Her Cultivation Diary

Chapter 27: 27. It still has to be you_1

“Dad, when will the people delivering the netting come?”

“They’ll be here in a bit.”

Song Tan surveyed the budding board chestnut trees on the hillside, intending to enclose the entire forest and then plant black fungus and white fungus within.

As for the chestnut woods, she knew they hadn’t been taken care of for many years, so much so that each year’s harvest was left entirely to fate.

Chestnuts require grafting, pruning, and fertilization, making them not easy to care for.

Their Yunqiao Village was too remote, and chestnuts weren’t considered a premium product; the buying price each year was only one or two yuan, which was quite a bit more expensive than the eighty cents from Song Tan’s childhood memories.

But the problem was, young people in the village who could earn this money had already left their hometown for the city.

The older generation, like Song Sancheng and the others, could no longer handle such heavy farming work these days.

Time ages people!

And in the very center of the hillside was a wild board chestnut tree, as tall as a three-story building, towering to the sky, situated right in the middle of the slope.

This was a wild old tree that the family had never taken care of; the chestnuts were not much bigger than table tennis balls, and the nuts inside were about the size of a thumb, but they tasted incredibly fragrant when eaten.

It was Grandpa Song Youde who had deliberately left it there.

Song Tan looked up at it and, for some reason, found her mouth watering. She remembered the wintertime, huddling around the stove, listening to the chestnuts pop with a “bang”…

The roasted scent was rich, the texture soft and sweet.

Without hesitation, she gathered a soybean-sized amount of Spiritual Energy and gently patted the tree trunk, feeling the roots stretch merrily underground before she reluctantly shifted her gaze—

“Grow well! We’re counting on you for the New Year!”

Song Sancheng was already calling for her up ahead, “Come take a look, do you think it’s feasible to put stakes here and surround it with the netting?”

Iron wire mesh was too expensive for them here, so they used ordinary rope nets. Most of the time, it was just a hint to those accustomed to taking things without asking—

This has an owner, don’t touch.

Most of the facilities in the countryside were based on the principle of dissuading the honest and not stopping the dishonest.

Song Tan calculated in her mind and then nodded, “Sure, let’s do it here.”

Song Sancheng saw her serious demeanor and couldn’t help laughing, “Look at you, acting all professional—as if you really know what you’re doing.”

Song Tan also teased her dad, “But what if your daughter actually has a talent, right? You still have to be my dad, willing to listen to me, giving me space to show my talents!”

Song Sancheng was indeed flattered, “That’s right, when you were little, I used to let you ride on my shoulders—”

After saying these things, Sancheng looked around to make sure no one was there and said in a low voice, “Tantan, you’ve been earning quite a bit these days, haven’t you?”

It was already mid-March, and Song Tan had sold wild vegetables six times—she indeed had earned quite a sum, amounting to fifteen thousand yuan, almost half of the cost of a car.

Song Tan looked at her dad with a smile, “I do have some money on hand now, what do you want to do, Dad?”

Song Sancheng was delighted, hesitating a bit, “Well—you like eating fish, right? I’m planning to go fishing when there’s no work to do on rainy days. Do you remember Uncle Wu from our village? He just bought a new fishing rod for over five hundred yuan!”

“Look, how about you buy one for me too? If your mom asks, just say it was 80 yuan.”

Ah, fishing was the only hobby he had left!

There was a pang of sourness in Song Tan’s heart—their family lived so frugally, all for her and her brother’s sake, right?

But when it came to fishing rods…

Song Tan negotiated with her dad, “Dad, if you could quit smoking, you could save one to two thousand yuan a year. I’ll add another two thousand to that, and we could buy a four thousand yuan rod!”

Song Sancheng: …

He was silent for a moment, “You don’t understand, the real fishers don’t even look at the fishing rod. A rod that costs thousands is unnecessary; I feel quite comfortable with the one I have now.”

Great, it’s the fishing rod and tobacco, with tobacco taking the lead!

Asking her dad to quit smoking right now seems rather unrealistic.

Song Tan thought for a moment and simply took out her phone: “But Dad, you’ve been working hard lately. It’s just a fishing rod, worth just a few wild veggies! Pick whatever you want, go ahead and choose first!”

In the distance, the sound of a car approached from afar—those delivering the nets had arrived.

…

Back home, Wu Lan was still at Song Youde’s, inoculating the mushroom spawn—this should have been arranged earlier, but because the wood cut earlier had too high a moisture content, it had to be air-dried for a few more days before drilling.

It was just now that the inoculation officially began.

Song Sancheng also smiled, “The ones who came are all your grandparents’ peers. They chat with your grandparents every day, which really lifts their spirits.”

“All the elderly in our village are here, except for two I didn’t invite—ordinary people wouldn’t be able to handle them.”

Song Tan knew who those two were.

One was famously unreasonable in their village, the kind even their own children couldn’t manage.

The other was a daredevil who had the guts to try to poison someone’s livestock just to steal a pumpkin (though unsuccessful)…

In other words, people like that exist everywhere, and the only option is to steer clear of them.

Song Sancheng couldn’t help but feel speechless, and decided to talk about another matter:

“However, Tantan, we didn’t talk about money at the beginning—after all, they are old. If you mention giving them money, and later they have a headache or fall over walking, their families might claim they were employed and demand compensation, which would be troublesome for us to explain away.”

It’s not uncommon for folks in the village to be unreasonable.

It was better as it was now, with Wang Lifan calling out in the village, letting who will come, come; they were provided with food, drink, and company for chatting, which was more than enough to make the lonely elders happy.

Not to mention, Song Sancheng said that after the work is done, each person would receive a couple jins of meat, which made them work even harder.

However, Song Sancheng was attentive to detail, and he consulted Song Tan again:

“I was thinking, when our family starts growing so many things and, Tantan, you won’t let us use pesticides, isn’t this what they call green and organic? The prices will definitely be high, right?”

Of course.

Song Tan was firm about selling wild vegetables for twenty yuan per half kilogram to preserve this price advantage.

Song Sancheng was well-versed in village affairs and thought even more comprehensively:

“I was thinking, if these things are only found in our household, what if someone casually picks a bit? We can’t really say anything, can we?”

That’s the way it is back home – there are both advantages and disadvantages.

“Even if they don’t pick, what if village folks want to buy? If it’s too expensive, they would say we are lacking in kindness. If it’s too cheap, it’s not right either—how about this, after the work is done, we give each person a stick of black fungus and a stick of white fungus.”

“Tantan, what do you think?”

Song Tan hadn’t thought of this point—cultivators who farmed had Array Plates or barriers, they never had to worry about someone taking their crops!

Now she nodded repeatedly and gave Song Sancheng a thumbs-up:

“Dad, you’re really something else!”

Song Sancheng laughed proudly: “That’s right! I’ve eaten more salt in my lifetime than you’ve eaten rice!”