by Lazy Bird
Like a quail, Li Siwen lined up to collect his food. Not looking, not seeing, not thinking, and not asking.
The water was too deep; He couldn’t afford to raise any suspicion to himself!
chapter 9
Not long after sunrise, the earth was scorched until waves of heat emitted out the ground. The sky wasn’t blue anymore. Instead, it was covered by a suffocating haze and blinking light, with not a single trace of wind. Sweat poured down Li Siwen like a river—he felt like he was a crab that was being steamed, only lacking some garlic, ginger, and parsley to complete the dish.
All of these indicate that a rainstorm was brewing. Of course, it could also be a drought.
Li Siwen felt a little pressing in his heart and even more fear.
Even though he analyzed the biggest truth yesterday and was sure that the chances of being exposed were less than 10%, he was still worried. After all, who wasn’t afraid of dying?
Today, the Feudal led the troops out of the territory again, leaving only two militiamen like before, causing the territory to be very weakly defended. Right now, Li Siwen even thought of escaping from here to somewhere far away. He also had 15 Stamina Points, anyway.
But in the end, he crushed this death-seeking notion because he would die if he met some wild beasts like just a wolf on his escape.
Weeding, weeding, just continue weeding!
The fifty acres of the wheat field had actually been cleared of weeds twice already, but the wheat field they cleared five days ago was still in a mess again. The growing speed of the weeds was too fast, only the land plowed by Li Siwen had fewer weeds growing in it.
This was a good thing for both the growth of the wheat and the farmers, except for Li Siwen, which made it more troublesome for him. Every time they swap land to work on, he would try to pick the wheat fields with denser weeds growing in it.
For today’s wheat fields, one of them was to the south of the hill. Li Siwen hurried to occupy this place first. This spot was slightly further from the other farmers, none of them could see each other.
Because Sun Tieshi didn’t come to find their trouble these few days, and taking into consideration that no one was sure of the progress of their weeding job, Li Siwen decided to go all out.
The advantage of having 15 Stamina Points was very obvious: the hoe made from stone was able to withstand the intensity of his work too. In just one morning’s time, Li Siwen’s progress was already way ahead of the other farmers. He had cleared about 0.8 acres of land, depleting 10 Stamina Points, successfully obtaining one Vitality Point before noon.
After eating his dry food and taking his rest, his stamina restored to eight points. The hot and humid environment caused him to long for the sweet and watery pear. After all, no one would forget about the taste of it after trying it once.
However, he decided to keep this Vitality Point for now because he wanted to do a small experiment. If he didn’t use up the Vitality Point, would the green orb still be able to absorb more green dots?
This experiment wouldn’t waste much time; a few minutes was enough.
And now, he had to go to the river ditch and complete the last round of killing to light up the yellow orb.
Speaking of which, this was what he was looking forward to the most.
The river ditch was quiet as usual, but this didn’t mean that it was safe.
Li Siwen waved his hoe around, checking the surroundings, not even missing the rat holes. He also checked around to make sure there weren’t any dangerous wild beasts like wolves and such.
Then, in an experienced manner, he moved the stones to make a water dam, then chased the fishes into the trap. After some effort, the result was indeed rewarding. After all, he didn’t have any competitors.
When he killed the last small fish, he absorbed a yellow dot, and the yellow orb that was always in a dim state was finally lighted up.
Suppressing his excitement, Li Siwen instantly recovered the scene to its original state, cleared his tracks, and retreated from here, all under the timing of one minute.
After returning to the shade of the tree and checking that everything was normal, he finally placed his attention on the yellow orb. A second later, the yellow orb dimmed again, and a row of words appeared in the attribute bar, together with a 10 seconds countdown.
Spirit Points extracted +1, remaining time retainable: 10 seconds.
Spirit?
Small fish and prawn have a spirit too?
He couldn’t afford to spend time considering such questions now, Li Siwen hurriedly looked scrolled down through the attribute bar.
As expected, this Spirit Point couldn’t be added to Health, Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Defense, these five stats.
And when he placed his attention on the option ‘Name: Li Siwen’, although it was lighted up, the displayed repair progress was at 100%. This meant that both Vitality Point and Spirit Point could be used to repair this attribute, which was not bad.
Other than that, the Spirit Point could be used to light up Spirit, Talent, and Skill.
However, because his talent was void, it would be meaningless to light up Talent.
“I shall use it on Spirit then!”
When there was only a second left in the timer, Li Siwen made his decision.
Instantly, he felt a cooling sensation in his mind, as invigorating as eating a piece of chilled watermelon in summer. Even his thoughts seemed to have become more lively.
The remaining tiredness he had directly disappeared. Li Siwen even felt that he could do a set of high school examination questions now. Many inspirations, both big and small, sprouted in his mind. He really wasn’t exaggerating, he felt totally excited because of this now. The memories of his past nine days became clear and transparent, unobstructed.
Including the many small details that he had overlooked, they all appeared in his mind too.
Li Siwen even realized that he could improve on his plowing movements and also at the same time think back on the kitchen aunt’s meaningful, examining look at all the strong-looking civilians.
