The Legend of Fangren

"Senior Brother Crane, are there any fertile fields in Qingye City?"

He Qisheng said, "Not many, just a few pieces to grow grass for feeding the warhorses."

Most of the warhorses in the city are ordinary beasts, because the higher the level of the mystical beast, the more difficult it is to tame, and the more difficult it is to supply feed.

"Are you wondering why the City Lord's Mansion doesn't open the granaries to save the people?" He Qisheng keenly sensed the implication in the words.

Seeing Fang Shi nod, he said with some helplessness, "Recently, a sudden beast disaster has occurred. The food and fodder in the city must be used to feed the soldiers first. There is not much left, not enough to distribute to the refugees. As the saying goes, it is not the scarcity that is the problem, but the inequality. If it is distributed equally, each person will receive too little, which is like a drop in the ocean. If it is not distributed equally, it will inevitably lead to fighting and chaos."

"But senior brother, where does the city get its daily food supplies from?"

He Qisheng thought for a moment and said, "Some of them are picked by people outside the city and sent to the city to exchange for money, while the rest are picked by family representatives in certain specific locations."

It turns out that there is indeed large-scale grain cultivation in the Xuan Realm. However, in accordance with traditional natural principles, humans sow crop seeds in areas of nature suitable for their growth, taking on the role of sowers like bees in the natural order.

In Fang Shi's previous world, such a practice would naturally be absurd. However, in the Xuan Realm, low-level spiritual plants and even ordinary crops can grow extremely quickly as long as they are in a suitable environment. A batch of food can be harvested in just two or three months. Therefore, "free-range" farming is more cost-effective and saves manpower.

Furthermore, large-scale planting of food crops can easily attract attacks from mythical beasts, and planting them too close to cities can easily lead to dangers.

"This time, the beasts were ferocious, and the first to be damaged were several food harvesting sites. Normally, third and fourth-tier mystical beasts would only regard low-grade and common crops as weeds and trees, and would only eat them when they were extremely hungry. Destroying them indiscriminately would be a waste of their energy, which is really rare..."

He Qisheng's words had a hidden meaning, and he didn't say anything more.

He Lin then said, "Junior Brother Fang, you are blessed with good fortune, and you have been able to find so many spiritual objects on the mountain. If you can use them to benefit the people, that would be great. My old city lord will surely reward you handsomely."

To everyone's surprise, Fang Shi smiled bitterly: "It is precisely because of this extraordinary fortune that I have found only spiritual creatures; where would I find food to feed the people?"

"Sigh..." All three sighed. Although they had the heart to save the people, they could not come up with a solution right now.

But what can speed up crop growth?

Fang Shi thought of something called bone powder.

This item has two sources in the game: one is by breaking down bones using recipes, and the other is by using functional blocks, specifically compost bins.

The compost bin block, as the name suggests, allows you to put plants and other items into it to accumulate fertilizer, which is bone meal.

Bone meal is quite magical in the game, capable of accelerating the ripening of most crops with extremely powerful effects. I wonder if it will have the same effect in reality.

It just so happens that he had refined the minerals he dug up from the mountains into his body last night, but when he inquired, he learned that they were just ordinary gray iron ore, a common mineral.

Placing two gray iron ingots diagonally adjacent to each other creates the recipe for scissors. With scissors, Fang Shi can disintegrate flowers and grasses into items and store them in his body. Although cutting grass won't drop seeds, he can throw the grass into the compost bin to turn it into bone meal.

Although composting with cheap materials like grass is extremely inefficient, it's better than nothing.

The group left the city and followed the trade route, soon entering a mountain forest.

Cangmu Valley is full of mountains, and it is rare to see any flat land.

Holding the blueprints, He Qisheng said, "The grain harvesting area is not far ahead. Our He family has sown many yellow jade stalks here. Because they didn't grow well in the spring, they were fortunate enough not to be ruined by the Xuan Beasts. They are not fully ripe yet, but the city urgently needs food, so we can't worry about that now."

The group arrived at an open space, where they saw lush green grass stalks covered with tuberous heads. Fang Shi recognized them as being very similar to corn from his previous life, except that the crop was not yet mature and the tuberous heads were not very large.

He flipped through his own breathing exercises and found Huang Yugan's introduction to them.

The stems of this yellow jade plant are edible when it is immature, but not when it is mature. This is because it is a single-crop crop. After bearing fruit for one crop, all the nutrients in the stems are transferred to the fruit and transformed into soil, which has a sweet taste.

"The tubercles are not edible yet and must be cut off. Otherwise, once the main stem is cut off, the tubercles will start to absorb nutrients from the stem, causing the stem to wither quickly."

Accompanying them was a group of harvesting craftsmen, who were assigned to the disaster victims who still had the strength; otherwise, they would have had to endure the hardships just like the disaster victims outside the city.

"Hurry up and harvest the crops and load them onto the wagons."

The Grand Elder instructed his disciples to be careful of their surroundings, because compared to crops, living creatures like horses were far more attractive to the mystical beasts. Regardless of their rank, meat was far more appealing than crops.

"Hey? Uncle? You're here too?"

At this moment, Fang Shi noticed that among the harvesters was the old man he had saved. The old farmer's ear was still bandaged, and as a wounded person, he shouldn't be risking his life to work here.

"Oh, it's my benefactor, young hero!" The old farmer didn't recognize Fang Shi at first glance, only that the voice sounded familiar. Then he remembered and quickly bowed to express his gratitude. He sighed and said, "I and a few younger people from the village have to come here to work so that our children can settle down in the city. Besides, we can earn some money by working. Otherwise, after the beast disaster, we won't have the money to rebuild our houses. It would all be for nothing."

As he spoke, a smile appeared on the old farmer's face. It wasn't a smile of pure joy, but rather one of resilience, a refusal to give up in the face of adversity.

"Yes, sir, don't worry about your work. We'll keep watch over things for you."

The old farmer was naturally delighted: "Great! I know you're the most capable, young hero. With you here to protect us, we can rest assured."

After saying that, he crawled into the pile of yellow jade poles and started working hard. He was just as quick and efficient as the younger ones.

After Fang Shi finished speaking, he was about to continue his vigilance when he looked up and saw Feng Zhonghua passing by.

The two seemed to exchange glances unintentionally, but Feng Zhonghua had clearly heard what the old farmer had just said.

Perhaps recalling what happened on the Azure Dragon Platform that day, Feng Zhonghua muttered disdainfully in a low voice, "Heh, the most capable..."

He spoke very softly, only Fang Shi could hear him, so he didn't mind and laughed, "Old man, you're not very knowledgeable, please don't take offense."

But to everyone's surprise, Feng Zhonghua raised his voice instead: "How could you possibly think of the magnanimity of a young master of the Feng family like this?"

"Oh……"

Fang Shi twitched his lips, thinking that this guy was quite stubborn, but unfortunately, he did all sorts of villainous things. Otherwise, his stubbornness could barely be classified as "tsundere".

"Hmph." Feng Zhonghua snorted and walked away.

Well, even a slight twitch of the corner of his mouth can provoke him. If Fang Shi were to make a choking motion, he would be red-faced on the spot.

Fang Shi, who has workplace experience, knows that it's best to avoid provoking this kind of person, since they can't be reasoned with when they're in a rage.

Wait a minute... In my past life, I couldn't hit people casually, but in this world, it seems I can get physical.

"Um……"

Don't panic. As the protagonist, how can I provoke the villain? It has to be the villain who picks a fight first, and then I can defend myself.