by Lazy Bird
A few minutes later, Li Siwen stood up and returned to the place where he saw the little fishes earlier. He picked up stones and piled them up skillfully…
In an instant, three fishes fell into his clutches. Li Siwen didn’t drool. He had no intention to cook and eat them. All he did was lift the stone up high.
“Bam!”
“Bam!”
“Bam!”
The three little fishes died, mangled beyond recognition.
He opened up the Attribute Bar and saw three yellow lights floating into the yellow orb. Li Siwen nodded in satisfaction.
That’s right.
The green orb was for plants, and the yellow orb was for animals. What was the blue orb for?
After estimating the time, Li Siwen continued his slaughter until ten little fishes lost their lives to the stone. He threw the little fishes’ corpses into the stream and ground them with the stones to destroy all traces. Then, he quickly placed the stones back in their original positions.
Next, he rubbed his hands with the soil, and after washing them thoroughly, he went back.
Well, the re-arrangement of the stones was unnecessary. But was it wrong for him to not want to share his secret method of leveling up with others?
Humph!
As for food, the fishy odor would only attract unnecessary troubles. His occupation was a farmer, not a fisherman!
Besides, without fire, raw fishes would contain parasites. What if he got ill? It was not like he was starving…
Back in the shade of the trees, a few farmers had had their naps and were chatting idly. They were not skiving. There was a one-hour break at noon every day. No one was curious about where Li Siwen went. Two farmers stood up and went to the brook together. Yes, it was a nice and safe public toilet and water source.
It got comfortable in the afternoon.
Even after an hour’s rest, the average Stamina of the nine farmers was around 6 or 7 points. Under the harsh sun, their weeding progress was not comparable to that in the morning.
As for Li Siwen, even though he didn’t rest much at noon and only recovered 1 point of Stamina, his overall Stamina was still 9 points. He easily filled up the green orb at around 5 PM. After deducting the spent Stamina, he still had 4 points left.
Watching the glorious sun on the horizon, it exhausted the other farmers. He couldn’t help but feel a little worried, because good days like today were hard to come by. Without enough food, he could not recover all his Stamina. Without sufficient Stamina, he couldn’t kill fishes to level up. After all, the hour of rest at noon was very important. It corresponded to the recovery of 3 Stamina points.
“Food? I cannot eat the fish. They can’t be eaten raw. The only thing that can be eaten within this safe area is wild fruits. But it is June and the fruits are as sour as 38-year-old Wives’ brand aged vinegar.”
Li Siwen shook his head. He had actually tried eating them. The other nine farmers had tried eating them. Without exception, the fruits were all utterly sour. He shuddered at the thought of it.
“Should I try it?”
Li Siwen glanced at the green orb that was completely lit up. He was not a person who blindly obeyed the rules. After his transmigration, he carried out various experiments within the safe area every day. It was as such every day. The Vitality Points which could increase his attributes were the target of his experiments.
But quite honestly, if he could fill his stomach every day, Li Siwen was unwilling to waste the precious Vitality Points. It would be good to use them to increase his attributes and change his occupation to become a militiaman.
But the prerequisite was that he must fill his stomach.
He also saw that there were very little reserves in the territory. This was not because the Feudal Lord deliberately treated them harshly. The landlord’s family had no surplus grain before they harvested the wheat this season!
The Feudal Lord, Overseer Sun Tieshi, as well as the militiamen, ate meat every day because they had to patrol, keep watch at night, and kill beasts. They consumed more energy.
“I’ll give it a try. At most, I’ll take it as having worked a day for nothing.”
After coming to a decision, Li Siwen clutched his stomach as if in pain and ran towards the brook. Of course, he didn’t forget to take his hoe. There were a few ridicules from other farmers behind him. Well, there was nothing more he could ask for.
Li Siwen jumped into the little brook, not caring about leaving any evidence. After all, it was an impromptu decision. The Overseer Sun Tieshi would come soon. When it was time to knock off, he would stop work and go home. It was okay to have some flaws. Obsessive-compulsive disorder was absolutely not acceptable.
He arrived at the wild fruit tree. It should be a wild pear tree. There were a lot of fruits on it, but they were all black and unappetizing.
Li Siwen hesitated for a second and prepared for the worst. He pulled a branch down and grabbed a wild pear. He naturally did not expect to harvest the entire tree with his bit of Vitality. One should know when to be content.
“Extract!”
Li Siwen focused and instantly extracted a little Vitality value from the green orb. He was already very proficient in this process. Then, he immediately focused on the wild pear, mumbling. Ten seconds of validity period. He was ready to waste eight seconds, he must react in the last two seconds.
But in fact, it was very simple. It was so simple that Li Siwen was stunned. That little Vitality fell on the wild pear smoothly, and there was even a beautiful sparkling bubble.
In the next second, a miracle happened. The black wild pear, which was originally only the size of an apricot kernel, quickly enlarged. It transformed from a black wild pear into a Chinese pear.
Three seconds later, a large Chinese pear appeared on Li Siwen’s hand. He caught a whiff of its fresh, sweet smell.
