by Lazy Bird
Table of Contents
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
chapter 25
chapter 26
chapter 27
chapter 28
chapter 29
chapter 30
chapter 31
chapter 32
chapter 33
chapter 34
chapter 35
chapter 36
chapter 37
chapter 38
chapter 39
chapter 40
chapter 41
chapter 42
chapter 43
chapter 44
chapter 45
chapter 46
chapter 47
chapter 48
chapter 49
chapter 50
chapter 51
chapter 52
chapter 53
chapter 54
chapter 55
chapter 56
chapter 57
chapter 58
chapter 59
chapter 60
chapter 1
It was June, and the scorching sun glared in the sky. It was a time for all kinds of things to grow.
On a relatively flat field, Li Siwen bore the scorching sun, with his feet on the loess, and wielding his hoe, looking like a general in battle. He weeded the field, appearing invincible.
“Huff!”
After having worked to the end of the field with no rest, Li Siwen straightened up his sore back and his eyes flashed with joy. Bah, he was not happy because of the growing seedling, although he was supposed to be a farmer.
Li Siwen took a look at the other farmers in the other fields far behind him and he soon regained his rigidity and agility.
He held up a water gourd, which hung from his waist, and took small sips while using it as a cover against the light. Suddenly, a somewhat simple and strange Attribute Bar had appeared in his mind. It was strange because the Attribute Bar seemed real. It was covered with cracks and looked like it was on the verge of falling apart.
Because of these cracks, a lot of the information was blurry and not visible.
Name: Wang Er (Li Siwen) is being replaced, and the Replacement progress is 50%.
Occupation: Farmer
Health: 10
Stamina: 10
Strength: 5
Agility: 2
Defense: 0
Under this strange Attribute Bar, there appeared three floating orbs. The left one was green, the middle one was yellow, and the right one was blue.
Currently, the yellow and blue orbs were both dimmed, and only the green orb was lit. This resulted from Li Siwen spending three days exterminating 100,000 weeds after he had transmigrated into this unknown world.
However, he did not know what would happen after the green orb lit up. Would the evil Feudal Lord discover that he was a fake NPC? Or would he embark on the road to become a winner in life?
Focusing on the green orb, Li Siwen vaguely sensed a kind of vitality from it. Or rather, that’s what he felt. It was too abstract to call it that. What he felt at that moment was like the feeling of seeing a bowl of braised pork when he was hungry, a luxuriant spring when he was thirsty, a pillow when he was sleepy, and when he was lonely… In short, this was, without a doubt, good stuff.
Focusing harder, he saw the green orb instantly turn dim, as if something had been drawn from it.
When he looked at the Attribute Bar again, there was an extra line of blinking dynamic text and a strange countdown appeared.
Withdrawing Vitality Point +1, Time Remaining: 10 seconds.
Withdraw?
Vitality Point?
There was no further explanation?
After giving it a short thought, Li Siwen came to understand that this Vitality Point was probably the vitality he had gotten from exterminating 100,000 weeds in the past three days. The Vitality Point was definitely going to be of great use.
At that moment, if he were to focus his attention on any Attribute in the Attribute Bar, that Attribute immediately became highlighted.
It was just adding points.
Li Siwen decisively added the Vitality Point to the first item, which was the Replacement progress bar. It was without a doubt the most important thing.
In an instant, he felt his entire body tremble. The Replacement progress bar filled up to 100% directly. He felt completely alive. Before, although he felt alive too, there seemed to be something in his way. It was as if he was a zombie.
Now, even the air he breathed was sweet and intoxicating. The raw feeling of the hoe in his hand was so familiar…
The cracks on the attribute bar had all disappeared. The data had also changed slightly.
Name: Li Siwen
Occupation: Farmer
Health: 10
Stamina: 10
Strength: 5
Agility: 2
Defense: 0
Spirit: Grey
Talent: None
Skill: Farming Level 1. Explanation: An ability every commoner has, base-level beginner skill.
—
After a quick glance, Li Siwen casually put the gourd back on his waist, and continued swinging his hoe. He slashed at the weeds wholeheartedly. Such a description only served to motivate him.
There were ten farmers taking care of about fifty acres of land, including him. Everyone had to weed about one acre a day. However, there was no upper limit on how much they had to do. None of the farmers would skive, but neither would they rush to do more.
They drank when they were thirsty and ate when they were hungry. They took breaks when they were tired and escaped from the heat at noon. At night, they went to bed, snored, ground their teeth, and talked in their sleep. Their bowel movements were normal. When they met the Feudal Lord, they would greet him. Occasionally, they would talk crudely about the opposite-sex.
They were like ordinary people. That was, if Li Siwen had not witnessed the amazing things a lord was capable of.
In short, the situation was like this. He had transmigrated and became a farmer, an NPC at that.
