I run a casino in the immortal realm.

The shantytowns in the south are more dilapidated than those in the east.

These are also low houses with mud walls and thatched roofs, but here the courtyard walls have collapsed in several places, the bluestone slabs on the road are broken into pieces, and the water in the ditch is green and smelly, clearly indicating that no one has cleaned it for many years.

There is a lot of farmland.

In the original owner's memories, Zheng Yifei knew some things about his grandfather's side of the story.

Grandpa Zheng Fuquan's family rented eight mu of Ling rice fields from the Zhao family. They had a large family: Grandpa and Grandma, Second Uncle Zheng Dahe's family of four, and Third Uncle Zheng Dajiang's family of four, totaling seven mouths to feed.

Eight acres of land to support ten people is even more meager than Zheng Yifei's family.

Zheng Pingan led the way, and after walking for about half an hour, they could see several figures bending over and working in the fields in the distance.

As they got closer, Zheng Yifei spotted his grandfather immediately.

Zheng Fuquan was in his early sixties, with gray hair and a back hunched over like an old pine tree bent by the wind, but he wielded the sickle skillfully, cutting down one stalk of rice with each stroke, slow as it was, but never stopping.

Beside him was my second uncle, Zheng Dahe, a man not yet thirty years old, dark and thin, shirtless as he harvested rice, sweat leaving muddy marks on his back.

Second Aunt and Third Aunt were squatting on the edge of the field binding rice, while Third Uncle Zheng Dajiang sat on a rock with thick strips of cloth wrapped around his waist. His face was pale, and he coughed occasionally.

Upon seeing this scene, Zheng Dashan quickened his pace.

"father!"

Zheng Fuquan straightened up, glanced at his eldest son, a strange and inexplicable look flashing in his cloudy old eyes, and nodded.

"Once you're here, hurry up and get to the fields. Finish harvesting this patch before dark."

There were no small talk, no formalities, not even a single unnecessary word.

Zheng Dashan responded, rolled up his trousers, and went down to the field.

Zheng Yifei stood on the edge of the field and looked around.

Five mu of the eight mu of land have been harvested, leaving three mu untouched.

Three acres of Ling rice, with thick stalks and heavy ears of rice drooping, their golden ears gleaming in the afternoon sun.

This batch of spiritual rice is of even better quality than our own, probably because the soil in the shantytown in the south has a slightly richer spiritual energy.

"Ichifei is here too?"

Auntie looked up and saw Zheng Yifei, somewhat surprised.

Second Aunt.

Zheng Yifei nodded in greeting.

His aunt's gaze lingered on him for a moment, she hesitated, and finally only said, "Thank you for your hard work."

Auntie San was quite straightforward; she immediately called out, "Yifei, the sickle is on the edge of the field, take it yourself!"

Zheng Yifei walked to the edge of the field, picked up the sickle, and weighed it in his hand. It was made of iron, with hemp rope wrapped around the handle, and the blade was slightly rolled; it was an old sickle that had been used for several years.

He pulled his sickle from his pocket.

It was purchased from the Wang family's Wanbaolou store. It was a top-grade magic weapon with a thin and sharp blade. A small fragment of a spirit stone was embedded in the handle. After being infused with spiritual power, it could form a thin layer of spiritual light on the blade. Cutting spirit rice stalks was as easy as cutting tofu.

Once in the field, Zheng Yifei rolled up his sleeves, grabbed five stalks of rice with his left hand, and swung a sickle with his right.

chapped.

A dozen or so stalks were cut cleanly at the base.

He took a step to the right, then clenched and cut again.

*Snap. Snap. Snap.*

The speed was so fast that Zheng Dahe, who was standing next to him, straightened up to take a look, and then looked again.

Zheng Yifei didn't stop.

He lowered his body, his legs firmly planted in the mud, and the sickle moved swiftly, each cut no more than two breaths apart. Spiritual energy flowed onto the blade, and he cut the rice stalks down row by row as if slicing paper.

In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, a large number of people in front of him had already collapsed.

The second aunt on the ridge stopped bundling rice, her mouth slightly open.

Auntie stood there, stunned, clutching the straw rope in her hand.

Zheng Dahe put down his sickle, walked to the ridge next to Zheng Yifei, and looked down at the cuts on the rice stalks he had cut.

It's smooth and even, with spiritual energy evenly infused, much neater than what I could cut myself.

Then he looked at his own harvest of rice, which amounted to about the size of a cup of tea, and then at Zheng Yifei's.

It's at least three times worse.

"Big brother."

Zheng Dahe called out to Zheng Dashan, his throat a little dry: "Yifei, this..."

He pointed to the large patch of spirit rice that Zheng Yifei had already cut down, without finishing his sentence.

Zheng Dashan straightened up, wiped his sweat, and smiled: "Yifei works at the Zhao family gambling den. Manager Zhao paid him a lot of wages, and he saved up for half a year to buy a high-grade sickle, so of course he can harvest spirit rice quickly."

Zheng Dahe said "Oh," and then looked at the sickle in Zheng Yifei's hand.

The quality of the spirit iron is indeed much better than what they use.

A high-quality sickle is a luxury for low-level spirit farmers, not that they can't afford it, but they just can't bear to part with it. A good sickle costs more than ten spirit stones, enough to feed the whole family for several months.