“Blargh!”
Li Siwen vomited. That short period of feeling like a superbrain genius subsided. He kneeled on the floor, his head crazy from pain as if it was going to split apart.
The pain gradually resided after an entire minute. Then, as if he had barely escaped death, Li Siwen leaned against the tree. What the heck had just happened? Why was the effect of using Vitality Point and Spirit Point so different?
However, when he reopened the attribute bar, he was dazed for a while.
The other attributes were all the same. Spirit was still grey-colored, but there was a row of words behind this attribute.
Spirit development—1%
“What the heck, just 1%?”
Li Siwen was really suspecting his life now. Also, other than that few seconds of miraculous experience, he didn’t feel anything different.
Basically, compared to the instant and visible effect of adding Vitality Points, the advantage of adding Spirit Points was unclear. At least for now, Li Siwen couldn’t see anything different.
He could easily obtain one Vitality Point a day, but Spirit Points required killing fishes. He needed five to six days just to obtain one Spirit Point.
“Maybe this is because Spirit is more important than the other attributes. If the development of the spirit to 100% can let me become an elegant and noble mage, I can kill even 100,000 fishes, let alone just 10,000 of it!”
Li Siwen found himself a bright-looking reason as an excuse. After all, what if this was true? He was stuck being a farmer for so long, he must work hard to change profession, he wanted to become a mage! Whoever dared to stop him, he would—
“BOOOM!”
A rumble of thunder sounded from a far distance. Black clouds had occupied half the sky without him even noticing it. Following it was a blast of strong wind, causing stones and sand to fly about, causing the air to be covered by sand and dust!
&n
bsp; The rainstorm was finally here.
Li Siwen stood under the tree dumbly, then rushed out two seconds later, running as fast as he could back to the territory. If he didn’t start running now, he would definitely become drenched later. And with the horrifying diseases in this world, the flu might be enough to take his life.
But after running for just 10 plus meters, Li Siwen slowly stopped.
Because he was unable to return to the territory now, and he also couldn’t return now.
This was the Feudal Lord’s order. The reason was very simple. The territory was guarded by only two militiamen now, the defense was extremely weak. To prevent being attacked by wild beasts, the entrance was blocked by huge logs.
If it was the two fat aunts or some other militiaman, they should be able to enter.
But he was just a lowly farmer. He believed that if he dared to climb over the log, the two militiamen guarding the place would poke two bloody holes in his body!
As for human rights, freedom, or whatsoever, that wasn’t any worth mentioning those at all!
His only choice was to tolerate it.
“But damn, this can possibly kill me!”
Seeing the dark clouds and thunder getting nearer and nearer, the wind getting stronger, and the smell of the rain reaching his nose, Li Siwen knew that the rainstorm definitely wouldn’t be a small one. It also wouldn’t be a short one.
“Looks like I can only use my stamina to resist it.”
Turning around, Li Siwen directly ran towards the river ditch. Before the rain started dropping, he directly ripened a pear and finished it in one breath. Then, the rain mercilessly poured down, the entire world turned white from the rain!
chapter 10
The rainstorm lasted for an entire hour. No matter where he could possibly hide, he would still end up drenched.
The previously quiet river ditch filled with rushing water. The wheat fields near the side had dozens of holes, washed open by the water. Instead, the wheat fields to the north of the hill were in a better state.
Li Siwen’s face was green from coldness. Shivering all over, he looked even more like a quail now.
However, because he ate a pear which replenished six Stamina Points, plus his remaining eight points, he had a total of 14 points in total when the rain dropped down. In the rainstorm, he depended on these 14 Stamina Points to sustain him, depleting an average of one point per 10 minutes. Therefore, he still had four Stamina Points remaining. Even though it’s actually in the red zone, it was in fact a very good state.
Removing all of his shabby clothes, he started wriggling the water out of them. When the cold wind blew, he shivered non-stop.
Luckily, as the water on the surface of his body was blown away, the sun appeared from between the clouds and shone down. Li Siwen felt that he was going to die from this comfortable feeling. The feeling of warmth caused his stamina to restore at a speedy rate.
At the same time, he didn’t forget to open up and dry his clothes. Because, with the coming of this rainstorm, there might still be more rains in the next few days. If he didn’t use this time to make preparations, he might possibly die from the consequences.
As for the other seven farmers, Li Siwen didn’t have any time to care about them anymore. Even with his 14 Stamina Points, he still used up 10 points to remain safe. As for those farmers who worked for the entire morning, even if they rested during noon, they would have seven to eight points of stamina at most. Under this rain, their stamina naturally would be depleted. And without the stamina to sustain them, they could only use their health to fight off the rain!
In other words, these seven farmers were only left with half a life now. If they had flu or fever next, they might not last longer than three days.
But this wasn’t the worst situation. After an hour of the rainstorm, floods from several places entered the river at the west, causing the water level to rise and exceeded the original shore, spreading further into the land on both sides.
