Chapter 380: Spirit Fields (Thank You to the Patron Who Sponsored the Ride～)

The Dao has a hundred trades.

The Nine Provinces are vast, with differing regional customs; cultivators rely on the mountains for sustenance and the waters for livelihood, adapting to local conditions to make a living through a hundred trades.

Spirit farmers who till the land and cultivate spirit rice and crops belong to one of these hundred Daoist trades.

Tongxiancheng is mountainous and has no farmland; the spirit grains and spirit rice they eat are all purchased from a western Xiancheng whose people live by cultivating spirit fields.

Mo Hua, having grown up this long, had never seen such a vast expanse of spirit fields before.

South of Qianjia Town, spirit fields stretch in continuous patches, arranged in a grid pattern, covering roughly a hundred hectares.

Within the spirit fields are emerald-green rice seedlings, filled with misty moisture.

The sky is high and distant, white clouds drift lazily, the rice fields are rich and expansive, like a jade-green carpet spreading toward the horizon.

Where the blue sky meets the spirit fields in the distance lie layered mountains veiled in clouds and mist.

Mo Hua took a deep breath; the air was crisp and refreshing, his spirit expanded and eased, his gaze brightened slightly, and suddenly he understood.

Mo Hua fell silent for a moment.

His son and daughter-in-law left to seek livelihood elsewhere, returning only once every one or two years.

Glanced at it, sketched a few strokes, and it's already ruined?

Mo Hua blinked slightly and asked worriedly:

The old man's expression was deeply ashamed.

Or perhaps the Sun family deliberately did a shoddy repair.

It was just afternoon, the morning sun shone brightly, yet no spirit farmers were working in the fields.

After hesitating and struggling for a while, the old man seemed to give up entirely, and slumped down, saying:

Mo Hua extended his spiritual sense and sensed only ordinary soil-nourishing arrays; there was no trace of any special array energy, leaving him somewhat disappointed.

Mo Hua asked:

As the old man spoke, he came to his senses and apologized:

It's just a soil-nourishing array with eight array lines.

Mo Hua looked and was startled—it was truly bare as a wall, extremely poor.

"All this time, I've just listened to your old man's complaints…"

The big boy beside him also gazed hopefully at Mo Hua.

Mo Hua couldn't bear it, so he asked:

"Big brother, you draw it…"

Mo Hua turned and looked; beneath the Tian Geng, indeed one soil-nourishing array had failed—below it lay only array lines, with no spiritual energy flowing.

Ding Laotou invited Mo Hua home.

The old man sighed: "They sold our son to them, our daughter became a household servant, our son became a male servant."

Ding Laotou went to light the fire and cook.

"The Sun family are local tyrants; we dare not offend them…"

In this world, some cultivators live in such humility.

Those spirit farmers with hunched postures and blank expressions seemed utterly out of place.

The old man involuntarily laughed, but as he laughed, he remembered the failed harvest—himself and his grandson would starve—and he squatted by the field, wiping away tears.

And between these spirit fields, there were indeed traces of arrays.

Elder Yu had told me this, but Mo Hua had never truly felt it until now.

"The Sun family?"

The spirit rice no longer showed signs of withering; its color had turned slightly greener.

Leave the grandson and me at home; with just a few mu of thin land, we can still have a meal.

"What if it improves…"

The old man was stunned; he thought it made sense—after all, it was already ruined, and there were no other options, but since arrays concerned their livelihood, he still couldn't let go.

"I just learned it."

"This array is our ancestral craft; the Sun family says only we can draw it and only we can repair it. So no matter how much spirit stone we ask for, you must pay it."

"To repair this array, I used up all the spirit stone we had left, and now I owe the Sun family dozens of spirit stones… If I repair it again, even if I give them the entire harvest this year, I still won't clear the debt."

His voice carried deep bitterness and hardship.

"Young Master, is there something wrong?"

Mo Hua's mood was somewhat simple.

"This array is complicated—I'll help you repair it." Mo Hua said.

The old man felt too guilty, so he said:

The old man froze. "He… he knows arrays?"

But these arrays were not ultimate arrays—just simple soil-nourishing arrays used to cultivate spirit rice and retain moisture.

The old man said solemnly, his gratitude boundless; but having spent his life among fields, he was too taciturn to speak any fine words, and could only say "thank you."

Merely being able to survive was enough to bring tears of joy…

Mo Hua's gaze sharpened slightly.

"Yes." Mo Hua nodded. "It's complicated."

There was a path near the spirit fields; Mo Hua followed it for a while, then suddenly frowned.

But that was also the only chicken the Ding family had.

They do not till, yet wear brocade and eat jade; they labor with calloused hands, yet go hungry.

Those who till the land have no rice to eat.

Cultivating too poorly is a hardship; we can only rely on arrays to squeeze out spirit stones again.

Mo Hua thought for a moment, then declined: "Actually, I have some questions I want to ask."

Mo Hua learned that the old man's surname was Ding, he had seven family members, lived in Dongshan Village far from Qiandeng Town, and were generations of spirit farmers.

