Chapter 34: The Hidden Spring in the Barren Field

In the eyes of Elder Chu and the others, Qin Haoxuan was just wandering around, stopping here and there, pretending to be exhausted.

“Look at him. If we didn’t know better, an outsider might actually be fooled by his act.”

“Hmph, exactly. He’s just waiting for Xu Yu to find a spirit field, mark it secretly, and then call him over to claim it. Then he can announce that he found it himself.”

Qin Haoxuan, who was surveying the land with his Spiritual Sense, was too drained to bother with them. He walked further and further away, finally arriving at a barren patch of land overgrown with waist-high weeds.

The ground here wasn’t soft; it felt hard and uneven underfoot, like stepping on flagstones. This area was in a remote corner, and because of the rampant weeds and poor soil quality, any disciples who had wandered over had quickly left. In the end, only Xu Yu, who had followed him, and Murong Chao, who had also made his way over, remained.

After checking the soil and using the Art of the Eight Trigrams and her knowledge of Feng Shui to analyze the area, Xu Yu said with some difficulty, “Brother Haoxuan, I’m afraid this is low-grade land.”

At that moment, Qin Haoxuan was completely focused, his Spiritual Sense blanketing the ground beneath him. He had a gut feeling that there was a spirit field hidden in this barren, overgrown land.

Seeing that he didn’t respond, Xu Yu said no more and began to re-calculate the probability of a spirit field appearing here. The result was still zero.

Elder Chu, seeing her still wasting time on this worthless plot, began to grow anxious. By his own calculations, all 20-odd plots in this area were the worst of the worst.

After eliminating a dozen of these plots, Qin Haoxuan arrived at the three plots on the very edge.

If the previous plots were low-grade, then these three couldn’t even be called that. At least the others had weeds growing on them. These plots were nothing but hard, black earth, without a single blade of grass. In the eyes of Elder Chu and the others, they were utterly barren. Planting anything here would result in a total crop failure.

Standing on this patch of land, his Spiritual Sense nearly depleted, Qin Haoxuan focused a final strand of golden light and spread it over the ground beneath him.

He probed one meter deep. Nothing.

Two meters deep. Still no spiritual energy. Worse than the worst low-grade plots.

Was my intuition wrong? Just as he was about to give up, he suddenly sensed a subtle stream of water two meters below. And within this stream, there seemed to be an extremely pure spiritual energy, almost imperceptible unless one focused with all their might.

Instantly, his spirits soared.

He pushed his Spiritual Sense a few inches deeper. The excessive consumption had made his face turn pale. A clear sound of flowing water was transmitted into his mind. From this stream came a dense fluctuation of spiritual energy, like the strong, steady pulse of a healthy adult. The rhythmic thrumming of the energy made his blood boil, and the sound of the flowing water was the most beautiful music he had ever heard.

There was a Spirit Spring under these three plots of land!

He had secretly scanned the spirit fields that Zhang Kuang and Li Jing had found, and he could clearly feel the dense spiritual energy hidden beneath them. But the land he had found had something different. It wasn’t just latent spiritual energy; it was a Spirit Spring, as thick as a baby’s arm. From Xu Yu’s recounting of the lecture, he knew that Spirit Springs were extremely rare. Any spirit field with one was guaranteed a bountiful harvest year after year.

These three Spirit Springs were hidden extremely deep. Without Spiritual Sense, they would be impossible to find with simple divination.

Even someone as composed as Qin Haoxuan couldn’t help but feel a surge of joy. A Spirit Spring and a spirit field were two completely different concepts.

With an unquestionable tone, he turned to Xu Yu, who was still surveying the land, and said, “Junior Sister, I’ll take this plot.”

He paused, then added, “You should pick one of the other two as well. I think the one on the right is better.”

Seeing him plant the wooden sign with his name on it without hesitation, Xu Yu did not hesitate either. She followed his suggestion and planted her own sign on the plot to the right.

Not far from them, Murong Chao, who had also taken an interest in these three barren plots, stared at Qin Haoxuan for a moment, then at Xu Yu. Finally, he too planted his sign on the remaining plot to the left.

This scene nearly gave Elder Chu a heart attack. Qin Haoxuan was just a weak seed; choosing a low-grade plot was fitting for his status. But Xu Yu and Murong Chao were special seeds, the future hope of the sect. For them to be misled by Qin Haoxuan into choosing such worthless land could have a huge impact on their future.

He hurried over, took out a compass, and his sharp eyes darted around, examining the landscape and divining the flow of the spirit veins.

