CHAPTER 147 - BOUN-TEA-FUL HARVEST

🙞❤︎🙜

They nodded, and Fengying handed us some fluffy white bread rolls and slices of cheese to eat. The soft, sweet cheese from the [Creamery] was a big hit in the household. By the time we finished eating, the sky had lightened and the first rays of the sun were peeking over the horizon.

“I’ll go first.” I tied a bandana around my head to keep my hair from my face and reached out to the plant at the head of a row. The System helpfully made the parts of the stem where I was supposed to pluck glow red to highlight the exact place where I should snap it off. A delicate pinch and a satisfying snap marked my first tea harvest. I dropped the twig onto the basket that Yinuo held out for me.

The household staff all clapped, and I nodded at my apprentices to start their harvest, too.

Carefully, I repeated the process, moving along the row without missing any plants. The exp was good, especially with the added Astrology bonus, and I loved how each snap of the stem released a subtle herbal fragrance. The basket gradually filled as the sun rose higher, painting the dawn sky with hues of soft pinks and oranges that cast a soft and gentle glow over the fields of tea, rice, and vegetables. Looking around, I saw that Kharli was already finished with her first row while the other two were almost done with theirs, too.

“How does it look?”

Yinuo gave the almost full basket to the Demon Chef, who stepped out from under the canopy to see better. He sniffed the leaves and examined them closely before giving his pronouncement. “Fresh green tea leaves, low grade.”

It was exactly as I expected. We would probably only be able to harvest middle-grade crops by next year. “Thank you.”

The reason why Deming just called the harvest “tea leaves” was because all the different varieties of tea were made from the same plant, and the only difference was in the post-processing and how the farmers plucked the plant. One could pluck only the bud, or the bud and two leaves, or the bud and three leaves, and so forth.

I was thinking of simply handing over the leaves to be processed in a tea-making town, but Deming strongly suggested that he supervise the other staff in processing the tea leaves. They would spread the leaves out to dry in the sun before being roasted, cooled, and then rolled.

Well, if my household wanted to go through all that trouble themselves, who was I to stop them?

The tea field wasn’t that large, so we only had to harvest two rows each. When I was done, I went over to where the others were seated on the grass and showed them my haul, which was two large baskets of leaves. It wasn’t a lot of tea since they would shrink after they were dried, but everyone happily lifted the baskets to their faces and smelled the invigorating scent of our first harvest.

“Heavenly.”

“I can’t believe it’s spirit tea.”

“The scent is making my head swim.”

“You’re getting drunk on the scent of tea.”

“Give it back, I want to smell it again.”

My apprentices finished harvesting, too, and we sent most of the staff off with Deming to process the leaves.

“I have a little bit of energy left. How about you guys?” I asked my apprentices.

All of them only had a tiny fraction of their energy bars remaining, so I gave them bottles of [Kola-Kola Soda] to drink.

The mushrooms from the Chitinous Caverns seemed to work by making our energy replenish faster, but I didn’t want to risk the kids collapsing from overwork, so I felt it was best to continue harvesting alone.

“I’m very close to a level! I wish I could harvest more today,” said Mo.

“We’re all close, I think,” said Kharli.

I stretched my back since it was a little stiff from bending down over the plants repeatedly. “I still have some energy left, so I’ll harvest the potatoes today.”

“Fresh potatoes! I hope we can have fried potato chips at lunch today,” said Lari.

We trooped to the potato patch. Unlike the tea plants, the potato plants looked like they were dying, with withered yellow foliage. This was the sign that the tubers were ready.

I took gardening gloves out from the System toolbox and put them on. “Are you guys watching? Maybe you should go and rest.”

Kharli spoke for all of them when she said, “Teacher, we’d love to watch because harvesting crops is fun!”

“Okay.” I knelt in front of the plants and used my spading fork to loosen the soil under them before lifting the potatoes from the ground. “Oh, we got big ones this time!”