"Are the wages for working in a gambling den really that high?"

My third aunt chimed in from the edge of the field.

"Yes, you run errands for the bookmakers and gamblers, serve tea, and you get tips. You can earn a few spirit stones a month."

Zheng Dashan downplayed the situation in his son's defense.

"That's not bad either."

Third Aunt nodded, her gaze now showing a more scrutinizing look.

Zheng Fuquan didn't look up at all, he was bent over cutting rice the whole time. But his knife speed was a beat slower, he was obviously listening.

This explanation is reasonable.

A high-quality sickle is several times more efficient at cutting than an iron sickle, and given the strength of young people, it's not surprising that they can cut faster.

As for spiritual power, although the spiritual power of a five-elemental root Qi Refining Level 1 cultivator is pitifully small, it is barely enough when attached to a good blade.

No one thought about "breaking through cultivation level".

Five spiritual roots, Qi Refining Level 1, six years of stagnation – this is the common impression everyone in the Zheng family has of Zheng Yifei, as solid as cast iron.

Zheng Yifei didn't explain, and just kept cutting away furiously.

He couldn't wait to finish and return to his cultivation. Every extra hour he stayed here meant one less hour of cultivation. Time was spirit stones, spirit stones were cultivation points, and cultivation points were life itself.

An hour passed.

The sun began to set in the west.

Of the three acres of land, nearly two acres have already collapsed.

Zheng Yifei's output alone is more than all the others combined.

Zheng Dahe stopped to rest three times in the middle, and each time he glanced at the ever-expanding "battle line" on Zheng Yifei's side, his expression became more complicated.

He was at the second level of Qi Refining, and it took him two days to harvest one acre. In the end, his nephew did almost as much work in one afternoon as he did in two days.

Something's not right about this difference.

But after thinking about the superior sickle, he realized it made sense.

The difference in tools is like the difference between using a ritual implement and using ordinary iron; there's nothing strange about it.

By the time the sun had completely set, the last acre had been harvested.

The three mu of rice lay neatly in the field, waiting to be threshed tomorrow.

Zheng Fuquan finally put down his sickle, walked to the edge of the field, sat on the smooth stone, took out a pipe from the cloth bag at his waist, filled it with tobacco leaves, and lit it.

Amidst the swirling smoke, his cloudy old eyes looked at the rice stubble covering the field, then at Zheng Yifei.

"quick."

He only said one word.

I don't know if they're talking about how fast rice harvesting is, or something else entirely.

Grandma cooked dinner.

The kitchen was small, and the whole family squeezed in. There weren't enough benches to sit on, so Zheng Yifei and Zheng Ping'an squatted on the threshold, holding their bowls.

Rice porridge with pickled vegetables, and a stir-fried wild vegetable dish with two slices of meat floating in it – this was the best meal Zheng Fuquan's family could afford.

The atmosphere was much more relaxed during the meal than when we arrived.

Zheng Dahe picked up a piece of meat for Zheng Dashan and said, "Brother, thank you for your hard work. Yifei is really great."

Auntie San chimed in from the side, "That's right, Yifei is very strong, and he works even more efficiently than adults."

Zheng Dashan kicked his second brother under the table: "Why are you being so polite with your older brother?"

Zheng Yifei squatted on the threshold, drinking porridge without saying a word.

His cousin Zheng Ping'an sat next to him and whispered, "Brother Yifei, you're really amazing."

"Eat your food."

Zheng Fuquan sat in the main seat, finished his bowl of porridge, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"The mountains."

"Yes, Father."

"You don't need to come tomorrow. We can handle the threshing ourselves."

He paused for a moment, then lowered his voice slightly: "Yifei...not bad."

This is the first time in six years that Zheng Fuquan has given a positive evaluation of his eldest grandson.

Zheng Dashan paused slightly in his hand holding the bowl, his lips twitched, but he said nothing and silently shoveled a large mouthful of porridge into his mouth.

On the way back, the moon hung in the sky above the Black Mountain Range, casting a cold, white light on the ground.

The father and son walked along the ridge of the field, and Zheng Dashan did not say a word the whole way.

Just as they were about to enter the shantytown in the east, he suddenly spoke up: "Xiao Fei, your grandfather wasn't a bad person, he was just terrified of being poor."

"I know."

"He had no choice when it came to dividing the family property back then. Your second and third uncles' children are more talented than you, and your grandfather wanted to concentrate the limited resources on them so that the Zheng family could produce someone successful. It's just that you were wronged."

"Dad, it's alright."

Zheng Yifei's tone was indifferent.

He understood his grandfather's choice; poor families only have so many resources, and if they are not used in a concentrated manner, they will all be wasted.

From the perspective of the head of the family, abandoning the useless grandson with five spiritual roots and allocating resources to his cousin Zheng Ping'an with three spiritual roots is, to some extent, correct.

Zheng Ping'an possesses three spiritual roots and has cultivated for four years, reaching the second level of Qi Refining. He is indeed the most promising member of the Zheng family.

However, in this rigid social class system, even if Zheng Ping'an has three spiritual roots, without resources, it would be very difficult for him to break through to the seventh level of Qi Refining in this lifetime.

If I can reach the Foundation Establishment stage in the future, I will still help this family.