Chapter 18: Reclaiming Wasteland and Farming
Hearing that it was time to eat, Da Hei dropped his hoe and bolted straight toward the back courtyard gate.
Taoya was young, and since her weeding spot was further away, she wished she could spin her legs like wheels of wind and fire, terrified that Da Hei would beat her to it.
Smelling the fragrance of the corn, Da Hei licked his dry, cracked lips. But when he saw the massive bowl containing absolutely nothing but water, his eyes filled with a dazed, helpless look.
Kunlun Slaves being starved was a common occurrence; when they were in the hands of human traffickers, their very first lesson was starvation—if they didn’t obey, they weren’t fed; if they didn’t perform well, they weren’t fed either.
Da Hei’s large hands clenched and unclenched helplessly, having no idea what he had done wrong.
The moment Taoya sprinted over, Jian Xingxia held out the two large porcelain bowls. “It’s still a bit hot. Drink slowly.”
Taoya and Da Hei cautiously accepted the massive bowls, not daring to voice a single syllable of complaint, and gulped the water straight down. The warm water, carrying the sweet aroma of corn, flowed down their throats, soothing their internal organs.
For some unknown reason, even though it was just warm water and only a single bowl, it felt much more thirst-quenching than when they had been parched in the past and guzzled half a bellyful of river or well water in one go.
Having downed it in a single breath, a layer of moisture finally returned to Da Hei’s lips. He licked his lips, his face filling with even greater shock than before. “There is salt in the water!”
He couldn’t believe his master had actually put salt in the water.
One had to know that one of the primary methods used to control slaves was to deny them full meals and deny them salt. Without salt, a person’s limbs would grow weak, forcing slaves to expend far more energy when laboring; by the time the work was done, their minds would be completely blank. They wouldn’t flee, and they couldn’t resist.
They would be kept this way until they were thoroughly “broken”—turning into vacant, brainless wooden puppets who only knew how to obey—before they were slowly given a tiny bit of salt to eat.
Yet on his very first day here, his master had given him salt.
The anxiety Da Hei had felt just moments ago vanished instantly, replaced by a wave of gratitude as turbulent and overwhelming as the ocean tides.
His master hadn’t punished him! His master had given him salt!
Jian Xingxia smiled and said, “Yes, I put a little bit of salt in it. You sweat a lot in the summer, so drinking plain water doesn’t fully quench your thirst; you need to drink a bit of light saltwater.”
She had only put a tiny pinch of salt into the kettle, but with that single pinch, the effect of dispelling heat, relieving fatigue, and replenishing fluids was countless times better.
Jian Xingxia turned back into the kitchen, and when she emerged this time, the plate she carried held three golden-yellow ears of corn.
“Eat up.”
When the corn was handed over, it was still piping hot. But for some inexplicable reason, Da Hei and Taoya felt the corn in their hands was almost too heavy to hold.
Da Hei’s stomach let out an uncalled-for, loud growl. Holding the ear of corn, he said with absolute excitement, “Master, I can eat?” In his lapse of composure, his heavy accent broke through again.
Jian Xingxia chuckled. “Yes, you can eat!” She then instructed Taoya, “You eat too.”
This was Taoya’s third visit, so she already understood Jian Xingxia’s character. She obediently picked up the corn, peeled back the thin inner husk, and took a large bite.
But the moment the sweet, tender, and plump corn kernels burst between her teeth, Taoya was stunned all over again.
“This corn…”
It was vastly more fragrant than the corn in her homeland! Way sweeter! Far more glutinous! It was completely different from the hard, dry, and choking texture of the corn back home; this corn was intoxicatingly sweet, the kernels plump and bursting with juice. With one bite, it didn’t feel like eating corn at all—it felt like eating pure sugar.
Jian Xingxia smiled. “Is it very sweet and chewy?”
She recognized this corn variety; it was a sweet-and-glutinous hybrid developed by her university mentor. After many generations of cultivation, it had finally entered the mass market a few years ago. This variety was now widely available in markets and supermarkets alike, boasting high yields and a spectacular flavor. It was a world away from old-fashioned corn.
As Taoya ate, tears began to stream down her face. “How was this corn grown? When the corn we plant is filling its grain, we don’t dare rest for a single day. We guard the cornfields day in and day out—watering, fertilizing, breaking off excess shoots… but the corn still grows poorly. The kernels are sparse and scattered, and it gets infested with pests.”
Even when there were no natural disasters, their cornfields had never produced such magnificent ears.
Taoya wept as she ate, carefully using her hand to rescue every single stray corn fragment from the corner of her mouth and pop it back into her mouth.
As a Kunlun Slave, Da Hei didn’t fret over such existential worries. He focused entirely on inhaling his corn, though his manners left a bit to be desired—he even wanted to chew up and swallow the tender corn cob and the inner layer of the husk.
Before Jian Xingxia could even finish a single row of her own corn, Da Hei’s ear was already nearing total annihilation. Seeing that he was about to bite off a massive chunk of the cob itself, Jian Xingxia hastily called a halt. “There’s more, there’s more! Just wait, I’ll fetch it for you.” She brought out two more ears.
Cradling the corn, Taoya and Da Hei ate with such focus that they forgot the very passage of time.
Jian Xingxia brought out two more bowls of corn-water. “Drink this, then head back to work first. I’ll call you back in half an hour to eat sweet potatoes.”
She was deeply concerned; judging by Da Hei and Taoya’s conditions, their stomachs likely hadn’t been full in a very long time. Although this hybrid corn was sweet and easy to digest, she didn’t dare give them too much at once. If they showed no issues after half an hour and the first batch had digested a bit, they could continue eating.
By now, Da Hei and Taoya placed their absolute trust in Jian Xingxia. Whatever she said to eat, they ate; whatever she said to drink, they drank; and the moment they were told to work, they didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second, returning to their posts instantly.
Jian Xingxia went back to the kitchen, fished out the boiled sweet potatoes, and set them out to cool. She then boiled a pot of eggs, not daring to make too many—just ten. Since Taoya and the others would be charged by the system if they tried to take items back, they could only eat them here. However, eating too many eggs would lead to indigestion, so Jian Xingxia arranged the portions judiciously.
Half an hour later, she distributed one plump, large sweet potato to each of them, weighing well over a pound. She also gave them an egg each.
Predictably, Taoya wanted to take hers back, but the moment the thought surfaced in her mind, she recalled the words of the Mountain Goddess. She carefully cracked open the eggshell and, bite by bite, finished the entire sweet potato along with the egg.
For the first time, Taoya finally felt full.
Looking at Taoya’s distended stomach and her blissful, satisfied expression, Jian Xingxia was flooded with a profound sense of accomplishment. She was no black-hearted capitalist! She was a manor owner dedicated to the universal happiness of her people!
The three of them joined forces to cultivate the land. As the afternoon slipped away, they successfully turned over a small section of the wasteland outside the back courtyard.
Jian Xingxia used her strides to do a rough measurement: it was about fifty paces long and thirty paces wide. Omitting the uneven edges, it came to roughly thirty meters by twenty meters—six hundred square meters.
Nearly an acre of land.
Jian Xingxia was immensely satisfied with this efficiency. Reclaiming a mountain wasteland was a far cry from working a proper field; the soil was rock-hard and compacted, and the weed roots were as tough as ox tendons.
Jian Xingxia signaled Da Hei to stop digging further ahead, and instead selected a small section of soil adjacent to the back courtyard.
“Break up the clods in this section a bit finer. I bought some seedlings, and we’re planting them down today.”
