomed to the idea that his story had become a topic of discussion among the family's inner circles.
Ling Xuan began carefully inspecting samples of the grains, rubbing them between his fingers and examining their color and firmness. He then took a small scale from his bag and placed the sacks on it one after another, recording the numbers precisely on his wooden tablet.
Not long afterward, he raised his head with a satisfied smile.
"Exactly four hundred and twenty kilograms. Not bad at all, especially considering that the natural production of a field this size should have reached five hundred kilograms, had it not been for the infestation that struck you last year and affected some of the spiritual plants."
Ling Hua nodded in agreement, remembering those difficult nights.
"How do we calculate the value this time?"
"The current official price for this season is five kilograms for one spiritual stone, after the prices were recently revised due to market fluctuations." Ling Xuan explained while quickly performing several calculations on his tablet. "That means the total value of your harvest is eighty-four spiritual stones."
Ling Hua's eyes widened slightly at the number, but he quickly remembered an important detail.
"And my share as a family member remains ten percent, correct?"
"Exactly. That's the system applied to everyone cultivating a designated field belonging to the family. Ninety percent goes to the family as a primary source of its wealth and resources, while ten percent remains with you as a reward for your personal efforts." Ling Xuan continued his calculations. "That means your share from the rice harvest alone is eight spiritual stones. Do you want to keep them or sell them to us?"
Ling Hua nodded, unsurprised by the number. He knew that his field was still relatively small compared with the family's larger fields.
"That's perfectly reasonable. Yes, I'd like to sell them. What I receive from my annual salary is enough for me. But I also have some additional resources this year that aren't part of the field's official share."
Ling Xuan raised his eyebrows with interest and set the tablet aside for a moment.
"Additional resources? Tell me. My curiosity has now become greater than my official duties."
Ling Hua first led him toward the strange Tree of Insects, where he ordered the spiritual bees to bring out the spiritual honey he had deliberately kept for this day—the first complete batch of actual hive production.
The bees emerged carrying two slabs of honeycomb between their legs.
The reason for the small amount of honey was that the field insects that had helped them produce an entire slab of spiritual honey overnight were no longer as abundant as they had been before. The bees now had to hunt them down from time to time. Moreover, the spiritual honey they produced was also consumed by the spiritual bees as food, and it was especially important for feeding the spiritual bee larvae. This was also the reason their numbers had doubled.
Ling Xuan examined the slab with eyes widened in astonishment, then lifted it close to his nose and inhaled its distinctive, fragrant scent.
"Real spiritual honey from Silver Cloud Bees? This is extremely rare in this region! This material is highly valuable to alchemists. It is used in delicate concoctions that require a high degree of pure spiritual energy. I haven't seen anything like this in the treasury since I took this position."
He weighed it with exceptional care this time, as though afraid even a drop might spill.
"Exactly one and a half kilograms. Considering its rarity and high quality, I would say its fair price is fifteen complete spiritual stones. And even that estimate may be somewhat low when considering the current market prices."
Ling Hua smiled in relief. It was a figure he had not expected, and he quickly added,
"And this honey belongs entirely to me personally, correct? It's not part of the field's division system, since the bees are my personal property and I subdued them myself, outside of any official duty."
Ling Xuan thought for a moment, reviewing the family's regulations in his mind, then nodded firmly.
"You're absolutely right. Spiritual insects and the resources associated with them that a farmer personally subdues outside the scope of his official duties are considered his complete personal property and are not subject to the usual division rule. This is clearly stated in Article Eight of the Family Resource Regulations. I remember it well because I studied it myself when I took this position."
Ling Hua then brought him the small bags containing the three Red Agate Crabs he had decided to sell, leaving the fourth one in a separate container beside him, deliberately out of Ling Xuan's sight.
The latter inspected them with clear admiration.
"Fully matured Red Agate Crabs. Excellent quality. The current market price for a single crab is around ten spiritual stones, considering their high nutritional value, the use of their shells in refining spiritual artifacts, and the increasing demand for them among spiritual artifact masters recently. Three crabs mean another thirty spiritual stones."
Ling Xuan gathered all the figures together on his tablet, moving his spiritual brush rapidly before raising his head with a genuinely satisfied smile this time.
"Let me summarize everything for you, then. Your share of the rice harvest: eight spiritual stones. Spiritual honey: fifteen stones. Three Red Agate Crabs: thirty stones. Total: fifty-three spiritual stones. All of them will be recorded on your token as soon as I return to the Treasury Hall tonight."
Ling Hua's eyes widened in genuine astonishment as he absorbed the number.
"Fifty-three spiritual stones? That's far more than I expected. Last year, I barely received ten stones from my salary and a few other activities."
Ling Xuan laughed as he placed all the resources onto the ox cart in preparation for his departure.
