Chapter 16 (2/2)

And as for Su Lijiang, he's that cloud in the sky.

”Purple Costus Root.”

Su Tingyun replied honestly. The result was that she heard the other side laugh, ”Didn't I just say so? This time, the lower rank the plants are, the harder it is for it to get infected. They're all low level spirit herbalists, the plants they planted were also low rank medicinal gra.s.s, what kind of good idea can we hope to come out of them?” His voice had just fallen when the expressions of the people on the right side all turned quite unsightly. One of the ordinary youth's among them's face turned completely red and he said a bit resentfully, ”We've been helping you guys think of ideas this entire time. Zhang Hao, how could you say things like this!?”

”Isn't everything I said the truth?” Zhang Hao gave a cold humph and extended his hand to point over one by one, ”Second rank, second rank, third rank… Out of your group, the best medicinal plant is only one that just reached third rank, and it's even the worst of the third rank. Right now another trash first rank Purple Costus Root came, isn't this completely obvious? The infection this time only targets high ranked medicinal gra.s.ses. Your fields not getting infected has nothing to do with your planting ability, but instead the fact that your abilities are too weak to plant high rank medicinal gra.s.ses!”

”Precisely, bunch of useless trash.” Everyone felt not only disdain, but resentment and envy in their hearts towards the people on this side.. Now that someone had taken the lead, quite a few people joined in the sneering.

”Your mouth is full of bulls.h.i.+t, continuously babbling nonsense!” The person that spoke was a middle-aged woman. She put one hand on her hip as she fiercely cursed back at Zhang Hao. Zhang Hao was immediately ticked off but just as he was about to cross over the boundary, several managers moved to stop him. In the end he said with a dark expression: ”Xu Niangzi, just you wait!”

”This ma'am will wait to see how you get punished by Master Feng once you're unable to submit  the medicinal gra.s.s!” Xu Niangzi also had a fiery temper. It was just that after she finished speaking, all the people on the right said 'c.r.a.p' in their hearts.

Su Tingyun knew that what this Zhang Hao said was completely unfounded. Even her Purple Costus Roots had been infected. It had nothing to do with being low a rank medicinal plant. Those gold colored bugs were probably hard to discover, causing plants to be infected when they were transported on a person's body. She asked how these few uninfected cultivators usually worked and found that they were all extremely attentive: they'd always wear different clothes everyday when they headed out to tend to their medicinal fields. This way, it effectively prevented their clothing from being infected by those gold colored little bugs.

Because Su Tingyun's medicinal farm wasn't infected, she was quickly accepted by the people on the right side. No one looked down on her lack of ability and she easily blended in.

”Qi Suzhen's field of medicinal gra.s.s was the first to be infected. Afterwards, she rubbed the medicinal gra.s.s juice on her body and through coming into contact with Niu Hanshan, infected his medicinal fields. Then, Niu Hanshan asked Manager Xu to come look at the cause of the disease. Manager Xu also frequently checks on the medicinal fields inside the valley, that's probably why he ended up infecting a lot of medicinal fields.” Su Tingyun made these connections as she casually asked around.

That ordinary youth was called Xu Zhen. At this time, he made a silencing motion and said, ”Don't mention these things.”

”Then that means it was spread through people ah.” Su Tingyun lowered her voice to ask. The voice of this body of hers was quite rough. When she lowered her voice to speak, Su Tingyun felt like her rough voice was not much different from a middle-aged guy, practically causing her to jump in shock.

”But Manager Xu and the rest also went to our farms, and our farms are fine.” Xu Niangzi added.

”Maybe they went to your fields later so their bodies already didn't have any bugs?” Su Tingyun immediately made another speculation.

”Bugs? What bugs? Are you saying that those were caused by insect pests?”

So it turns out that they still hadn't found the cause of the infection even now. Su Tingyun silently sweated in her mind. And these people were actually spirit herbalists, they were farming professionals. Unexpectedly, they still hadn't figured out exactly what was causing mischief. A certain amount of pride subconsciously arose within Su Tingyun.

However, she did know to be low-key as a person. So she forced couple laughs and said: ”Could it be that it's not insect pests? I saw that all those medicinal gra.s.s died strangely so I thought there were bugs.”

”Actually, we all think it's bugs, but no one has found any.”

And only high level poisonous insects could cause this much damage to the medicinal fields in such a short time.

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Credits: Translated by Chiyomira, Proofread by Sigil

[Chiyomira’s Corner]

T/N – In regards to the term 便宜相公 which I translated before as husband of convenience since I couldn't confirm the meaning of the term through searching: I finally found the meaning of it when I came across a similar term, which was 便宜老爹(literally 'convenient dad') in a different Chinese novel. So basically, this term has a background meaning of 'you got it without having to work for it'.

In the past, a 'convenient dad' referred to the scenario in which a mother got pregnant but her husband didn't want her anymore. So she gave the child to a different man that had feelings for her, and that man becomes the 'convenient dad'. It also refers to when the other person recognizes you as a big brother or big sister on their own accord, not caring if you agree or not.

In cultivation terms, after you transmigrate your father doesn't have true blood (spiritual) relations.h.i.+p with you. But you still have a father and son/daughter relations.h.i.+p with him. So in this kind of situation you can call him a 'convenient dad'.

But since 'convenient husband' sounds not quite right and doesn't encompa.s.s the main meaning which is pretty much 'so-called', I'm using a synonym of supposed which is putative. The dictionary defines it as ”generally considered or reputed to be”, i.e. the putative father of a boy of two.

And that's it for my commentary~ I hope I didn't ramble on too much.

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