Mountain Food

"Xiao Xian, I thought those beasts would give me a fight, but they ran off the moment I came," Zhu Jin complained the moment he returned to the tree. "I didn't even get a single fight! Not only that, the moment I ran out, they ran away! All of them! What the hell! Am I that scary?!"

"Considering the fact that you are the legendary white tiger, it is not a mystery," Bai Shuixian commented. "You must understand, you've lived longer, cultivated, can transform, and much more. Sympathize with them."

"You're right. I forget that I'm superior to these beasts," Zhu Jin embarrassedly laughed off. "Say, what are you doing?"

"I'm making fertilizers for the farm," Bai Shuixian answered as she mixed the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium together according to the instructions of Chi Dujuan.

"The farm is not that big, but that tiny amount is not going to be enough, you know that right?" Zhu Jin asked.

"This fertilizer is different from others. I asked Lian-gege to make a tool for me that automatically replicates the fertilizer I created with the elements from the natural world and places itself onto the plants for me. Though I'm not lazy, it is quite a lot of energy to have to go up and down to fertilize the plants every week," Bai Shuixian explained.

Sighing out of jealousy, Zhu Jin muttered, "I'm jealous… you have all these brothers and sisters to help you when you need it."

"Don't be. According to master, I have this condition because I've experienced something traumatic," Bai Shuixian said. "If I did not have this, I would have died in multiple ways, but especially suicidal. So, Jin-gege, don't be jealous."

"Honestly, I wouldn't mind. I mean… look at all the powers you have at your back. Just look at all the skills you can utilize. Experiencing something traumatic is a small price to pay for power," Zhu Jin replied.

Shaking her head, Bai Shuixian said, "Even if you did have my condition, your power would still be limited."

"Huh? Why?" Zhu Jin asked in surprise.

"I asked Lian-gege before. He said that I have these powers because they originally belonged to me. The only reason why it is another persona holding it and I have no memory is because I experienced something traumatic making me refuse to use it or have it," Bai Shuixian explained according to what Lu Lianhua told her before.

"Well… That's harsh…" Zhu Jin commented.

"Indeed," Bai Shuixian agreed as she put the fertilizer in the tool Lu Lianhua made for her.

Once Bai Shuixian was done with the fertilizer, she opened up her cosmos bag that Zhong Chen gave her and brought out some seeds.

"What are those?" Zhu Jin asked upon seeing the many different types of seeds in her hand.

Pointing to each individual seed, Bai Shuixian listed, "This is wheat, rice, corn, soy, peanuts, almonds, sweet potatoes, mangosteen, dragonfruit, jackfruit, jicama, asparagus, and cabbage."

Staring at the seeds that she pointed out, Zhu Jin asked, "You're going to plant these here?"

"No. I'm replacing the ones they just grew with these," Bai Shuixian answered as she used her magic to make the seeds sprout.

"The ones that we just walked through seemed to be ripe already though?" Zhu Jin questioned with a tilt of his head.

Inserting the seeds in another tool made by Lu Lianhua, Bai Shuixian explained, "I'm replanting them when night comes and expanding the farm. Not only that, I'm going to recreate the paths and build shelters for the farmers to take a rest when they are tired. This will make it easier for them to harvest with their animals and have double the amount of food for the year."

"All of this is for them?" Zhu Jin asked with a raise of his brow.

Zhu Jin was surprised not with the explanation, but with the variety of seeds that she was providing for the village. He knew that there were lots of unused land that Bai Shuixian could turn into farmland, but he did not know that she would increase the variety of harvest the village would have. He thought that she was just going to use the fertilizer to increase the amount of harvest the villagers would get for the year.

By expanding the farm and using the fertilizer, it could already be determined that the yearly harvest would be increased by not just two times, but by ten times the amount. Aside from that, increasing the variety of food would provide more prosperity to the village. Zhu Jin already knew that with the expertise of Bai Shuixian, the village would soon become more accessible to outsiders, gain more wealth, and eventually become a small prosperous town or even a city.

"This meager amount of variety should be enough to ask for the mountain," Bai Shuixian replied. "Alright, we're done with the farm. Let's move onto food here."

"Xiao Xian, there is already enough food being produced at the village farm. Is there any need to try to find food here?" Zhu Jin asked exasperated.

