The Spirit of Gourmet

Chapter 174 The Precious Spirit Reveals Its Trail

"Hey, hey, hey, what brings you here all of a sudden?"

Cao Dongdong, who deliberately lagged half a step behind, couldn't help but tug at Zhao Qian's sleeve and whispered.

"You idiot!" Zhao Qian couldn't help but roll her eyes. "The rice paddies! The quality suddenly improved! Haven't you realized it yet?"

"Hiss..." Hearing Zhao Qian say this, Cao Dongdong finally understood why Qin Lang suddenly suggested coming to the rice paddies.

He glanced at Qin Lang, who was following behind Yang Xingze. The other man's furtive glances around clearly indicated that he was looking for something.

Could it be that Zhenling is in this place?
Thinking of this, Cao Dongdong couldn't help but look around.

Yang Xingze's rice paddy is very small, only a dozen mu (one mu = 666 square meters), and you can almost see the end of it at a glance.

In such a small area, if a rare spirit truly existed, it should have been discovered very quickly.

But after circling the rice paddy, he didn't see anything unusual.

"Is there some mistake?" Cao Dongdong couldn't help but mutter to himself.

Zhao Qian didn't speak, but her face also showed a look of suspicion.

All the previous clues seemed to point to the possibility that there might be a rare spirit in Yang Xingze's rice paddy, but no rare spirit has been found yet.

Could it be that Zhenling came here before, but left?
Qin Lang, who had taken the initiative to come and take a look at the rice paddies, was no longer nervous, but rather a little disappointed.

His thoughts were similar to Zhao Qian's.

Perhaps there were once precious spirits here, but they have already left.

"Xingze, why wasn't all of your rice paddies harvested?" Yu Zaozao asked curiously.

“We don’t have a combine harvester,” Yang Xingze said with a helpless smile. “The other rice paddies nearby are all at the critical time of harvest, and no one can lend us a combine harvester, so I can only harvest by hand, which is slower.”

"Fortunately, we don't have much land, so even if we harvest it ourselves, it won't take more than a few days to finish."

"I see." Yu Zaozao nodded in understanding, casually grabbing a stalk of rice. "Speaking of which, I've never seen rice harvested before. Which part of the rice is cut?"

She brought her other hand together and gestured a cutting motion towards the bottom of the rice stalk. "Is this the right spot?"

“I usually go a little lower,” Yang Xingze explained with a smile. “The cut rice stalks can be returned to the field as fertilizer.”

When it comes to planting, Yang Xingze seems very experienced, quite different from when he cooks.

"I see." Yu Zaozao suddenly realized, and then made a cutting motion with her hand, gesturing to a position lower than the rice stalk.

"This is it..."

Before her other hand could touch the rice stalk, the entire rice plant trembled violently, quickly slipped from Yu Zaozao's hand, and then burrowed into the ground.

“…Huh?!”

Yu Zaozao stared wide-eyed as if she had seen a ghost.

What the heck? The rice has escaped?
"there!"

Cao Dongdong suddenly exclaimed in surprise. In the rustling rice paddy, a beige figure was moving at an extremely fast speed.

With just a fleeting glimpse, Qin Lang and the other two were suddenly shaken.

That is the very spirit from the ninth painting!
"Chase!" Qin Lang shouted in a low voice and took off running.

But in the next instant, the rice paddy returned to calm.

As the rustling sound faded, the sprite also vanished without a trace.

"What just happened?" Qin Lang couldn't help but turn to look at Yu Zaozao, who was still in shock. "How did it appear?"

“I…I don’t know either.” Yu Zaozao looked blank. “I was just asking Yang Xingze about the height for harvesting rice.”

"Then the rice stalk I grabbed suddenly ran away!" Thinking about what had just happened, she felt it was all too surreal.

The rice... ran away?!
"Qin Lang, I've scanned its information." Zhao Qian, who hadn't said a word, took a step closer to Qin Lang and placed the scan results in front of him.

【Type: Zhenling】

[Level: Lv12]

【Attributes: Salty, Sweet】

So it really is a rare spirit...

Qin Lang's gaze fell on the tail of the rare spirit on the scanning interface.

The tail, which was very similar to a rice stalk, combined with Yu Zaozao's description, made Qin Lang instantly guess the truth.

Clearly, what Yu Zaozao had just grabbed was not rice, but the tail of this rare spirit.

Unlike the chubby chick and crescent moon he had encountered before, this rare spirit has the special ability to hide itself and disguise itself as rice!
Thinking of this, Qin Lang couldn't help but look at the gently swaying golden rice ears all around him.

Perhaps at this very moment, that precious spirit is hiding in some corner of it.

"So... what happened?" Yang Xingze couldn't help but ask.

Qin Lang sighed.

If it were someone from the rare animal hunting team here, they probably wouldn't say anything, but he's not one of those guys from the rare animal hunting team.

If you're looking for something in someone else's rice paddy, you should at least let them know.

"What just appeared was a rare spirit..."

Qin Lang briefly explained Zhen Ling's situation, and Yang Xingze, Chi Yu, and Yu Zaozao, who had never heard of Zhen Ling before, looked at each other in bewilderment.

"So, the sudden improvement in the taste of my rice is related to this guy?" Yang Xingze asked with some uncertainty.

"It seems so so so," Qin Lang nodded. "But it doesn't seem willing to reveal itself; it hid immediately after being discovered."

"If all the rice in my rice paddies is harvested, where will it go?" Yang Xingze asked, looking at his rice paddies.

"I don't know," Qin Lang shook his head. "Perhaps it will show itself at that time, or it will choose to leave this place."

"I understand." Yang Xingze nodded knowingly, then looked troubled. "If I want it to stay, will you still take it away?"

“No.” Qin Lang pondered for a moment, then shook his head. “It appeared in your rice paddy, so I have no reason to take it away.”

"However, if possible, I hope you can let me know in advance before you finish harvesting the rice and let it appear."

"I need its help with something."

When Qin Lang told Yang Xingze about the precious spirit, he already knew that he probably wouldn't be able to obtain it.

After all, no one would give up something like this, especially for Yang Xingze, since this rare spirit originally lived in their family's rice paddy.

But you still have to clock in as required.

If Qin Lang doesn't complete the check-in for the ninth painting, he won't be able to unlock the subsequent chapters of the Traveler's Book, which would be a huge loss.

"Thank you." Yang Xingze sincerely thanked Qin Lang again.

Although they found the precious spirit, they were unable to make it appear for the time being. Due to this little incident, Qin Lang and the other three did not stay at Yang Xingze's house any longer and took the initiative to say goodbye.

After leaving Yang Xingze's house, Yu Zaozao couldn't help but ask, "Zhenling must be a very valuable thing, right? You just gave up on it like that?"

It's important to know that the prizes for the top three places in the cooking competition are just rare ingredients, but the Spirit can continuously produce rare ingredients!

(End of this chapter)