Fortunately, Li Siwen had a good mentality. The first thing he realized was that he must never reveal his identity. After three days and three nights, he could finally claim to be half a native.
Taking this farmland as a reference point, there was a large mountain to the east, rising high into the clouds. The mountain top was snowy and surrounded by white clouds. However, it was unknown if there were immortals or dragons there.
To the south was an endless forest, and the specific situation inside was unknown.
To the west was a huge river. The water flow was steady, but the river was wide. It went on for perhaps ten miles or more. He had seen no fishing boats pass by.
To the north was a hill. Under the hills was the territory of the Feudal Lord, but this was probably the shabbiest territory Li Siwen had ever seen.
The Feudal Lord lived in a stone house.
There were six wooden houses which were in better conditions. In them lived ten militiamen and two fat cooking aunties.
Five thatched cottages which were in the worst conditions housed ten far
mers, four hunters, and six loggers.
The last was a fence that enclosed all of this.
This was the territory.
He did not know much about anything else, but there was one thing that put Li Siwen on edge. That was, farmers die.
There were no roads built around this simple camp, but according to the height of the wheat seedlings growing in the field and the trails that had been made, there should have been no less than 10 farmers before Li Siwen and the nine other farmers were recruited by the Feudal Lord.
Now, they were all dead.
Whether it was a strategy game world or a fantasy world, Li Siwen didn’t want to die again.
Even if he was a farmer, an NPC, he wanted to survive.
The wheat seedlings in the farmland were sparse and about 15cm in height, but there were a lot of weeds. Some weeds had especially well-developed rhizomes, which were simply horrible! They had often just been cleared a few days ago, and in the blink of an eye, lush shoots would grow again.
This was undoubtedly a newly domesticated wasteland.
Through this, Li Siwen made a bold judgment. He feared that the Feudal Lord was not a native of this world!
However, this had nothing to do with him. At the moment, he was weeding wholeheartedly. In his hands, the rusty iron hoe seemed to be a powerful weapon.
The little bit of light that kept increasing in the little green orb was really infinitely magical.
That day, nothing much happened. The Feudal Lord came to oversee them twice, while the militiamen came to patrol every two hours. However, that did not increase Li Siwen’s sense of security. He felt their frequent appearance implied that there was much danger around the territory.
However, the other thing Li Siwen worried about didn’t happen.
After having completely replaced a farmer Wang Er today, he had deliberately accelerated the speed and quality of weeding. Therefore, while the density of weeds remained roughly the same, he weeded one-tenth of an acre more than yesterday. That improved the quality by 20% and filled the green orb to more than one third.
The statistic was significantly different, but the Feudal Lord didn’t bother. Dinner remained the same. It was still as bland as ever.
When night fell, an accident happened. A wild boar weighing about 300 KG broke into the territory. After breaking the thigh of a militiaman, the Feudal Lord caught up with it in a hurry and slashed it to death.
‘A 100-meter acceleration sprint can reach about six seconds. If it’s strong, it can hit me five or more. Other than that, I have discovered no mysterious power yet.’ With this in mind, Li Siwen fell asleep under the bombardment of countless mosquitoes.
chapter 2
Just shortly after dawn, Li Siwen woke up to a sour smell. There were no less than dozens of bumps from head to toe. The mosquitoes here were really too arrogant.
Without washing up and after relieving themselves, the ten farmers queued up to receive rations from the two fat cooking aunties. They filled their water gourd with cold water and set off in silence. No one complained or even chatted.
However, Li Siwen noticed a detail. When the Feudal Lord walked into the stone house yawning, his back was wet with dew.
‘He is really a dedicated Lord. The safety level at night must be the lowest. As the most powerful person, he has to patrol the area with the militiamen.’ With that on his mind, Li Siwen picked up a small, fine-textured stone when he stopped to pee on the way to the wheat field. The Feudal Lord was sleeping now. He felt he could take a small risk.
The hoe was a little rusty and poor in quality. It was like a lousy piece of iron. Although such a hoe could cut weeds, it took a lot of energy. In addition, it couldn’t remove the weeds along with its roots. The hoe became duller when it met the soil.
This was why they could not keep up with the growth rate of weeds even though ten farmers weeded ten acres of land every day.
The Feudal Lord might not have noticed this, but Li Siwen, who worked in the agriculture department before transmigrating, had such general knowledge.
There was no whetstone, and the iron hoe was not hard. By sharpening it occasionally with an ordinary stone, it was at least sharper.
But Li Siwen didn’t do this to improve work efficiency.
For the past four days, he had been experimenting with the weeding.
He drew several conclusions.
Firstly, cutting off the weeds outside the wheat field would also fill the green orb, but it was temporarily impossible to try on a large scale.
Secondly, cutting off the weeds above the ground would fill up the green orb, but not by a lot.
Thirdly, cutting off weeds from its roots would fill up the green orb two or three times more than the above method.
