Chapter 165

!!

Lin Manzhi's hairs stood on end, and as the weightless feeling hit, her heartbeat skipped a beat.

The next second, her feet were on solid ground; she didn't even have time to feel fear before she was back on the ground from a hundred-meter height.

Mo Lie wrapped his arms around Lin Manzhi's slender waist, his long eyelashes drooping, his pale, slender fingers lightly stroking the little female's head, his voice soft as if speaking to a young cub: "It's fine, it's fine; with my human-form leaping ability, this height is nothing—I won't let you fall."

Lin Manzhi felt the soothing pressure of the familiar male beast's aura on her head, quickly recovered from the bungee‑like thrill, steadied her emotions as fast as she could, and tried to keep her voice normal: "I'm really fine, I'm really not afraid of heights."

The little female before him had her eyes wide open; though her pupils were pitch black, they sparkled as if filled with shining stars, making her utterly irresistible.

Mo Lie's voice sank slightly, carrying a low magnetic tone: "My Wife Master is truly formidable……"

Lin Manzhi: "……"

Speechless.

She shook her head, brushed off his hand from her head, and glared at him: "I'm not a cub, why use such exaggerated coaxing on me?"

Mo Lie's ice‑blue eyes rarely flickered, as if something had occurred to him, his gaze deep as an ancient pool: "Zhizhi, do you want a cub?"

His eyes brimmed with interest, hinting suggestively as he tightened his arms around Lin Manzhi's waist toward himself until her chest pressed against his arm, as if using his arm as a shackle, tightly entwining his female.

Lin Manzhi understood.

Ah? Ah!

How did we suddenly jump to giving birth, to having a baby…… Wanting a cub means first, first getting pregnant……

She imagined their intimate scene in her mind, her face instantly flaming red; she raised both hands, loosely clenched into fists, and pressed them against Mo Lie's chest, pushing him.

She didn't even put much strength into her hands; unexpectedly, that push easily loosened his grip on her waist.

Lin Manzhi froze for a moment, then shuffled back a few steps with a soft rustling sound.

She suppressed her embarrassment, pretended not to have heard Mo Lie's words, hastily averted her gaze toward the distance, and said: "There's still a ton of work to do at the planting site…… you, you hurry up and get to work."

Mo Lie's voice held a smile: "Mm, okay."

Xiang Sa and Hei Cheng, who had returned to report: "……"

Watching the pair's intimate flirtation, all the male beasts stood dumbstruck.

Envious……

So envious.

At that moment, they seemed to catch a faint, barely perceptible fresh pheromone scent drifting in the air, and collectively went blank.

How could that be? How could a female with pheromone value possibly come to this godforsaken place?

Even if she had one, she'd be well kept in the backyard; this female beside the leader, who's been with him a long time, everyone's heard the rumor that she has no pheromone value—she earns the leader's cherished favor solely through her hard work in the fields.

Huh! Could the rumor be false?

Before they could carefully sniff and discern, the leader before them said coldly: "Xiang Sa, lead the team to level the soil heap; Hei Cheng, lead the team to erect the iron‑frame greenhouse, following my specified dimensions—no mistakes allowed."

Xiang Sa stood straight, nervous: "Yes!"

Hei Cheng likewise accepted the order without lag; the two each took their squads and immediately dove into the preliminary farm work.

This time, Lin Manzhi could finally rest, not doing any work herself, only standing aside to instruct them how to meet her demands. First, the fertile soil that the escort bureau had laboriously hauled back from outside—she had the bureau stop buying food from elsewhere and instead devote all trips to bringing soil back; the effect was striking, and after ten days they had accumulated nearly half the needed soil.

They started filling from the southeast corner, a seven‑ to eight‑meter‑deep pit, using handy long shovels and long rakes, plus beast‑forms as big as trucks to help haul the earth, and the job went quickly.

Now the leveled soil can at least fill half of the planting base; underneath is a rock slab, not sand, which effectively reduces soil moisture loss without causing root rot.

Seeing no errors in this work, Lin Manzhi simultaneously had them build the vegetable greenhouse.

Each greenhouse covers about two mu; two‑finger‑thick iron rods are sunk several meters deep into the soil, each greenhouse has three rows of framework for support, and the thin brown hide, processed to just the right thickness, is placed atop the five‑meter‑high iron frame, letting light through while blocking part of the scorching rays.

In the desert's dry season, this hide is doubled; during extreme midday heat and deep‑night cold, the second layer of the greenhouse is drawn over, and both layers are movable, able to be opened or closed at any time.

When it's a bit cooler, if needed, they can even open it fully, letting the crops inside bask in open‑air ventilation and sunlight.

Kuangsha City is Mo Lie's territory; she has endless manpower at her disposal and needn't worry about anyone disturbing her.

With many hands, the greenhouses go up quickly—a team of ten male beasts can finish one in half an hour.

To save time, Lin Manzhi also had Xiang Sa lead people with shovels to till inside the greenhouse, first turning a patch of earth, then shaping it into planting ridges, leaving a walkable furrow between the two long ridges.

The planting base buzzed with activity; the male beasts' great strength meant that with so many of them, the farm work was done by the time the sun sank to the horizon.

Lin Manzhi stood by the city wall, glanced over, and counted in her mind: in a single day they had erected seventeen greenhouse structures.

She really wanted to pluck the cherry tomatoes straight from the spiritual field and plant them on the spot, but with so many people around, that was obviously impossible.

But just thinking that the whole area is plantable made her very happy!

The next day, Lin Manzhi woke early but lay there without rushing to get up; her consciousness sank into her own space, and the air felt much smoother and fresher.

She strolled into the four spiritual fields of the tenth day; the space automatically simulated the optimal growing environment for crops, with day and night, and it happened to be morning—cherry tomatoes hung in clusters from the branches, their weight bending the stems, the whole strings red, indicating they were ripe and ready to harvest.

Lin Manzhi waited for the tiny mechanical puppets tending the spiritual field to finish harvesting this batch of cherry tomatoes, then immediately had them pull the plants out whole, roots and all.

The cherry tomato stems still bore green unripe fruit and buds; if planted in the ground they could keep yielding for a while, but the mechanical puppets, upon receiving the master's command, didn't hesitate—they just did as told.

Lin Manzhi stood by, loading six hundred cherry tomato plants into the warehouse before replanting them, glanced at the nearby agave that amounted to roughly ten years' worth, and thought: for the planting trial, I'll sow the cherry tomatoes today and tinker with the agave tomorrow.

She returned to reality.

After waking, washing up, and finishing breakfast, Lin Manzhi and Mo Lie set out for the planting base; first they took the cherry tomatoes from the backyard, packed them into a sealed wooden box, and brought them to the planting base.