Outside the vibrant spirit fields, under the bright morning sun.

I thought again of the meals the Sun family ate—table full to the brim, and then the rice and meat thrown away uneaten…

We bent over, as if crushed by something, unable to catch our breath.

Mo Hua asked in confusion: "Didn't you ask other array masters to repair it?"

Mo Hua took out his array brush and dipped it in ink.

The old man walked to the field's edge, examined the array, and saw that faint yellow light had indeed ignited upon it—he felt as if still in a dream.

"Great Master, you must be reluctant—come to my home for a simple meal."

Mo Hua waved his hand: "It's a minor thing, no need."

"Spirit cultivators in Xiancheng are hard-pressed, but there are far more scattered cultivators outside Xiancheng who suffer even more."

The pickled vegetables were bitterly salty.

Then I saw Mo Hua walk to the field's edge, grip the brush with a large hand, carefully trace several strokes, then raise his head and speak clearly to him:

Old Man Ding stammered: "That… my household truly…"

Along the Tian Geng of the spirit field, hard soil and stones were laid, upon which the array was drawn.

Mo Hua sighed.

It was likely the work of an apprentice, or an array master with poor skill.

But cultivating spirit fields yields meager returns, insufficient to feed the whole family.

"The array is fixed—didn't you ask anyone else to repair it?"

The old man's expression showed slight surprise; this great cultivator seemed… oddly unremarkable…

Though the old man saw Mo Hua was young, his bearing was calm, as if he had a plan—he believed him somewhat, yet still hesitated:

In the long run, this is simply unaffordable even for ordinary scattered cultivators.

The old man frowned: "There are no other array masters in Qiandeng Town…"

He thought of walking deeper to investigate further.

Mo Hua asked again: "Is the debt to the Sun family still unpaid?"

As he walked, he met an old man beside a brocade pouch.

Mo Hua felt inexplicably sorrowful.

The two men chatted casually for a few more words along the way.

"The field's fixed…"

That kind of chicken, though raised by cultivators and classified as a spirit beast, holds almost no spirit energy, worth little in spirit stones—so some scattered cultivators keep a few, feeding them nothing but grass.

"How could the field be fixed?"

I'd like to give, but my household is utterly destitute—I can't produce even a single spirit stone.

The old man pointed to the Tian Geng, his voice hoarse:

"Often, passing array masters, out of respect for the Sun family, won't help us at all."

He couldn't help but show expectation.

The porridge held half a bowl of rice—but only in Mo Hua's bowl.

Mo Hua nodded humbly: "A little."

"Fixed."

I finally understood how the Sun family came to have so many servants and maids…

Heaven manifests the Dao; earth derives from the Dao.

The old man sighed: "We've asked—ten spirit stones per repair; fixed, then broken again, then fixed again…"

He looked again at the spirit field's array and noticed clear signs of prior repair—but done with extremely cheap ink, negligible cost, and crude, sloppy technique, the array's quality was abysmal.

Heaven gives birth to all things; earth nurtures all things.

After a while, a bowl of porridge, a dish of pickled vegetables, and one earth chicken were placed on the table.

The old man pointed toward Qiandeng Town: "That's the Sun family—the richest in town."

The moisture in the field was slowly accumulating.

"Isn't it already fixed?"

Mo Hua sighed.

Mo Hua shook his head, unconcerned.

"Once you enter the Sun family as slave or servant, your name changes—you can no longer recognize your parents, only serve them like beasts of burden…"

As the old man spoke, his voice faintly trembled with tears.

"Then… is it fixed?"

That earth chicken was freshly slaughtered.

Old Man Ding, and his grandson's bowl—clear broth, no rice at all.

"Without the array, the spirit field is barren, can't hold water—the crops will wither, and there'll be no harvest…"

The old man turned slowly, seeing a young cultivator with a refined face and dull eyes, who repeatedly opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, finally letting out a deep sigh:

He truly had no other option.

Then he remembered something, his face flushed with shame: "For the spirit stones used to repair the array, I…"

The old man was clearly a spirit farmer—dry, thin, his face waxen and wooden, with a trace of despair.

I came from a loose cultivator's background, so I know what poverty looks like.

Beside me was a big grandson, also wiping his tears with a dirty, big hand.

When Mo Hua left the door, he still saw it calling out to itself outside the courtyard.

Mo Hua breathed a sigh of relief. I thought it was something from when he was young…

"Thank you, big brother…"

Those young spirit-farming boys were quite young, their clothes tattered, still covered in mud stains, their skin pale and thin, their fingers smooth and not chapped.

Before the old man could even come back to his senses, or see what Mo Hua had drawn, his expression was hard to believe as he said:

One repair costs a full ten spirit stones…

"That formation is very difficult, though…"

Thank you to reader Guoke Liuwang for tipping an Alliance Master!

The second Alliance Master, thank you~

I've noted it down in my little book, I'll add more updates later~

But I'm indeed writing slowly right now, and I need to steady my mindset and flesh out the detailed outline, so there aren't many updates, sorry about that.