The kids crowded around me as I brushed the clods of dirt from the tubers. This time, we didn’t need the Demon Chef to tell us that they were [Alabaster Spirit Potatoes], low grade. We could already identify the more common vegetables from experience.

“Teacher, are you close to a level?” asked Kharli.

“Yes, three more should do it.” I put the potatoes in a basket and continued harvesting more. After the third one, I got the expected System message.

[Congratulations, you just advanced a Farming level!]

[Your Farming level is now 22.]

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The three of them showered me with praise and congratulations.

“Thank you, thank you! Settle down, I still have energy left.” I chuckled at their enthusiasm and waved them away to give me space to work. They retreated a few paces and I went on harvesting more potatoes until I had half a basket full of them. “That’s it. Ugh, I’m exhausted!”

“Teacher, drink some soda,” said Mo.

“I will.” I gulped it down like a woman dying from thirst. “That hit the spot! Let’s go to the main house to rest.”

***

The next day, we started on the vegetable harvest. The rice plants would be left for last to give them more time to mature.

“This is different from last year. I know which vegetables to harvest now!” said Mo.

“Me, too! I can tell which ones are at their peak. Like this one.” Kharli pointed at an eggplant.

“Yes, so since everyone knows which ones should be harvested today, I’ll let you work on your own. Let’s start.” I moved to the potato plants and the others scattered.

Somehow, digging in the dirt for food was a little more satisfying than plucking leaves. I’m not sure why.

It was definitely much better than buying vegetables in a grocery store back on Earth, that was for sure!

I smiled as I harvested the potatoes, thinking of how easy I had it on Earth. I could’ve bought whole sacks of potatoes for very cheap. Heck, I could fill an entire room with food by clicking on the items on a grocery store’s website and ordering a home delivery.

Humming as I worked, I harvested two sacks of [Alabaster Spirit Potatoes]. They were a humble crop, but I liked them.

Yinuo followed behind me. She was my maid, and a lady’s maid didn’t have to do this type of farm work, but she said she wanted to help me, and she seemed to enjoy it. I pulled up the potatoes, and she took them to the wheelbarrow.

I was handing a bunch of potatoes to Yinuo when I heard Mo scream and I saw the System’s fireworks display blooming around her.

Mo ran to me. “Teacher! I leveled up! Level 16!”

“Congratulations!” I embraced her and patted her on the back.

Lari and Kharli rushed over to us and joined the hug. Even Yinuo got in on the group hug action.

Kharli was the first to break off from the hug. “I’m gonna be next to level up.”

We all reluctantly separated.

I gave Mo one last pat on the back and said to Kharli, “You’re close?”

“I think I’ll level up today. I’ll go get more exp!” Kharli smiled and gave Mo another hug before walking back to where she had been harvesting cabbages earlier.

Lari also went back to work.

“Mo, shall we celebrate tomorrow? What do you want to eat?” I nodded to Yinuo to let her know it would be her task to tell the Demon Chef about it.

“It’s okay, I know they’re making cheese egg tarts with strawberries tonight. I don’t want anything else,” said Mo.

“Yeah, that sounds delicious, but I’ll ask them to make your favorite red braised pork belly tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Teacher!” Mo hugged me again before going back to her part of the vegetable field.

I continued digging up potatoes. The scent of the damp loam and the feel of my spading fork meeting the soil made me feel a connection to the earth. This was the place where I belonged.

The morning sun cast a pale light over the field. I looked up from my work and saw rows and rows of plants heavy with fruit and covered with vibrant green foliage. A few were still in flower, scenting the air with their sweet perfume.

“This is a nice day, isn’t it?” I said to Yinuo as I handed her the last of the potatoes.

“It’s wonderful.” She took the plants from me and loaded them onto the wheelbarrow.

After it was filled, the staff would take the wheelbarrow to the main house for cleaning and storage, setting aside the parts of the plant that were inedible. Those would be used to make [Animal Feed] later.

