Deep in the night, snores like thunder rumbled from the Shack.
Chen Ping clenched the Jade Pendant tightly.
HUM.
His feet landed on solid ground. The faint light overhead remained constant.
His first glance went to the newly sown patch of earth.
The thousand small mounds of soil were still quiet. But upon closer inspection, the surfaces of some mounds already showed subtle signs of loosening, as if something was gently pushing from beneath.
Chen Ping crouched down, leaning close to one of the most noticeably loosened mounds. He held his breath and stared intently.
An incredibly weak, almost transparent sprout had stubbornly pushed aside a tiny grain of Black Earth and timidly poked its head out.
Not just one sprout, but several!
Thin as a hair, so fragile they seemed they could be snapped by a mere breath, yet they had truly emerged.
In a single hole!
Chen Ping’s heart gave a violent thump.
Success! They’ve sprouted!
And it seemed that sowing six seeds in one hole really could produce several seedlings.
Based on Chen Ping’s experience with mundane rice seeds, the time from sowing to sprouting was generally ten to fifteen days.
Yet in the Jade Pendant’s space, the Black Earth had produced Spirit Rice sprouts in just one day.
Did this mean the Black Earth could grow spirit plants at ten times the speed of ordinary Spirit Fields?
Chen Ping forcefully suppressed his excitement; he needed to continue observing to verify this conclusion.
He examined the neighboring mounds. Many had loosened, and some already showed several shoots breaking through.
Though they had just barely broken through and were far from maturity, this sight excited Chen Ping more than seeing a pile of gold.
He could almost see countless golden rice heads beckoning to him.
He carefully walked a circle around this newly sprouted seedbed. Only after confirming he saw no withering or abnormalities did he withdraw, his heart filled with reassurance.
In the following days, Chen Ping endured the torment of labor during the day, yet his mind was intensely focused.
He was like a sponge, observing everything around him. Especially things related to farming.
He needed tools.
Harvest six thousand stalks of Spirit Grain by pulling them out by hand? Using that hardwood stick to pry them? Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
Far too slow. He needed a sickle—a sharp one.
The harvested rice ears needed threshing. Rubbing them off grain by grain by hand? Six thousand stalks? That would take forever.
He needed a Thresher!
He had seen the wooden Threshers ordinary farmers used: a toothed wooden wheel with a handle. Turn it and feed in the rice heads, and the grains would be knocked off. The servants responsible for the sect’s ordinary Spirit Fields must have something similar, probably bigger and sturdier.
The threshed grains would still have husks. Removing the husks was necessary to obtain edible Spirit Rice. This required a Winnower and a Millstone.
The Winnower would separate husks and chaff; the Millstone would grind off the remaining bran.
These things existed within the sect!
But they were absolutely not something a mere Laborer like him could access. Those tools were stored in specific storerooms or tool sheds, guarded by Regular Disciples.
Buy them?
He was penniless. The gruel issued by the sect barely kept him alive, and there was no monthly allowance. Laborers were simply expendable.
Trade for them?
He possessed nothing of value. Utterly unrealistic.
The only remaining path was theft.
This thought instantly caused a layer of cold sweat to break out on Chen Ping’s back. Last time he stole something, it nearly scared his heart out of his chest.
Was he going to steal again this time?
The sect’s rules were unforgiving. At best, a thief might have his hands and feet crippled and be thrown outside the mountain gates for wild beasts to eat. At worst, he would be beaten to death and fed to spirit beasts.
But if he didn’t steal, what then?
Watch the Spirit Grain harvest on the Black Earth rot away? Or waste immense amounts of time processing it bit by bit by hand?
Absolutely not!
Living among so many people, he was bound to make a mistake sooner or later. If anyone discovered his secret, there would be no way out.
The Jade Pendant’s space was his greatest protection. It alone could free him from this life of misery.
He had to become a Regular Disciple within a short time to avoid being discovered by others.
Over several days, Chen Ping repeatedly pondered the mechanism for entering and exiting with items via the Jade Pendant.
Bringing things in seemed to require physical contact. Last time, that seed was brought in because he clenched it in his palm.
So what about larger items like Sickles, Threshers, Winnowers, Millstones…?
He needed to get close to them, touch them with his hands, then try to bring them into the space when entering.
Extremely high risk.
Approaching those storerooms holding tools was dangerous in itself. If someone caught him while touching the tools… You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
Moreover, he didn’t know if the Jade Pendant could take such large objects away. If he failed, or if it caused some disturbance…
Chen Ping lay on his cold straw bedding, eyes open in the darkness.
On one side: immense risk. On the other: hope for changing his fate, seemingly within reach.
Suddenly, he remembered those few strands of white hair floating in the manure pit; he remembered his parents’ figures disappearing into the depths of the mine shaft.
He’d gamble!
He had to get those tools! Before the next harvest!
He had to steal all those tools!
In the following days, Chen Ping became even more silent and more observant.
Whenever he went to cut grass for the pigs, or was sent farther afield to clear rubbish, he cautiously studied the terrain.
He needed to find a place with relatively lax security that stored the necessary tools.
Servant Peak was vast. Besides the areas where spirit beasts were raised, there were fields of ordinary spirit herbs and a little low-tier Spirit Grain grown to feed them.
This Spirit Field area was managed by some Regular Disciples.
Their tool shed stood by the field ridge—an inconspicuous wooden shack.
Chen Ping had observed it from afar several times while carrying pig grass on his back past it during daytime trips. The wooden shack wasn’t locked; its door was merely barred with a wooden stick.
During the daytime, people frequently went in and out to fetch or return tools. But by nightfall, this area was basically deserted.
The disciples on night watch concentrated on the spirit beast pens and important storehouses. They paid little attention to a shabby tool shed serving the fodder fields. Its contents were ordinary farm tools, not implements used by cultivators, and were worth little.
That tool shed by the Spirit Fields was his target.
He first had to learn the nighttime patrol routes and times.
That took two nights. Claiming a stomachache, he slipped out of the shack and hid in the dark to watch the patrols.
Servant Peak was too large for the limited patrol teams to cover fully. Their main routes ran around the important beast pens, storehouses, and disciples’ residences.
Each night, a patrol passed quickly through the fodder fields just once, at a fixed time near eleven at night—the end of the hai period.
The long gap around that visit would give him an opportunity immediately after the patrol passed.
Chen Ping began to prepare.
He would have to move quickly and could not take too much at once. A sickle was small; he could steal one first. The Thresher, Winnower, and Millstone were larger and would need separate trips, once he was sure he could bring them into the space.
Late that night, he judged that the patrol had passed only a short while ago and rose without a sound. His heart raced, and his palms were slick with sweat. Just as when he had stolen the Spirit Grain seed, he moved along the shadows of the shacks, avoiding the occasional light as he crept toward the Spirit Fields.