An old Farmer growing Vegetables in the Snow

“This is your own task, I didn't originally want to say much,” Qin Ran said slowly after drinking a cup of wine, “But considering this is your first time going out on a task, I still want to remind you of a couple things.”

He stirred a piece of fish in oil, saying to Li Shiyin:

“The first point, and also the most important point, is to maintain awe towards this world. No matter what the task is, you must be steady and cautious! If anything out of the ordinary happens that you don't have one hundred percent... ninety eight percent confidence in, don't do it. Remember, your own safety and life always comes first. Sect missions can be completed if possible, if not then let it go.

“The second point is, before the mission, you must make sufficient preparations. You need to completely understand all information regarding the mission. Anything you need to prepare for the mission, you must get ready ahead of time. Don't leave any questions before executing the mission. This way you can reduce the chances of accidents happening as much as possible.

“The third point is, when executing the mission, you cannot relax one bit, you need to stay vigilant the whole time. Be on high alert as if a powerful enemy could charge in the next second. At the same time, do your utmost, go all out, don't allow any slight or carelessness. Even when a lion fights a rabbit it goes all out.

“The fourth point is, no matter what situation you encounter during the mission, you must stay calm, don't panic. Panicking and being afraid won't solve any problems, only staying calm gives you a chance...”

He drank wine and ate meat while nagging on and on, eventually listing a total of eighteen points. He was like someone drunk and rambling in their dreams; he was also like a nagging old lady seeing her daughter off on a long trip; even more like the chattering Tang Sanzang who could drive demons mad.

In the end, Li Shiyin's ears were calloused from listening.

Outside Heart of Lake Pavilion, the snow was still falling, the mountains, waters and pavilion had all turned into one continuous sheet of white, misty and hazy. Inside Heart of Lake Pavilion, the stove still burned vigorously, steam from the pots rose up, hot air billowed, smoke swirled.

Someone was talking, someone was laughing, someone was clinking cups and drinking wine, a cat was desperately eating.

When dusk fell, the people in the pavilion were full of food and wine, the rustling cold wind blew by, some tipsily spoke drunken words; the white snow outside reflected cold light.

Darkness faded away, dawn descended, in the wind and snow, Li Shiyin and Tian Wenjin left Dan Peak on their swords.

The second of the five great beauties, together on a sword in the wind and snow, could also be called a beautiful scene.

Qin Ran stood in the snow seeing them off, for a long long time, until his whole body was white, before finally turning his gaze.

He patted the snow on Chasing the Wind's head, saying: “Go get your wooden cart, we're going to transplant all the vegetables from the back mountains to the greenhouse today.”

The vegetable greenhouse Qin Ran had planned was actually already built before cutting down the Devouring Demon Willow. But during the chaotic battle with the Devouring Demon Willow, Tushan Youyou smashed up the greenhouse.

In the past few days, Qin Ran had brought Li Shiyin and Chasing the Wind to repair the greenhouse.

Chasing the Wind wasn't afraid of snow or cold. He was lying in the snow, both to see Li Shiyin off and accompany Qin Ran, and had gotten covered in snow. He almost blended into the snowy ground.

...He was so envious of a certain snake.

He opened his big mouth in a yawn, lazily got up, shook off the snow, then slowly ran to the storage room to find his cart, grabbed it in his mouth making a clattering noise as he pulled it out.

This wooden cart was something that appeared to punish him with labor after he tore apart the house.

At that time he could also pull the cart, but back then he was very small and the cart was very big, looking very pitiful and ridiculous. But now, he had grown much bigger, pulling this cart again made it seem like the cart wasn't big enough.

Qin Ran rubbed Chasing the Wind's increasingly coarse fur, and led him to the back mountain.

There were many caves and grottoes opened up on the back mountain by previous generations of Dan Peak disciples. These grottoes were scattered all over the back mountain.

But most of those previous disciples who opened the grottoes had already passed away, a few entered higher sects, and an extremely small number were still adventuring outside, their life and death unknown.

With these grottoes unoccupied, they were originally left idle and indeed useless. Later when Qin Ran arrived, in the spirit of making use of idle resources, he remodeled them and finally gave them various uses.

Some were used to cultivate medicinal herbs; some were used to domesticate wild plants to grow some special vegetables and fruits; some were used to store failed experiment products related to spell formations and alchemy pills; some had other odd uses.

Qin Ran brought Chasing the Wind to one of the grottoes. This grotto was planted with a low-growing herbaceous plant. The branches and leaves were emerald green, with some red fruits sporadically.

Chasing the Wind knew those red fruits, he really didn't like them, because eating them made your mouth burn painfully. He didn't know why dad liked that kind of weird thing.

“These are chili peppers...” Qin Ran sighed, “Dad went through a lot of trouble before finally managing to cultivate them. Much blood and sweat, all for the sake of this spicy flavor.”

...He dug up all the chili pepper plants and loaded them into Chasing the Wind's cart.

Exiting the grotto, they went to the one beside it. Inside were stored some oval, light yellow fruit-like things.

Chasing the Wind really liked these. Cooked, they were soft, sweet and glutinous. He hurriedly went to help Qin Ran load them.

“These are potatoes...” Qin Ran said.

They walked from grotto to grotto, some had chili peppers, some potatoes, some corn, some peanuts, and so on. Some were originally native to this world, some didn't exist in this world but were cultivated by Qin Ran. But in order to satisfy his gastronomic desires, Qin Ran had grown them all.

He moved all these things from the back mountain grottoes and formally transplanted them to the greenhouse by Sword Washing Lake.

The greenhouse was designed based on greenhouses in Qin Ran's previous life, just replacing the sci-tech methods with cultivation methods.

Oh, there were also some effects that the sci-tech of his previous life still couldn't achieve, such as space techniques. Qin Ran set up space formations in the greenhouse, making the space inside and outside the greenhouse ten times different in size.

Although from the outside it looked like just a small plot of land between Sword Washing Lake and the research building, but looking from the inside, this plot of land was actually quite massive.

The vegetable greenhouse was neatly divided by Qin Ran into many rectangular sections. Each section was invisibly partitioned off with formations, each section growing different plants.

Some grew food crops to satisfy appetites, some grew medicinal herbs for pill refining... Of course, currently there were more food crops.

Outside it was snowing with below freezing temperatures. But the temperature inside the greenhouse wasn't affected by the outside at all. In the formations, each section's plants enjoyed the most suitable temperature.

After busy working for half a day, Qin Ran transplanted all the plants from the grottoes into the greenhouse.

He tidied up and went back to the living room, grabbed a book to read there, but kept flipping back and forth, unable to focus.

Long Qiqi was annoyed watching him and said, “Since you're worried, why make her go in the first place?”

“Sigh...” Qin Ran sighed, “She has to independently face the cruelty of the cultivation world herself. Otherwise when I suddenly die one day, what will she do?”

“Heh! You're so interesting, cursing yourself for no reason.” Long Qiqi laughed, but even a sharp-tongued person like her still said a couple reassuring words, “That silly girl Shiyin might be a bit dumb, but she won't be unable to live without you... Look at Tian Wenjin, isn't she doing very well?

“It's just a small mission, she will definitely complete it easily. You actually haven't noticed, she's very outstanding.”

Qin Ran paced around anxiously, eventually getting up and looking outside through the window glass.

It was still snowing outside, Chasing the Wind was pretending to nap on the cat tree. He looked into the distance, as if he could see Li Shiyin far away through the snowflakes.

“Perhaps!” he sighed.