Li Siwen and the other farmers were all hiding on the hill previously, so they haven’t noticed yet. But once the rain stopped—after his stamina and spirit recovered somewhat—Li Siwen went around to take a look. He was shocked by what he saw. Within his field of sight was all water. As for the territory that was 500 or 600 meters away, it was completely drowned too… Oh, that wasn’t correct, it wasn’t drowned, the houses remained only half submerged. He could faintly see a few people lying helplessly on the rooftops.
He didn’t know why, but he felt that this sight suddenly seemed very comical. A funny mood filled the environment.
It looks like no one was able to escape from this ordeal.
After basking in the warm sunlight for half an hour, Li Siwen’s stamina was restored to eight points. But this was mainly because his stamina didn’t drop to a dangerous point just now, thus, the coldness wasn’t able to invade his body. Therefore, he was able to recover after basking in the sunlight. If it were the other seven farmers, even if they basked in the sunlight for a whole day, they would still be just as half-dead as before.
But even so, Li Siwen still dragged them out from under the large tree. These fellows were really lucky there wasn’t much lightning just now. If not, they might have been struck by lightning.
The first four farmers were unable to speak anymore, as they shivered like chicks that just hatched.
The fifth farmer was cold all over, he didn’t have any breath left. Li Siwen didn’t have any knowledge of first aid. Even if he had, he wouldn’t dare to save him either. Therefore, he could only drag him under the sun too, and leave the rest up to fate.
As for the remaining two farmers, to Li Siwen’s surprise, they still had some energy left in them. But it was indeed smart of them to hug each other for warmth.
No matter what the case was, they would probably survive through this, which was a good thing.
Next, Li Siwen didn’t rest, but carried his hoe to the river and scooped up some firewoods floating on the water, then laid them under the sun to dry. He must make full preparations now, what if the Feudal Lord wasn’t able to return?
The territory was already flooded, the water wouldn’t be subsiding anytime soon. Looking at the sky, although it was warm and bright now, there were still numerous dark clouds remaining. There was a chance that it would still rain tonight. He could still survive without a house to hide from the rain, but without food, he would really die.
But this time, Li Siwen still planned on eating raw food. Unless it was a life and death situation, he wouldn’t try anything like building a fire by rubbing the wood with wood or whatsoever. That would be akin to suicide.
Then where would the food come from?
Simple. The water level rose a lot, many large fishes and small fishes have washed ashore. As the water level subsided, the small fishes might be able to escape back into the water, but most of the big ones couldn’t.
By that time, even the farmers would be able to pick a few fishes from the ground. This was logical, right?
Therefore, Li Siwen started preparing his weapon now. He couldn’t bear to use his own hoe, but there wasn’t any problem in using the hoe of the farmer who died.
Standing next to the water, every 10 plus minutes, he would use the hoe to test the water level. His eyes were fixed on the water like an eagle, knowing what was under the water through the small ripples on it.
He couldn’t wait until the water level subsided and exposed the shore to catch the fish. By that time, it would already be evening, there would be too many variables. Also, what if the Feudal Lord came back and saw what he was doing, how should he explain himself?
Therefore, after the water level retreated about 50 centimeters and only 20 or 30 centimeters of land was still submerged, Li Siwen waded into the water. Holding the hoe, he rushed into the water ferociously and smashed down at a ripple spot.
A direct hit!
It would be weird if he missed it. This fish was at least a meter long, its agili
ty was greatly lowered in the water that was only less than 30 centimeters deep.
However, what Li Siwen didn’t expect was that after the big fish was attacked, it immediately jumped up and slapped its tail on his shoulder. The force pushed him back a few steps, causing him to almost sit down into the muddy water.
What a ferocious fish! Could it be that it had gained intelligence?
Without much thought, Li Siwen smashed down again, hitting the fish on its back this time, immediately drawing blood. However, the hoe was twisted too, becoming useless.
Pained, the fish fervently patted the water, escaping at quite a fast speed.
But it wasn’t possible for Li Siwen to let it escape, he chased after the fish and viciously smashed down continuously. At some point, without him noticing, the head of the hoe had disappeared, only leaving the stick. However, he didn’t care about that. Instead, he became even more fierce. Clenching his teeth, he kept stabbing at the fish with the stick!
After stabbing it for dozens of times and the fish had already swum over a hundred meters, it finally died.
Instantly, a thick yellow light flashed in Li Siwen’s attribute bar. The yellow orb had directly become half full!
Panting, Li Siwen didn’t have time to be happy about the yellow ball. He directly started dragging the big fish up to the hill. That fight had depleted six Stamina Points, it was an alarming rate.
After dragging the fish that weighed tens of kilograms onto the hill, another Stamina Point was depleted. Now, Li Siwen only had one Stamina Point remaining, it was in the most dangerous state.
Unable to bother about anything else, he directly used his hoe to scrape away the fish scales. Picking the most tender part of the fish meat, he directly started eating madly.
Unexpectedly, the meat actually didn’t taste too fishy. Also, it was really tender, tasting much better than the black dry food.
After eating until he was full, he was shocked to realize that other than the fish head, tail, organs, and bone, he had finished all the other meat cleanly.
What the heck, since when did he have such a horrifying appetite?