Chapter 6: Trouble Sprouts at Sunrise

Chapter 6: Trouble Sprouts at Sunrise

Morning didn't come softly.

It exploded.

With clucking.

Loud, furious clucking.

Alex groaned and rolled over in his bed of spiritual hay. "No... not again…"

Outside, chaos bloomed like wildflowers in the wrong season.

One of the chickens—General Clucksworth, an oversized spirit hen with a crest like a war banner—was leading a rebellion.

Alex stepped outside, barefoot and half-asleep, just in time to see the chicken leap onto the roof.

"She's on the barn again," Meilin said, holding a broom like a sword.

"She declared the compost pile her kingdom," Jun added, chewing spirit grass.

Yun'er, sitting calmly under the peach tree, simply sipped her tea. "She's laying eggs of insight. Let her be."

Alex blinked. "...What?"

System Notification:"Alert: Spirit chicken 'General Clucksworth' has reached Enlightenment Level 1. Egg Insight +0.1 granted to nearby beings."

Alex stared at the chicken.

The chicken stared back.

Then laid an egg.

It glowed.

Jun whispered, "That egg just told me I should apologize to my mother…"

Despite the morning madness, Alex smiled.

Things were peaceful.

Weird, but peaceful.

The whisper root sat silently near the cabbage patch. He watered it gently every day. Sometimes, it whispered. Most days, it just glowed faintly—warm, like memory.

Today, though... it was twitching.

Alex crouched beside it.

"You okay?"

It pulsed once. Then again. Faster.

System Prompt:"Warning: Contract Echo detected. Minor dimensional rift forming beneath root."

"Great," Alex muttered. "Just what I needed before breakfast."

From the soil rose a figure.

Not a demon.

Not a ghost.

A farmer.

Old robes. Straw hat. A face made of soil and wind.

"Who be disturbin' my nap?" he said in a slow, crackly voice.

The system chirped:

"New Echo Encountered:✨ Grandpa Jin, Former Caretaker of the World-Root Garden."

Alex blinked.

"…I'm sorry. You were napping under my radishes?"

Grandpa Jin looked around. "Huh. You farmin'? With cabbage?"

"Yes?"

"Back in my day, we grew truth onions. Made people cry from honesty. You kids these days too soft."

Alex gave a polite nod.

Jun whispered, "Are we just not gonna ask why the old man's made of dirt?"

Meilin pointed. "He's using your hoe."

Indeed, the Echo had borrowed Alex's favorite hoe and was now tilling the field with ghostly perfection.

An hour later, Grandpa Jin had fixed the soil pH, lectured Yun'er about tea acidity, and somehow trained the chickens into a defensive phalanx.

"I like him," Meilin muttered.

"I fear him," Jun added.

Alex simply sat on the porch and watched.

The whisper root pulsed again.

Another contract signature was forming.

That night, under moonlight, Alex reread the glowing leaf-scroll of the root contract.

It now had a new line:

Clause 4: If peace is to grow, let old roots rise and teach it.

Alex smiled.

He dipped his brush in ink.

And signed it with four characters.

"Let peace grow wild."

The contract shimmered.

Somewhere in the hills, the soil hummed.

And under a cabbage leaf, General Clucksworth laid another glowing egg.

This time... it whispered a joke.

End of Chapter 6