Oh my God!”
After the unimaginable shock, Li Siwen ate it quickly while bawling without saying a word. Even the core of the pear he ate and swallowed down.
“Burp—It’s so good!”
He quickly wiped away his tears and calmed himself down. Then he destroyed all evidence. At the same time, he checked the branch and confirmed that the branch had not changed, then turned around and left.
He analyzed quickly as he walked.
“There are no changes to the Attribute Bar. It can be determined that this big pear was only ripened by the Vitality value. It did not have any magical effects. It’s just vitality gained from tens of thousands of weeds. I can’t ask for too much.”
“It tasted like an ordinary Chinese pear. But it tastes good, the flesh is sweet and crunchy, and—wait a minute, my Stamina is—recovering?”
Li Siwen was ridiculously happy!
chapter 6
Don’t go out when there was a morning afterglow, go when there was an evening afterglow.
The twilight afterglow dyed the clouds red like fire now, looking breathtakingly beautiful. At least, this sight fully captivated Li Siwen. Holding a bowl of wild vegetable soup in one hand and a black-colored dry food in the other, he was working hard to stuff them down. As for the other portion, he hid it. The other nine farmers were doing the same thing too. Whenever it was related to food, all of them seemed to have turned clever.
The Feudal Lord and his chief supervisor Sun Tieshi were feasting on two deer legs now, and the militia were merrily drinking meat broth. The firewood was giving off cracking sounds as it burned. It filled the whole territory with a joyous mood.
Therefore, Li Siwen immediately bunched his back and tried his best to hide himself in a corner where the last rays of sunlight couldn’t reach. He was feeling joyous too, but he would not let anyone know about it.
Only when he entered his thatched house and was enveloped by darkness did he completely cheered in his heart.
“Six points of Stamina, I recovered as much as six points of Stamina in just about 10 minutes. I really feel as if I found a gold mine. Now, I
don’t have to worry about not having enough stamina from lacking in food now.”
“Tomorrow, after the morales of the farmers have recovered, they will return to their normal weeding speed. As for me, my target is—earning two points of Vitality Point before the night ends, this isn’t a problem. With these Vitality Points, I shall increase one Stamina Point and use the other to exchange it for pears to eat! Basically, I need to accumulate a base amount of capital.”
“Now, it’s time to relax and sleep!”
A few minutes later, Li Siwen successfully entered dreamland. At this moment, he had as much as nine points of stamina remaining.
He thought that he would sleep all the way until morning, but he was woken up by a scream during midnight. At first, he thought that wild beasts attacked them, but the person screaming was a lumberjack next door who was holding his stomach and vomiting, causing the whole place to smell.
When the Feudal Lord rushed over, his face turned very ugly. He immediately woke everyone up and ordered the cooks to boil some water. He also ordered Li Siwen and the other farmers to clean the mess. As for the lumberjack, he was carried to the edge of the territory and left alone screaming. Everyone was helpless.
After that, they forced everyone, wash their hands, brush their teeth, and so on, taking up most of the night.
When the sky lit up and everyone was yawning, only then did they realize that the lumberjack was already dead for quite a while.
“He ate wild fruit and even drank dirty water, infecting himself with an acute disease. If you don’t want to die like him too, all of you better watch what you eat!”
The Feudal Lord was furious and everyone else was scared and didn’t dare to speak a word.
The dead body was quickly pushed onto a stack of firewoods and burned into ashes. His thatched house was burned down too and would be rebuilt. It looked like the Feudal Lord learned his lesson and decided to build the house from wood even though it pained his heart. 10 days worth of labor from the six lumberjacks was depleted in an instance.
Farmers weren’t needed in building a house, so they all rushed to eat their breakfast. They still had to go weeding in the wheat field later. Other than Li Siwen, the other nine farmers were all in a tired state. They didn’t have a good rest for two nights in a row and they had physical work to do in the day. Therefore, they would at most have six points of stamina left now.
On the other hand, Li Siwen had already recovered his stamina during the early half of the night. Therefore, he was very energetic now.
However, the sense of urgency lingered. This was because he suddenly realized that although the wild beasts in this world were very terrifying, the number of people who died from illness and disease was even more terrifying.
From the experience so far from the past six days, actually, there weren’t many wild beasts. Therefore, it was questionable how the last batch of 10 farmers have actually died. It was very likely that they died from diseases too.
“Therefore, I need to increase my Stamina Points and Health Points.” Li Siwen decided to readjust his target again.
The afternoon quickly passed.
The progress of the other farmers were lacking behind their usual performance by at least 20%. As for Li Siwen, although his progress wasn’t fast too, he really executed his plan of killing the weeds by the roots this time. He would dig at least seven to eight centimeters into the ground every time, completely destroying the roots of the weeds. Naturally, he obtained more green dots than before.
On average, he could obtain four or even five green dots from each weed.
Of course, the price of doing this was costly too. When he came here in the morning, his stamina was at his maximum of 12 points. He also restored three points of stamina during a break in the middle. By the break at mid-noon, his stamina had already reached the yellow zone, with only four points remaining.
