Chapter 182: Chapter 144: Planting Flowers, Planting Trees, Renovation Begins

Li Xiang beckoned for Er Huang to come to his side. He placed a hand on Er Huang’s head, sending his Spiritual Power inside to check on him.

"Hmm, good boy. Your aptitude is a little lacking, but you’re getting close."

Er Huang, encouraged by his master, wagged his tail and shook his head happily.

In the dead of night, Li Xiang told the dog and the fox to keep quiet if they could help it, then went to sleep.

Early in the morning, while letting out the chickens, ducks, and geese, Li Xiang picked up the goslings one by one to inspect them. He finally identified the two with Extraordinary potential.

One was a male, with a large head and long legs. When held upside down, its head kept trying to crane upward, giving it an air of "never bowing down." When placed on the ground, it wobbled as it ran. This was the Tier Five mutant Red-Crowned Silver-Feathered Goose.

The other was a female, slightly smaller in size. Its beak was different from the others—it was black, and it also had some black feathers on its body. When it pooped, it stuck its butt out and seemed to strain quite a bit. This was the Tier Three mutant Black-Beaked Dark-Feathered Goose.

Of course, at the moment, they were just ordinary goslings. They hadn’t mutated yet and didn’t stand out among the others.

Li Xiang naturally gave these two goslings special attention. He took out a very small cluster of Tier One berries. There were over a dozen on the cluster, and each was only about the size of a mung bean.

First, he caught the male. He pried open its small beak, but the little guy resisted and struggled. How could something so small overpower its master’s strong fingers?

Its small beak was easily pried open, facing upward.

Li Xiang crushed one of the small berries he had prepared and dripped the juice in, then rubbed in the remaining pulp. He even scraped his finger on the gosling’s hard beak. ’Can’t let what’s stuck to my skin go to waste.’

The gosling’s eyes immediately lit up, and its expression was no longer resistant. When Li Xiang let go, it went GOBBLE GOBBLE, opening and closing its beak, savoring the delicious taste as if it were the best thing it had ever eaten.

When Li Xiang walked away to catch the female, the little male gander wobbled after him. The little thing was already getting attached.

Li Xiang caught the female gosling and repeated the process, feeding it a small berry. The female was much more docile and barely resisted at all. However, the moment the Spiritual Medicine went down its throat, its eyes clearly lit up as well.

"Go on, play. That’s all for today." Li Xiang wouldn’t try to force their growth. They were still too young, and eating too much would be bad for them.

Geese actually have quite a long lifespan. Barring human-inflicted harm or disease, they can typically live for 25 to 50 years.

Moreover, a goose’s combat prowess is formidable. Once grown, it becomes the village tyrant.

There’s a folk saying: "Better to be chased by a dog than bitten by a goose."

Once a goose bites down, it won’t let go. It might even latch onto a piece of your flesh and perform a "Thomas Flair" spin. They are especially adept at attacking weak spots—like your junk. The feeling is, shall we say, memorably excruciating.

Some people might ask: geese don’t even have teeth, so why does it hurt so much when they bite? And how can they bite and not let go?

That’s because their flat beaks are exceptionally hard. The saying "a duck’s beak is hard" is famous for a reason, and a goose’s beak is even harder than a duck’s.

Besides, it’s not that they don’t have teeth; they’re just not obvious.

A large goose not only has teeth, but three rows of them—upper, middle, and lower. Even its tongue is covered in teeth. Some experts point out that what a goose has aren’t technically teeth but a toothed beak, a structure that actually belongs to an extinct giant prehistoric bird.

...

In the backyard, the scent of rapeseed flowers filled the air, and on the peach tree’s few branches, over thirty peach blossoms bloomed with an enchanting beauty.

With the gentle spring breeze and frequent rain, the persimmon tree had also sprouted many small, tender green leaves. Persimmon trees bloom later, however, typically from May to June.

Li Xiang and his grandmother began sowing vegetable seeds. Li Xiang also made many small signs, which he stuck in the ground at the ends of the rows to label what was what. His grandmother laughed, saying he’d read too many books and gone silly—who in the countryside does that?

Li Xiang replied, "People in agricultural science use small signs for their research. And I didn’t make them for you. I was thinking that once the scenic area is finished, if tourists come to visit our yard, it’ll be easier for them to identify things. You know how city folk can’t tell their grains apart and don’t recognize a lot of crops."

His backyard was separated from the Holy Realm Garden by a single wall. To make it easier for him to get to work, he designed a large gate in the wall—a circular archway like those found in Su Gardens, with the lovely name "Moon Gate."

This type of gateway is named for its resemblance to a full moon on the fifteenth day of the lunar month.

The Moon Gate has only a frame and no door panels. At the top, there is a horizontal plaque where Li Xiang would personally inscribe the characters. On the front: "Li Garden." On the back: "Bright Moon and Clear Wind."

Since this gate is never closed, it’s possible that tourists might pass through the Moon Gate to visit his backyard.

Since they paid for a ticket, Li Xiang welcomed them to visit the backyard. Besides, his backyard had the Chicken Blood Stone Jungle, the War Drum Pavilion, the village gala stage, a persimmon tree, and traditional-style architecture (the main house, kitchen, and covered walkway). It also had a persimmon tree, a peach tree, and neat rows of vegetable patches. He also planned to plant many flowers and fruit trees to ensure something was always in bloom year-round. It would definitely be something to be proud of!

