Chapter 188: There Are Times When Money Is Short

Lin Manzhi kept thinking and eventually arrived at the gate of this three‑courtyard compound.

Two bronze lions, knee‑high, stood before the bronze gate as the system panel of the Space; Lin Manzhi lightly tapped the lions, and a line of prompt appeared on them like a holographic projection:

【This area has not met the unlocking conditions. To unlock its functions, please first unlock the Mountain Forest area and the Pasture area; unlocking this area requires one million coins.】

Seeing the prompt, Lin Manzhi was puzzled; she hadn't expected the decorative house area she had treated as mere scenery in the game to be so hard to unlock.

She lingered in surprise for a moment, then scrolled down to examine the unlocking conditions for the other two areas.

【When the Spiritual Field planting area reaches max level and the Mountain Forest area meets its unlocking condition, spending two hundred thousand coins and selling fifty different crops in the Mall will meet the unlocking condition. Yes/No】

【After unlocking the Mountain Forest area, the condition to unlock the Pasture Grassland area will be met; unlocking that area requires five hundred thousand coins.】

Having read the three unlocking methods, Lin Manzhi now understood; the conditions themselves aren't hard, earning the coins is.

Unlocking the three areas costs one million seven hundred thousand coins?

She knew a Lettuce sells for only 1 coin in the Space Mall; other crops she had tried: a Cherry Tomato for 0.2 coin, a Potato for 1 coin, and the most expensive, watermelon, for 3 coins.

That means, with Wan Ri Ling Tian under her control and planting only Lettuce, she earns 120,000 coins per day; to reach 1.7 million coins would still take seventeen days.

Lin Manzhi pressed her forehead and sighed; she hadn't expected a day of earning money even in a Spiritual Field of Space.

Previously, the coins spent on seeds and planting mechanical puppets left little else to purchase, so she hadn't thought about earning more coins; the crops in the Spiritual Field were all economically useful in reality.

Now, looking at it, "good grief," her coins were already exhausted buying mechanical puppets, leaving only a little over a thousand coins.

She couldn't even afford a single square meter of the three‑courtyard rear mansion!

Fine, fine—just consider it a house purchase; spending 1.7 million to buy this "Farmhouse" and still earning money by farming in Space, she could say she made a fortune.

She left the room, followed the Space's instructions to unlock, and ran to Wan Ri Ling Tian, where she in one go bought fifty packs of assorted vegetable and fruit seeds and had the planting machines sow them immediately.

After sowing, she waited for the various vegetables and fruits to mature; the planting machines could tend them here. Lin Manzhi also checked the medicinal plants in two Thousand-Day Spiritual Fields and the Hundred-Day Spiritual Field—these were only hundred‑plus years and a few decades old, requiring no care.

Next, she turned to the two Hundred-Day Spiritual Fields where Cherry Tomato had been planted.

Even when the Holy Maiden Fruit on those two plots is harvested tomorrow, it cannot be sold; the fruit must be taken to reality to be processed into Holy Maiden Fruit elixir for sale.

During the days she was unconscious and in the passionate period, Mo Lie arranged for Holy Maiden Fruit elixir extraction, using the fruit harvested from Planting Base No. 2—not the ones she had taken out of the Space.

Originally five Holy Maiden Fruits yielded one bottle of elixir; now it takes ten to extract a bottle. This method can replace the previous one when the fruit is abundant, and now that Lin Manzhi is present, there's no longer such waste.

In the other four Ten-Day Spiritual Fields, Lin Manzhi had also previously planted Cherry Tomato; she made no changes, so the machines repeatedly harvested and replanted Cherry Tomato on those four plots.

After inspecting the Spiritual Fields, Lin Manzhi formed a plan.

When leaving the Space, Lin Manzhi harvested fifty varieties of vegetables and fruits in Wan Ri Ling Tian, then configured a mechanical puppet, bought cherry radish seeds with a growth period similar to Lettuce, and had the puppet sow them.

The next day, back in the Space, after harvesting Cherry Tomato from the two Hundred-Day Spiritual Fields, she planted Agave in both fields.

She then opened the Mall, sold the cherry radishes harvested yesterday from the warehouse at 1 coin each, earning 120,000 coins on the first day.

When Lin Manzhi logs in again tomorrow, she will sell the cherry radishes in the Mall once more and immediately unlock the Mountain Forest planting area.

After a flash of white light nearby, the upper stretch of the river appeared as if erased by an eraser, leaving a dull gray, and the green mountains and river became clearly visible before her eyes.

The river's sound grew louder; Lin Manzhi stood at the edge of the Spiritual Field, gazing at the mountains that seemed within reach but were actually dozens of li away, and another thought of spending money arose in her mind— the need to buy a transport machine.

Otherwise, covering such a distance on foot would take half a day; Lin Manzhi's mouth twitched, and she immediately gave up the idea of strolling through the newly opened Mountain Forest area.

She'll explore it once she has the money.

Lin Manzhi felt she had been busy for nothing these past two days, so after harvesting cherry radish once, she planted a batch of grapes in Wan Ri Ling Tian, and then returned to reality.

She no longer had time to constantly monitor the Space's expansion; since her coins were still insufficient to fully unlock the other two areas, she focused her energy on reality.

After waiting a while and calculating that three years had passed in Wan Ri Ling Tian within the Space, Lin Manzhi clicked in to harvest the first batch of grapes into the warehouse.

The grape variety she cultivated was Cabernet Sauvignon; a bunch of its purple‑black berries felt relatively small in hand, the skins covered with gray‑white powder, thick skins and large seeds, smelling of grass and blackcurrant.

Lin Manzhi recalled the juicy sweet taste of modern grapes, tried one, and upon biting the skin felt an immediate sourness on her tongue; chewing, the flesh was much coarser than any grape she had eaten, the sweetness faint, and after swallowing a lingering astringent taste of grass and wood remained in her mouth.

Indeed, this grape variety is not meant to be sold as fruit for a reason.

She let out a short gasp, quickly drank water to mask the sour‑sweet taste, then washed her hands and continued working, recalling a process she had seen in a video, while her hands resumed labor.

The grapes coated with gray‑white powder needed no washing; she plucked them one by one and placed them into a previously steamed, sterilized, dried basin; after picking half a tray, Lin Manzhi reached into the basin, her fingers forcefully crushing the grapes inside.

When Mo Lie came looking for her, an intense scent of fresh grass mixed with cold blackcurrant drifted to his nose, and he looked toward the source of the aroma.

He saw a Little Female bow her head, her white, slender fingers pinching the purple‑black small fruits in the basin; the exuded juice left a crimson‑purple stain on the cool white back of her hand.

He was slightly startled, glanced over the row of large glass bottles beside Lin Manzhi, and slowly walked to Lin Manzhi's side, his gaze again falling on her hands.

Lin Manzhi looked up: "You're here."

Mo Lie: "Zhi Zhi, what are you doing? Let me help."

Lin Manzhi's hands went pop‑sizzle as she crushed the grapes in the basin, and she shook her head lightly, saying, "I'm almost done. I'm using the grapes to make a natural yeast, crushing and mashing the skins, then later putting them into a glass jar with a little warm water; in four or five days it will be nearly finished."