"Of course there is a need!" Bai Shuixian happily exclaimed. "The food that grows at the village is theirs and theirs to use for whatever purpose whereas the food here will belong exclusively to us. Which means, it is our property and anyone who takes it will receive trouble."

"Must you be so greedy about food?" Zhu Jin wryly commented after hearing her explanation.

"Jin-gege, food is life," Bai Shuixian positively announced. "And in order for me to stay happy, I must be able to eat all the fruits and vegetables in this world that I want."

"What happened to the meat?" Zhu Jin asked, not hearing her mention a single word about animal meat.

"I love plants more than animals. Besides, I'm too lazy to rear animals for meat," Bai Shuixian admitted. "Not only that, I'm not so poor that I can't buy meat from other people."

After saying that, Bai Shuixian exited the tree in search of food in the mountain. Zhu Jin wanted to follow her, but she left behind a few sentences that made him stop in his tracks.

It truly frazzled him though because the words were, "Decide if you want to be known as a tiger or a human now. It will scare the villagers if they find out you're a transforming tiger. They may even think that you're a demon."

As Bai Shuixian slowly walked through the mountain, she noticed that the amount of food skipped over by the villagers were uncountable. At the same time, she could understand why they did not think there was food in the mountain. There were not lots of people who considered weeds, fungus, or even aquatics edible unless they studied plants like her and Chi Dujuan.

Bai Shuixian even thought at first that she was going to have to use her magic to make some sprouts to show that there was food in the mountain. However, considering the amount of edible things there were in the mountain, she found that she could save her energy. Now, the first thing she had to do was to harvest a basket full of each wild food she found and present it to the villagers so that she could proclaim the mountain as her own.

With this in her head, Bai Shuixian brought out a basket and harvested the things she saw. She first tackled the wild weeds that she saw which consisted of alfalfa, alsike clover, angelica, arctic raspberry, ball mustard, bearberry, bilberry, bitter dock, bladder campion, blue vervain, bluebead, borage, bracted orache, broadleaf plantain, bugleweed, bull thistle, bunchberry, burdock, canada lousewort, and canada thistle. Then, she brought out another basket to harvest fungus such as apricot jelly, artist's conk, bear's head tooth, birch polypore, brown birch bolete, chaga, chanterelles, chicken of the woods, comb tooth fungus, common morel, dark stalked bolete, delicious lactarius, dryad's saddle, elm oyster, flowery blewit, and giant puffball.

Once Bai Shuixian finished harvesting these wild edibles, she considered grabbing more. However, as soon as she saw the amount of baskets she had in her cosmos bag, she decided against it. There was already enough food to last her for at least a month.

At the same time, when Bai Shuixian stared at the sky, she noticed that the sun was already at the horizon, about to set. Seeing that the sky was darkening too, she went back to the tree and entered Chi Dujuan's room. Though she had knowledge about plants, she was not as experienced as Chi Dujuan and only with his help was she able to identify the fungus which she did minimal study on.

"Damn… That's a lot of food you got there Xiao Xian," Zhu Jin remarked after seeing her bring out all the baskets and placing them on the table made specially to place plants by Lu Lianhua.

"Agreed. Enough to last me for a month," Chi Dujuan replied.

"Oh, it's you now," Zhu Jin sighed, tired but also proud of himself for being able to know when a switch happened.

"Xiao Xian asked for my help, so I grabbed as much as I could before she told me to stop. Only then did she realize that she didn't actually know how to clean them without damaging their exterior," Chi Dujuan explained.

"I thought she knew? She studied plants for so many years, I thought she already knew everything," Zhu Jin remarked.

Shaking his head, Chi Dujuan explained, "She only studied about flowers and fruits. When it came to vegetables, herbs, and such… sigh… she passed it to me because she didn't like them."

"I never would've thought… she always seemed to be the perfect student… who knew…" Zhu Jin sighed in utter shock and surprise.

After Chi Dujuan finished washing the edible weeds and fungus, he asked Bai Shuixian if she wanted to deal with the farms or pass it to him. She wanted to sleep, so she told him to do it for her. This answer did not come as a surprise for him as he already knew that she loved to sleep more than any other person in the world.

As night came and passed, the roads the villagers built were reshaped according to what Bai Shuixian wanted. As the moon went down and the sun rose, the wheat, sweet potatoes, and corn they planted were replanted with the ones that she provided. By the time the first villager got up to check the farm, there was ripe grains, fruits, and vegetables to pick.