Putting everything else aside, just the persimmon tree alone in autumn and winter, laden with red fruit against the backdrop of the traditional architecture with its upturned eaves and small Divine Beasts, would attract countless people to take photos and post online. The pictures would be absolutely beautiful!

If it snowed, it would be even more beautiful—like golden lamps hung with jade, or fire bathing in snow.

They were planting so many vegetables that they could never possibly eat them all. But since Li Xiang had already tilled the land in the front and back yards, so close to the house, his grandmother felt it would be a waste not to plant something.

Before, no one was around to till the soil, and she was too old and frail to manage it all, so she planted very little.

Now that his grandmother had taken Li Xiang’s Spiritual Medicine, she was much healthier than in previous years. Li Xiang thought that planting more vegetables would give her something to do, keep her from getting bored, and be good for her health.

As for the leftovers, they could give them to familiar families in the village, like Third Granny.

Third Granny grew some of her own vegetables, but since she was alone, she didn’t have much variety. She could come over to Li Xiang’s house and pick some to try something new.

They could also send some to his Little Aunt. His Little Aunt lived in the city, where groceries were expensive.

And finally, they could chop up the rest to feed the chickens, ducks, and geese.

Li Xiang had originally planned to raise piglets, but feeding pigs was too smelly. If the wind blew the stench next door, it would hurt the scenic area’s image and ruin the tourists’ mood.

Just imagine: someone is enjoying a drink in the National Style Tavern, a teahouse, or a coffee shop, when suddenly a foul stench wafts over. Wouldn’t that be nauseating?

Chickens, ducks, and geese were relatively better in that regard.

As for the New Year’s pig slaughter, there were plenty of wild boars around anyway. When the time came, he could just go into the deep mountains and catch a few. He had been eating cured meat made from wild boar almost every day recently, and the texture was quite good. Having been marinated with many spices, smoked with pine and cypress branches, and air-dried for a long time, its gamy taste was already very faint. When stir-fried with some chili peppers, scallions, ginger, garlic, and cooking wine, it was delicious.

Catching wild boars was difficult for other teams, but for him, it was a piece of cake. He had recently seen a news report about a certain place putting out a tender for wild boar capture. A company had won the bid with a bounty of 900,000 for 300 boars.

In the end, that company abandoned the contract.

The main reason was that the official regulations explicitly forbade the use of guns, poison, and crossbows... all sorts of things were banned. The people from that company complained, "Are you asking us to go brawl with wild boars that weigh several hundred pounds?"

boars for only 900,000—that’s just 3,000 yuan per head. ’To hell with that, whoever wants that job can have it.’

If even one person got injured or killed during the capture, that amount of money wouldn’t even cover the medical bills.

The official account of the place that issued the tender @’d Li Xiang, inviting him to do the job. Li Xiang politely declined.

Well, if he had been short on money like in the past, he definitely would have taken the job. But now he was busy with all sorts of things every day, and it was too far away, so he decided against it.

Gardening with his grandmother, Li Xiang learned a lot. His grandmother had been farming her whole life and had far more experience than he did.

Daylilies could actually be planted in both spring and autumn. In spring, from March to April, the temperature is suitable and rainfall is plentiful, which is conducive to the growth and development of daylily seedlings. In autumn, planting is usually done between September and October. Most store-bought daylilies were sprinkled with sulfur powder. His grandmother loved to eat daylilies, so Li Xiang felt it was better to grow their own.

Li Xiang also planted the gourd seeds from before, "dotting" them along the wall next to the kitchen that faced the Holy Realm Garden. When the time came, many small gourds would grow and hang on the wall, creating a unique and scenic view.

Gourds are climbing vines, so once they grew a bit bigger, Li Xiang would build some elegant bamboo trellises for them to climb on.

Additionally, Li Xiang planted many types of flowers: wintersweet, flowering crabapple, hollyhock, Chinese rose, cockscomb, hydrangea, magnolia, cherry blossom, and redbud.

Aunt Jiang also brought over two Autumn Moon Pear saplings, which he planted as well. Aunt Jiang’s family had a large pear tree, and Li Xiang had eaten its fruit last year when he first returned. The tree had produced many saplings this year, so when Aunt Jiang came by for a visit and saw Li Xiang planting this and that, she asked if he wanted any. Of course, he did.

Aunt Jiang’s Autumn Moon Pears were crisp, sweet, juicy, and melted in your mouth—a rare and excellent variety.

The house had been left to air out for a long time, and the construction company came to inspect it. The walls were completely dry, so the interior work could begin.

Right now, the focus was on the hard renovations: plumbing, electricity, gas, underfloor heating, tiling, wood flooring, central air conditioning, and toilets. Some of the soft furnishings were also being started at the same time. Li Xiang asked the three girls—Yao Yao, Zhao Xueqing, and Lei Xiaohui—to help with the selection and arrangement.

He didn’t ask them to help for free, of course; he treated them to big meals.

The three girls were also more than happy to do it. They spent every day discussing things with great enthusiasm, and it seemed like there was much less friction between them.

The work involved in soft furnishings was actually immense, with countless choices for things like sofas, coffee tables, beds, dining tables, wardrobes, desks, chandeliers, table lamps, wall sconces, spotlights, decorations, ornaments, curtains, refrigerators, TVs, projectors, sound systems... and on and on. As a man, Li Xiang found this kind of work a bit difficult and lacked the patience for it. But the three girls all had good aesthetic sense—definitely better than his.