After a long calculation, he glared at Qin Haoxuan, then turned to Xu Yu and Murong Chao with a pleasant expression. “If you choose this land, forget filling your stomachs next year; you won’t even be able to pay your sect contribution! I am giving you one chance to change your minds. It’s not too late to regret it.”

Before he had even finished, Qin Haoxuan said to Xu Yu with a firm tone, “Trust me, you won’t regret it.”

Xu Yu glanced at his face, then shook her head without hesitation. “Elder, I will not change my mind.”

Seeing her refuse the elder’s kind offer without a second thought, Murong Chao, who had been wavering, decided to take the gamble. Might as well starve to death with a Purple Seed disciple; there’s no shame in that.

In his heart, he trusted Qin Haoxuan. Although he was just a weak seed, the surprises he had brought them over the past few days had left even the Purple Seed disciples in the dust. Maybe he had really found a spirit field.

Elder Chu’s personal intervention had attracted the attention of the other disciples. They saw Xu Yu and Murong Chao, at Qin Haoxuan’s urging, choose the absolute worst plots of land and burst into laughter.

“Those plots won’t even grow weeds. Even Elder Chu is frowning at them. They’re clearly worthless!”

“Ha! I was just envying them for getting special treatment. But they’re as stubborn as a rock in a latrine pit. They won’t believe it until they’re staring at their own coffin.”

“This Qin Haoxuan, not only is he courting death, but he’s also dragging Xu Yu and Murong Chao down with him.”

“Junior Sister Xu can be said to be naive and deceived by him, but has Murong Chao’s brain been fried as well?”

“It’ll be a great show next year when they can’t pay their contributions!”

Listening to the whispers, Zhang Kuang sneered at Li Jing. “To win over Xu Yu, you even sent Murong Chao to suck up to Qin Haoxuan. Be careful you don’t lose the bait along with the fish. Next year, you’ll have to pay his contribution for him.”

Li Jing just smiled, ignoring the taunt, but a storm was raging in his heart. Zhang Kuang thought he had sent Murong Chao, but he knew he hadn’t. He had only told him to put aside his hatred for now so as not to affect his plans to win over Xu Yu.

Their resolute refusal left Elder Chu helpless. He made a mental note to find a way to separate Qin Haoxuan and Xu Yu, lest he lead an Unsurpassed Purple Seed astray. If the Sect Master blamed him, he couldn’t bear the responsibility.

With a displeased look, he glared at Qin Haoxuan one last time, then gathered the new disciples to begin the practical lesson on planting.

A few menial disciples brought over several bags of seeds: millet, corn, wheat, sweet potatoes, and other common crops.

“The farmland here is relatively barren,” Elder Chu explained. “I suggest you first plant corn and sweet potatoes, as they are easier to grow. After they mature, besides keeping enough for yourselves, you can trade the rest with senior brothers who raise spirit beasts for their manure as fertilizer.” Seeing the disciples’ surprised looks, he continued, “A barren field can be nurtured into a spirit field, as long as you are willing to put in the effort to irrigate it with water from a Spirit Spring and fertilize it with spirit beast manure.”

At the mention of manure, Li Jing and the others wrinkled their noses in disgust. These pampered young masters had never even washed their own clothes; the thought of handling something as disgusting as manure was unthinkable.

However, many of the disciples from poor families had done all sorts of farm work. Hearing that they could turn a barren field into a spirit field, their earlier dejection turned into enthusiasm.

Xu Yu looked worriedly at the hard ground beneath her feet. Although she had listened to Qin Haoxuan, it didn’t mean she was completely convinced this was a spirit field.

The reason she had chosen it was more to protect his pride. And Murong Chao’s reason was even simpler. Firstly, Xu Yu had chosen it, and secondly, after the past few days, his subconscious mind had come to trust Qin Haoxuan completely.

With a wave of Elder Chu’s hand, the disciples got to work. Some went to fetch water from the Spirit Spring, while others began to till the soil and sow the seeds.

Watching the others, Xu Yu said to Qin Haoxuan with a serious expression, “Brother Haoxuan, we have to work hard to irrigate and grow more crops to trade for spirit beast manure. Then we can plant a large patch of spiritual herbs on this land and show them that the land you chose is no worse than theirs!”

Qin Haoxuan, exhausted from the overuse of his Spiritual Sense, just smiled and didn’t explain. He picked up a hoe. “Let’s till the soil first.”

As the hoe struck the hard, dry earth, he felt a sense of contentment. Having shouldered the responsibility of providing for his family since he was a child, fighting fierce beasts in the mountains every day, his greatest wish back then was to have a plot of land like this to farm.

An acre of land wasn’t that big. It would only take half an hour to till it once.