The System only harvested the most commonly used parts of the plants. For example, we harvested the fruit of the chili pepper plant using the System, but we could also manually pluck the chili pepper leaves which were delicious to eat. Likewise, the tomato, carrot, garlic, cucumber, pumpkin, etc. plants had edible leaves, too. Deming had told us in advance which parts of the plants were edible and should be set aside. For example, we were told not to try to eat the other parts of the potato except for the tuber itself since the rest of the plant was poisonous.

Of course, this made me wonder why all plants were suitable for making into feed when some of the parts were poisonous. The System probably detoxified them.

I went over to the bell peppers. We had planted a lot of them this time since most of us liked to eat them and we had more staff this year. The plants were three to four feet tall and had clusters of red, green, yellow, orange, and purple fruit that ranged from small ones that were around two inches in length to large ones bigger than my closed fist. I wondered why bell peppers were always the same size when I bought them in grocery stores on Earth. What happened to the ones that were too big or too small? I hoped they weren’t thrown away.

Yinuo came back with a basket, and I placed the bell peppers in it since they were a lot more delicate compared to the potatoes.

In the past, I kept a lot of the harvest in my inventory, but today all of these vegetables would be sent to the house. Now that my household was living in a [Three-Courtyard House], there was a lot more space for food storage. The larder even had a timestop function which meant that anything stored in it never went bad.

“Look at this lovely color.” I held up a red bell pepper for Yinuo to see. “It’s like an edible ruby.”

Yinuo took the fruit from my hand. “This is probably worth as much as red jade would be.”

“Nah, back when Shuye tried to sell my produce, no one was that interested until I sold rice.”

“That was before, when the merchants didn’t know about your farm.”

“Eh? People know about the farm now? I mean, people in general, not just the clan members I work with.”

Yinuo sighed and placed a hand on her forehead. “My lady, I can assure you that if you sold your vegetables, they would be in high demand.”

“Great! That’s good news.” I rubbed my hands in delight. “You’re not the only one who needs to earn money for a dowry.”

“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with that.”

I laughed and continued harvesting the vegetables.

A few minutes later, Kharli yelled, “Level 16!”

We all rushed towards her and embraced her.

After we finished congratulating her, Kharli asked me, “Teacher, can I also have my favorite dish tomorrow?”

Thankfully, I remembered what her favorite dish was. “Twice-cooked pork?”

Kharli smiled mischievously. “No. I mean the Anwei Cooper’s Guild’s famous Four Joy Meatballs!”

Mo screamed wordlessly and playfully shoved Kharli. “You! You! You’re bad. You promised you wouldn’t make fun of me.”

Kharli shoved her back. “I’m just kidding. Of course, I meant twice-cooked pork.”

Lari shook his head at their antics. “But those meatballs are great.”

I laughed. “You wanna try making them with worms?”

“No worms! Stop it…” Mo stuck her lower lip out, pretending to be upset. “Teacher, they’re bullying me. I’m sad. Can I have two of my favorite dishes instead of one? I also like lotus seed ginseng pork rib soup.”

“How much pork are you guys planning to eat? Take care or you’ll get a stomachache!” I shook my head at their silliness. “We can’t have three pork dishes in one day. Fine, Yinuo, tell the chef to make all of our favorite dishes, but spread out over the week and with a good balance of ingredients.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Yinuo.

My apprentices went back to work, but I was very curious about their shared meatball experience, so I whispered to Yinuo, “I want to try those famous meatballs. Please ask Deming if he knows the recipe. You can secretly bring it to me at the [Ranch House] without the others knowing.”

She nodded and I went back to work. To my surprise, I got two quests.

[Congratulations, you have harvested 1000 items!]

[Bonus Quests Available:

1. Four Joy Meatball Mystery Challenge

2. Potato Field Mystery Challenge

Choose One]