"You deserve it, Ling Hua. I've heard that these past two years have been difficult for you in ways that most people your age have never experienced. I think these numbers are merely a modest beginning to what you'll achieve in the future, especially since I've heard that you've already reached the second level of Qi Purification."
Ling Hua bowed gratefully and bid him farewell at the edge of the field, watching him and the cart disappear toward the Treasury Hall with his records and reports, while the sun had already begun sinking toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold.
As evening fell, Ling Hua carried the last remaining crab, along with some wild vegetables he had gathered along the way, and headed toward his mother's small home in the residential part of the mountain.
He found her sitting before a small fire, knitting a little garment with skilled hands. She smiled warmly when she saw him enter carrying his modest gift.
She set the garment she had been knitting aside.
—"My son... is that really you?"
But after a few moments of joy, she remembered how long he had been away from her. Her eyes narrowed, and she returned to her true nature.
—"So it's you, you little brat? Hah! Or did you think you've grown up now and can no longer tolerate this old woman's shouting, is that it?"
She shouted, the lump in her throat betraying the pain caused by his long absence.
"Did you really not think about your mother? Did you not even think about coming to visit her?"
The tear she had been holding back since he crossed the threshold finally fell.
"Do you know how much I've missed you? Just so you know, I've become like a madwoman. Every morning, when I'm alone, I go to your room, hoping just to catch the scent of my son who abandoned me!"
Ling Hua could no longer hold himself back. The sorrow he had endured throughout these years also burst forth, and he could find no justification for himself except to embrace her in a long, long hug that expressed all his excuses and regret for what he had done.
The sorrowful atmosphere was broken only by his whisper to his mother, who held him as though she had found a treasure she never wanted to let go of.
"Look what I brought you," he said with the childish pride that had never quite left him despite everything he had been through.
His mother looked at the large red crab with delighted surprise.
"From my own stream, yes. I raised it myself, and now we're going to eat it together."
They sat together preparing the simple meal over the fire. His mother skillfully chopped the wild vegetables while Ling Hua slowly roasted the crab over the gentle flames, careful not to ruin its delicious meat as the merchant had warned him a year ago.
He excitedly told his mother every detail of his day: the harvest, the queen's transformation, his meeting with Ling Xuan, the figures he had earned, and even the little observations he had made about the different characteristics of the crabs and the secret names he had given them.
She listened with a silent smile filled with pride, interrupting him only from time to time with a simple question, a tender comment, or a soft laugh whenever he enthusiastically described how the bees had been practicing their combat formations.
"I know these past two years have been difficult for you, my son, far more than a boy your age should ever have had to endure." She suddenly spoke in a quiet tone as she watched the fire slowly consume the edges of the wood. "But I'm proud of you. Very proud of the man you've become by your own hands, not because of the family or its name."
Ling Hua felt a small lump form in his throat and looked at her with silent gratitude, unable to find the right words for that moment.
When the meal was finally ready, his father arrived, and the two of them sat down to eat together in the quiet of the evening. Beneath a sky where the first stars had begun appearing behind the mountain peaks, Ling Hua felt something warm settle within his chest—a feeling he had not known with such depth in a very long time.
After all those battles, all those dangers, and all that daily exhaustion accumulating year after year, this simple moment, this humble meal, and that smile on his mother's face were worth everything he had endured.
After they finished eating, they sat together for a while in comfortable silence, watching the glowing embers gradually fade. His mother suddenly asked him in a tone filled with genuine curiosity,
"What about those bees? Will they stay with you forever, or will they fly away one day when they become strong enough?"
He paused for a moment and looked at the dancing flames before him, as though searching his mind for the most honest answer he could give before speaking.
Ling Hua thought about the question for a while before answering.
"I honestly don't know, Mother. The queen is bound to me by a blood pact that she won't be able to break even if she wanted to. But I don't think I want to think of them merely as tools or possessions. Sometimes, I feel that she and her colony have become part of my little family here in this field, just like the tree itself."
His mother smiled tenderly and patted his shoulder.
"That's exactly what makes you different, my son. Many children of great families see every creature around them as nothing more than a tool for achieving their own gains. You see a life that deserves respect, even while it remains under your control."
They remained like that for some time, exchanging simple conversations about little things that had nothing to do with farming, battles, or family politics: memories from his early childhood, old stories she used to tell him when he was young, and his vague dreams about a future whose shape he was still trying to draw for himself.
When he finally decided to return to his cave to sleep, his mother saw him off at the door with a long, warm embrace and a silent tear. He promised her that he would come to visit whenever he had free time, because now, thanks to his strength and his insects, he was no longer under the same pressure he had been in the beginning.
"Take good care of yourself out there, Ling Hua. And tell those bees to take care of you as well."
Ling Hua laughed as he walked away into the quiet darkness, heading toward his field and toward the small, complete life that had gradually become the true meaning of his existence in this new world, where a new tomorrow awaited him, filled with small and simple tasks but all of them his own.