Harvesting Wheat For Steamed Bun (2)

A middle-aged man couldn't help but come to Long Yuan's side as he expressed his curiosity at what this youngster was trying to do.

"Young brat, what are you trying to do in the early morning? Too energetic in the morning, perhaps?" said the middle-aged man as he jokes at Long Yuan's action. The hint of curiosity is clearly shown on his face while guessing the logic behind Long Yuan's odd behavior.

The middle-aged man's sentence made Long Yuan stop working with the sickle. Looking at the people around him, he noticed multiple pairs of eyes staring at him.

Some were making a joke about what he was doing, while few imitated him in ridicule. The look in their eyes made Long Yuan feel a little ashamed of his own cluelessness.

But as someone who was used to this kind of toxic environment, their action hardly demotivates him. It seems that out of so many people here, only the middle-aged man was somewhat concerned and outspoken to Long Yuan.

His approach also satiated his curiosity over what Long Yuan was doing while checking if he needed his help.

"I was trying to harvest some wheat to make flour. But who knows that the stem was so durable." Long Yuan replied with a clueless expression.

"Well, I guess everyone had such a day. Did getting mauled to half-dead by the ferocious beast make you forget everything?" the middle-aged man said. This middle-aged man seems to be present when Yuan Long is attacked by the beast.

"Look here, I'll show you how it's done." the middle-aged man said and shook his right hand that was holding the sickle. He was seen concentrating his breathing as a layer of green energy slowly appeared around the farming tool in his grasp.

The energy was no different from what he saw last night on Yuan Ling, but the color is fainter than his sister's.

The sickle's edge was evidently sharper while it was in the middle-aged man's hand. A simple swing is all he needs to separate the stem from the plant hugging tightly at the soil.

There was a total of three stalks of grains from a single plant. In estimation, after threshing and removing the husk, around five plants are necessary for Long Yuan to produce a pound worth of wheat flour.

But as Long Yuan started to think further on how many plants he was supposed to bring home, the middle-aged man's following sentence breaks his wishful thoughts.

"I can roughly guess what's in your mind. But for starters, don't go more than five plants for now. Around two to three plants was all you can check comfortably for now." said the middle-aged man. He seemed able to look through what was inside Long Yuan's head right now.

What the middle-aged man said was demotivating, but at the same time, it made Long Yuan curious about why would he say so. Long Yuan finds it puzzling for a stranger to tell him something like this.

"There are a few reasons, but the main one was because you need sufficient Spiritual Essence to do everything. Starting from harvesting the wheat to threshing, husk removal, and milling, all of these work demands Spiritual Essence."

"Without it, you'll take days to get everything completed. Furthermore, the flour rot quickly. Hence it was not recommended to produce a large quantity of flour from a low-quality ingredient like this Jinqian Wheat." the middle-aged man said.

From his point of view, it seems that the flour made from Jinqian Wheat wasn't worth all the effort and time.

This explains why a beautiful, golden wheat field was here but partially abandoned. If this sight was seen by the farmers back where he came from, it would be emptied and processed within two to three days.

But weirdly, Long Yuan has a feeling that there's more to this Jinqian Wheat. Unlike the middle-aged man, he wasn't an aboriginal of this world. There's knowledge related to food and ingredients for two worlds in his head.

To Long Yuan, the flour made from wheat was the start of a person's journey to food. A hint of fire can be seen from Long Yuan's eyes. He seems determined and motivated out of a sudden.

Feeling that this youngster no longer needed him around, the middle-aged man quietly retreated aside. He vanished from this golden wheat field when everyone wasn't paying attention to him.

'I wonder what kind of miracle could a youngster like you do.' the middle-aged man whispered to himself. All left on his spot was the stem of Jinqian Wheat he used to show Long Yuan how it was harvested.

Long Yuan patiently adjusted his state of mind and breathing without bothering the ridiculing gaze at him. All he had in mind right now was repeating and imitating what the middle-aged man showed him.

It was a worthless effort at first. Although Long Yuan could form the green layer of energy around the sickle in his hand, it was as fragile as a layer of smoke.

A light shook was all needed for the thin layer of smoke to vanish from the farming tool.

But after putting in the same effort countless times, Long Yuan quickly caught the trick behind this. The farming tool was slightly lighter than before at first. Still, the more Spiritual Essence he could imbue into the sickle, the better it fares in Long Yuan's grasp.

From its look, concentration was essential but not as crucial as his thought. It was easy to concentrate on one thing but pointless without a proper mindset into what he was doing.

If Long Yuan were to explain it with words, it would be akin to trying to cut a cabbage but not learning how to cut it properly. Still, this is not a problem for Long Yuan, who had twenty years of experience in cooking.

This made Long Yuan remember something about him while he was younger.

(Think before you cut. Read the lines on your ingredients before moving your hand, and learn about them before cooking them.)

The sentence above was his master's favorite quote.

'To think that I remembered something I heard from when I just started to learn how to use the knife.' Long Yuan smiled. But it doesn't stop there.

'If my master didn't take me as a disciple that day, I would likely be starved to death on the street. How unbecoming of me for not visiting the old man while I could.' Long Yuan thought.

Remembering all these was pointless since he could no longer fulfill any of them.

Long Yuan was at the peak of his concentration as he swung the sickle lightly at the nearest Jinqian Wheat Plant around him. From the time the middle-aged man taught him until now, this was his first attempt to harvest the wheat.

*Whoosh!*

The sickle effortlessly cuts the stem apart, leaving only a tiny part of the plant remained on the ground. He then continued and cut three more plants before a surge of tiredness suddenly attacked him.

This was the exhaustion from using too much Spiritual Essence quickly. Lucky for Long Yuan, he could still take the beating without collapsing right away at the same spot.

The fatigue that came suddenly gave Long Yuan no choice but to give up today. Unsure if the five plants on the ground were enough for a pound of flour or not, Long Yuan collected some of the grains on the floor before leaving.

He was thinking about thanking the middle-aged man, but that man was nowhere to be found.

'I guess I'll be showing him my appreciation next time." Long Yuan thought.

Returning with only five plants might sound too little, but it was inaccurate. With at least three stalks of wheat grains on a plant, five plants were indeed worth a little over a pound when they were milled into fine flour.

It was already afternoon when Long Yuan came back from harvesting the wheat. And on his way home, Long Yuan noticed that most people had already started to process the grain they harvested earlier than him.

A layer of light green energy can be seen on the tool they're working with. This explains the importance of Spiritual Essence in peoples' daily life. And by witnessing what they're doing, Long Yuan managed to skip some useless effort.

He immediately worked with the grains he harvested once he reached home.

Starting with threshing the wheat, this step helps remove the grains from the stalk itself. The action of pulling the stem off from the wooden comb looks easy, but that's because the machine was imbued with some Spiritual Essence for it to be sharper and more durable.

After threshing was the husk and hair removal.

This was an essential step before milling. It helped remove as many impurities as possible before running the grains in the quern. The step-by-step was evidently a tedious and tiring job, considering Long Yuan had taken a few breaks in between before he continued.

'This will be the most challenging part of making the flour.' Long Yuan muttered to himself and started to operate the quern. The two milling stones ran in perfect sync as they gradually turned the grains into fine form.

But such a smoothness wouldn't be achievable without imbuing his Spiritual Essence into the machine. The impression was akin to lubricating the stones while running the grindstone over the grains.

Without Spiritual Essence, it would take him an entire day to finish the first milling stage.

Later that afternoon, Yuan Ling finally returned from school. There was a hint of tiredness in her eyes and cheerfulness from studying.