On the bright side, he successfully obtained one Vitality Point.
Whilst the other farmers were all lying on the ground under the shades of the trees and painting, Li Siwen went to the river ditch and used this Vitality Point to accelerate the ripening of a pear and hurriedly ate it. Then, he returned back to the tree and sat down to eat his dry food. As for leveling through killing small fishes, he decided to postpone it. If not, he wouldn’t be able to restore his Stamina Points without resting. Also he wouldn’t be able to obtain the second Vitality Point before work ends too.
He took a nap in the shade of the tree. It was very comfortable, his stamina had fully recovered too, and he felt his body filled with energy. Even the aching in his muscles was gone too.
From this, it could be seen how important having full stamina was. If not, he would definitely get sick by sleeping on the ground when his stamina was in the yellow zone.
For example, two of the farmers were looking very bad now. They had been frightened for two nights in a row and still had to do physical work in the day. Their food wasn’t good either and the sun was scorching too. If this carried on, they might catch a heatstroke.
“Why not you two take a break?”
Li Siwen hesitated for half a day and in the end, he softly advised them to rest. The lives of NPCs weren’t valuable, but they were still worth saving.
“The Feudal Lord will be angry if we do so.”
The two farmers softly said. They probably didn’t think too much about their condition too, or it could be that they had no idea what kind of condition they were under at all too.
Li Siwen didn’t advise them anymore.
After resting for another short while, the farmers who were in a better condition gradually continued their work. Li Siwen didn’t move until the sickly looking two farmers, after resting for another 10 plus minutes, got up too. Only then did he finally get up and return to work. He was the last person to stand up.
This was all he could do for the other farmers.
“Swoosh”
The sound of cutting through the air could be heard as he swung his hoe. The black soil only gave a little resistance and he easily reached the root of the weed. With a soft pull, the weed was pulled out with its root, and a weed was easily killed.
This was a very simple set of actions, although Li Siwen didn’t complete it to the extent of smoothness, his coordination of the movements were quite good. Maybe this was the greatest benefit of having a digitalized body. It was easy to see what movements at what frequency at what strength would obtain the optimal effect and therefore easy to find the most energy-efficient set of movements.
Before he knew it, an hour had passed. Li Siwen was sweating profusely and his stamina was depleting rapidly too. Right at this moment, he heard someone exclaim. Lifting his head, he noticed two farmers missing. Two farmers had collapsed onto the ground.
The farmers near them rushed over and carried them to the shade. Then, they could only stand there helplessly and look.
Li Siwen looked back and continued his work. He was unable to help them too. After all, he was just a farmer too.
When supervisor Sun Tieshi came here during his patrol, he asked four militiamen to carry the two unconscious farmers back. Maybe there was still hope for them?
But even if they could be saved, what then? They would be ill, their Health Points and Stamina Points greatly decreased, and then had their lives reaped by the plague again.
Thinking of this, Li Siwen couldn’t help but think of something that he didn’t dare to think about until now.
Which was that the Feudal Lord should be able to see the attributes of the civilians in his territory, right? If he continued to increase his attributes recklessly, would he be viewed as a monster or something?
But for now, he could only continue increasing his attributes and see how things go one step at a time.
chapter 7
By evening, Li Siwen’s progress had already exceeded all the other farmers, and he was still the most energetic one.
The Vitality Point that he had obtained, he still u
sed to increase the Stamina Point, becoming 13 points.
Without a doubt, the higher the Stamina Point was, the more resistant he would be to abnormal states, diseases, and labor injuries.
After returning to the territory, four wooden houses had already been built; the speed was astonishing. Of course, the main reason was that it was very crudely built. They were only two meters high—first, casually bury the wooden foundations into the ground, install the structures, then use tree leaves to cover the top first, then hay, then a layer of mud. There was only an opening to enter and exit, there wasn’t any door or window at all.
But it was still better than a thatched house. At least, it wouldn’t be so moist inside.
According to the population, five lumberjacks would occupy one wooden house, four hunters another one, and the 10 farmers to share the last two.
But even something like getting a new house also couldn’t increase their morale. After all, whether they were farmers or lumberjacks, the last two days had tired them out too much. Plus, the fact that someone just died and two farmers unconscious from heatstroke, the panic was spreading throughout the territory.
The reaction of the Feudal Lord was swift. For tonight’s dinner, everyone, really every single person in the territory, could have an extra meat broth without meat inside.
“If I was him, I would recruit a Hero unit with healing skills, not a supervisor like Sun Tieshi who’s all brawn and no brain. Maybe he’s regretting it right now, or maybe he’s still oblivious of this. Or maybe it’s because he really can’t recruit a unit selectively?”
Li Siwen thought about this. Then, after he was full from eating, he entered the new wooden house and fell asleep. Before anything, recovering the stamina was the most important thing.
This was a rare peaceful night that didn’t have an accident. After daylight, Li Siwen woke up full of energy, his 13 Stamina Points fully restored. After doing a few subtle and small stretches, his eyes froze. There were two corpses placed at the border of the territory again. The two unconscious farmers had still died.