Fourthly, cutting off the wheat seedlings would not fill up the green orb. But there was no penalty.
Fifthly, without using a hoe, using other tools, including pulling weeds by hand, would also fill up the green orb.
Based on the above, Li Siwen made the following decision: Pursue quantity but quality. The key to quality weeding was the hoe.
If a worker wanted to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools.
Sharpening his hoe with a small stone did not attract the attention of the other nine farmers. After all, they were not on the same field.
Li Siwen squatted on the ground, taking advantage of his mealtime, and spent five minutes sharpening his hoe. This made the hoe a little more decent. He couldn’t ask for too much.
Then, he started weeding with a slight increase between motions and strength. He tried to increase the inertia of the hoe-swinging as much as possible. He cut and rooted every weed without being too greedy.
As a result, his weeding speed slowed down a lot. But the green orb filled up twice as quickly as usual.
Of course, there was still a problem in doing this. Would the Feudal Lord be suspicious because he was too slow?
“I’ll use more strength, then.”
Li Siwen chose the easiest method. But this method was very taxing on his Stamina. It was only 9:30 AM and his Stamina had dropped by 5.
In the past, he would only consume 5 points in the morning. After a rest at noon, his Stamina would recover to 8 points. In the afternoon, another 6 points of his Stamina would be consumed.
With 2 points left, he would usually be exhausted. Here, it was often necessary to replenish with food and an entire night of rest before his Stamina would recover to 10 points. If he was woken up several times a night, or if he did anything else, his Stamina would not recover completely.
Stamina was what Li Siwen valued most in these couple of days. He did not let his guard down just because he was digitized.
According to his calculations, the consumption and recovery of these 10 points of Stamina were no different from ordinary adults.
Which meant digitization did not give people convenience or advantage. People still got tired when they worked and injured when hurt. When they were bitten by a mosquito, it was still as itchy.
Li Siwen looked up at the direction of the territory, took out his rations and water gourd, and sat down to rest. The 5 points of Stamina was a dividing line. Before his Stamina dropped to 5 points, he only felt a little tired. Even though his Stamina recovered between the gaps of rest periods, if he did not eat, drink, or sit down to rest, once his Stamina dropped below 5 points, fatigue would weigh on his entire body like lead. He would feel weak from the inside and it was absolutely impossible to appear well and alert.
After eating the rations at noon, and resting for another half an hour, Li Siwen’s Stamina quickly recovered to 8 points. At this time, he only fell slightly behind the other farmers. It was not too obvious. When the Feudal Lord came to inspect between 10 AM to 11 AM, if he didn’t have any background data records to look through, he would find nothing amiss.
Li Siwen took a deep breath and began to weed at his usual pace. With his current speed, he would definitely not make it until
the evening. When he finished work in the evening, he would be exposed because of having covered too little an area. Even though he had deliberately weeded one-tenth of an acre more, it would not make up for today’s deficit.
However, what if he filled up the green orb, got another Vitality Point, and added it to Stamina?
This was his plan. It was not perfect, but the success rate should be quite high.
At 10 AM in the morning, the Feudal Lord appeared as usual. He said nothing and only paused for a few seconds at the wheat field where each farmer was weeding.
In just a few seconds, Li Siwen was so nervous his heart was in his mouth.
Then, nothing happened. The Feudal Lord didn’t even look at him or the sparse wheat seedlings in the wheat field. He should have a means to know the progress and quality of weeding at a glance. Of course, the results would only be shown when the wheat was harvested. After all, for newly cultivated land, sudden high-quality weeding was insignificant to the entire process of cultivation, management, and harvesting.
“The answer will be revealed tonight,” Li Siwen mumbled in his heart silently when the unsmiling Feudal Lord left.
If his former conjecture was right, there was a high probability that the Feudal Lord would have noticed him. Of course, his identity would not be exposed. He might be appreciated and rewarded. After all, although the total area of weeding was small, the quality doubled.
If his latter conjecture was right, he would not need to worry about anything. Fifty acres of land was divided into twelve areas, and the ten farmers were not at fixed locations.
Even if autumn arrived and the harvest of a certain wheat field was a little better, there was no way to trace the source.
Of course, there was another possibility. That was, the Feudal Lord would not pay attention to these details at all. As a leader who had to manage the territory and many other matters, if he dealt everything to such a detailed level, his overall workload would be so great that just the thought of it made Li Siwen want to collapse.
Resting at noon, Li Siwen, who had already eaten in advance, only recovered his Stamina to 6 points even though he rested for a full hour.
In the blazing afternoon, consumption of his Stamina would increase. Coupled with hunger, even if he did nothing, his Stamina would decrease.
In addition, Li Siwen had to ensure he had 2 points of Stamina left. Although he didn’t know the consequences of depleting his Stamina, he knew what physical exhaustion was like in reality.