Chapter 401 (2/2)

“Then…. Elder, what do we do now?” Qi Qi asked carefully. She was worried Shao Xuan would get upset. They had even promised him to do their best and now, they had disappointed him.

Shao Xuan was not willing to stop his work on the cloud patterns either. He had finally gotten some ideas and now he didn’t feel like putting them down. Compared to the Thousand Grain Gold, he cared more about the cloud patterns. The more he understood, the more he felt like they contained a huge secret left behind by the Xia people.

After much thought, he said, “What about this. Please help me care for the seedlings in my backyard too.”

“Huh?” Qi Qi looked up in shock. Not only did he not scold her, he even gave them more seedlings to care for! How could she agree to this?

However, she was still very curious about why his seedlings were doing well. She wondered if they were only living because they hadn’t reached the same height as the ones they planted or due to other reasons.

“But… but what if they…” Qi Qi tugged at the muddy clothes she was wearing with conflicted emotions.

“Don’t worry. If they all die, I still won’t blame you all. They’re supposed to be difficult to grow anyway. If we can’t plant them, I’ll just cook the rest of the grains and we’ll eat them. It’s fine,” said Shao Xuan/

Qi Qi’s face tightened. Such precious grains and he wants to… eat them?

After his decision, under her suggestion, he put a small door on the fence. She said they would probably check on the seedlings up to a few times a day. To avoid disturbing him, they would use that door. She promised they would settle everything and Shao Xuan would not need to care about anything.

On that day, Saho Xuan placed a door for their convenience on the fence. No one else would dare enter, he didn’t even need to tie it.

When he closed the door, his eyes swept across the backyard. He felt like something was missing. When he walked into his house, he suddenly stopped.

Shao Xuan looked down at his feet. There was a weed at his backdoor. He had only noticed it when his foot brushed over it.

Weed…

When he turned to look around the yard, he thought about the day the seeds germinated. That day, there were all kinds of wild weeds growing. Due to the cloud pattern, he had procrastinated de-weeding the place. Then, he’d left it till today. It had been twenty days, he hadn’t even left the house for a hunt.

It had been twenty warm days. The weeds that grew all year round should have been very happy in his yard. However, all he saw were several small blades on the ground, just protruding from the soil. Especially the places with Thousand Grain Gold-- the weeds in that area had disappeared.

He found an empty leaf and wrote this discovery down for further observation.

When he stepped into the house, he continued with his research on the cloud patterns. Right now, he had already solved the general meaning of one cloud. Although he had only solved two, and there was a stack of patterns left, it was still progressing. Soon, Shao Xuan would be able to solve the cloud patterns on the Ding cauldron.

Other than going out to hunt, he spent the rest of the time studying the clouds. As for the seedlings, he only checked every once in a while when he rested. When he returned from a hunt, he talked to Qi Qi about them.

On the ten plots of land, there were only two surviving plants. Those were the ones that were slowest to grow. It looked as if they weren’t going to make it. As for the eighty seedlings in his backyard, under Qi Qi’s care, they grew faster.

They were all almost the same height as the previous seedlings now. This was where the other seedlings stopped growing. As they watched the seedlings, Qi Qi and the rest were worried.

Qi Qi even sent people over to talk to the Taihe people just to care for his plants. They had to be humble and learn something useful from Taihe too. If they could keep these alive, at least they had done something for Shao Xuan.

Unfortunately, the Taihe people weren’t doing well either. While their seedlings survived a little longer, once they reached a certain height, they wilted too. The Taihe people were just about to send people over to Flaming Horn.

They had loosened the soil, applied fertiliser… Everything was done, plus the seedlings were so healthy. How could they die so suddenly?

It was a precious princess after all, such a high-maintenance plant! It was very fussy indeed.

The Taihe tribe’s plants grew very quickly under their care but they all still died in the end. That was why when they heard about Shao Xuan’s plants, they paid daily visits to his yard to check.

They watched as the seedlings in his backyard grew faster under the care of both the Flaming Horn and Taihe farmers. It was going to meet the ‘roadblock’ soon. Qi Qi and the rest were growing increasingly worried, always anxious and couldn’t sleep at night.