The spiritual fields of Hua Wei Mountain were built around the mountain, with winding ridges and turning embankments, resembling layer upon layer of gentle waves when viewed from afar.
Those varying shades of green continued to climb higher, reaching halfway up the mountain before being shrouded in white mist, becoming indistinct.
Each level of field grew different spiritual plants and spiritual rice, with over twenty youths dressed in outer sect disciple clothing moving among them.
They tucked the hems of their robes into their waists, rolled up their sleeves to reveal sturdy forearms, and bent down to harvest.
Few stopped to chat. The sooner they finished their work, the sooner they could return to cultivation.
Once they bent down, they rarely had the chance to straighten up again.
At the foot of the mountain stood a cool pavilion. Five or six low-ranking stewards were supervising the work.
They gazed at the clearly defined terraces, drinking tea and cracking melon seeds, their faces wearing self-satisfied smiles, as if they had come for a spring outing to enjoy the scenery, ready to set up a mahjong table at any moment.
However, once a high-level steward came down to inspect, or an inner sect elder happened to pass by, these people would scatter like frightened birds, rushing quickly toward the terraced fields.
Some would personally bend down to help, some would wipe the sweat from the outer sect disciples’ brows, and some would shout: “Everyone’s working hard! Let’s put in a bit more effort over here!”
At this moment, someone among them called out: “Is that Song Qian Ji?”
The laughter in the pavilion abruptly ceased.
Song Qian Ji was a very special outer sect disciple. Instructions from above had been given that he no longer needed to work, and whatever he wanted to do, as long as it didn’t violate sect rules, they were to turn a blind eye.
The stewards watched as Song Qian Ji walked toward the terraced fields with a red figure following behind him, their hearts filled with surprise and doubt.
“Why has the young lady come too?”
So they hurriedly stood up, put down their teacups, spat out melon seed shells, and rushed out of the pavilion to greet them.
Chen Hong Zhu raised her hand to signal them to stop, turning her head to give them a glance containing an implicit warning.
The stewards dared neither approach nor sit down, making them more uncomfortable than the disciples who were laboring with their heads bowed.
“What are you doing here?” Chen Hong Zhu asked.
Song Qian Ji said: “Just looking.”
He circled the terraced fields, sometimes looking down, sometimes looking up, observing the operation of the formations on the ground and the changes in spiritual energy in the air.
Hua Wei Sect’s spiritual fields didn’t need to worry about sunlight, rain, water, fertilizer, or soil quality. This was because multiple formations had been set up in the ground and at the mountaintop, which could adjust spiritual energy, create clouds and rain, and ripen spiritual plants overnight.
Outer sect disciples would plant and transplant seedlings one day, then harvest and pick them the next.
Only common spiritual plants and rice were grown here to supply the inner sect. Some special varieties used in medicine and pill-making, precious and delicate, taking decades or even a hundred years to flower and bear fruit, were cultivated by specialized physicians or pill refiners.
Song Qian Ji pulled up a stalk of spiritual rice with full grains and frowned slightly.
Although spiritual plants ripened by formations grew vigorously, they had a rigid, stiff feeling, unlike the vibrant vitality of his home vegetable garden.
He had no farming experience and was learning purely through his exploration, still in the learning stage.
Each day, nurturing life in his vegetable garden, he unconsciously changed his approach to the world, becoming gentler.
Perhaps the old monk from Red Leaf Temple was right—creating life is harder than destroying it.
Saving a person is harder than killing one.
Chen Hong Zhu followed behind Song Qian Ji, enduring the curious gazes of the surrounding disciples along the way, hesitating to speak, forcibly suppressing her confusion.
Seeing his focused expression, she thought he wouldn’t want to be disturbed, so she kept quiet.
Her silence didn’t mean others wouldn’t disturb him.
“Senior Brother Song, please wait!”
The one calling was an outer sect disciple. His voice was loud, as if filled with great courage.
When he saw that Song Qian Ji truly stopped and turned around, he was startled again, stammering a low greeting:
“Senior Brother Song, hello, I have something I’d like to trouble you with…”
Chen Hong Zhu, her temper rising, shouted: “If you have something to say, say it! Why are you mumbling!”
The disciple was so frightened by her that he jumped, turned to run, but then, thinking of something, took a deep breath:
“I, I heard from Senior Sister Zhou that by offering Senior Brother a bag of seeds, one could receive a word of guidance from Senior Brother…”
Song Qian Ji was startled, about to say there was no such thing.
Meng He Ze and his friends had been helping him collect seeds, and sometimes when they encountered cultivation difficulties, he would give them a pointer.
He kept it brief, without passing down techniques or saying too much.
It was just done in passing, simpler than picking up a fallen oil bottle.
The disciple had steeled his resolve, opened his mouth, and committed himself. He took out a storage pouch from his sleeve:
“If I’ve offended Senior Brother before, please forgive me. Today I present a bag of balsam seeds, and boldly ask Senior Brother for some guidance!”
He spoke firmly, but his heart was extremely anxious. He had just registered for the performance competition and also wanted to seek a change in his fortunes, to establish a future for himself.
Is Zhou Xiao Yun playing a joke on me?
Or am I so poor that I misheard “offering a bag of spirit stones” as “offering a bag of seeds”?
In recent days, several disciples who had interacted with Song Qian Ji had made rapid progress in their cultivation, which made others envious. Apart from Meng He Ze’s inherent talent, the others had all been quite ordinary.