Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn-Chapter 32 - 31 botanical garden

At 4:10 in the afternoon, not long after the dismissal bell rang, several boys gathered by the basketball court of East China International College. Taking the lead was Li Ran, who had lost a front tooth after being unexpectedly struck in the face by Zhou Ziang that day, which led to Li Ran spending over a month in the hospital with a dislocated jaw.

Standing on the basketball court, dribbling the ball, and shooting one precise three-pointer after another was Zhou Ziang, who just last month was self-isolating at home, refusing to come to school.

"Brother Ang, do you want a Coke? I just bought it, chilled and everything," Li Ran's speech whistled slightly due to the aftereffects of that heavy slam.

Zhou Ziang, drenched in sweat after his warm-up, decided not to pay any further attention to Li Ran. He greeted the seniors on the court and turned away, leaving behind Li Ran, grinning painfully from the cold soda.

"Ptui, what a piece of work. Acting all cool, you think you're Liuchuan Feng? If it weren't for your father being Zhou Qiang, I would've beaten you to the point where you couldn't tell north from south a long time ago," Li Ran still couldn't believe that it was Zhou Ziang who had sent him to the hospital that day.

Look at Zhou Ziang, just a skinny pole, with skin as white as a woman's. How could someone like that knock down him, an athlete with a budding six-pack?

"Brother Ran, isn't he just the son of a vice director of the Agriculture Bureau? Didn't you say you were the best at 'competing with fathers'?" Li Ran's fair-weather friends couldn't understand why, after a hospital stay, Li Ran had gone from arrogant to deferring.

"You fools don't understand. His dad is about to get promoted. I don't know what sort of luck has befallen those two," Li Ran had heard from his father, Li Gang, that Zhou Qiang of the Agriculture Bureau was soon to be promoted to Beijing, as the agricultural expo he planned this year was very successful and caught the Central Government's attention.

"Brother Ran, stop cursing. Didn't you see those seniors on the basketball court staring us down? Really can't figure out how that guy went from being antisocial to the school's 'Basketball Prince' in less than a month? He's treated like a deity everywhere."

Zhou Ziang left the school gates and encountered a few enthusiastically greeting female classmates. He nodded politely and headed toward the subway station.

"Hey, your classmate Zhou Ziang is quite handsome, why didn't I notice before," one of the girls said, smitten as she watched Zhou Ziang walk away.

"Right? He's really making waves now. Praised by teachers, adored by classmates, I heard he scored first in grade level in the mock exam last month."

Walking into the subway station, Zhou Ziang looked at the stops. He didn't plan to head home right away but chose a station in the exact opposite direction, "Shanghai Botanical Garden."

Crowded with people, every time Zhou Ziang stepped into either a subway carriage or a classroom, he felt the urge to turn around and leave. His reputation was now almost as good as Yun Guanzi's: equally talented and similarly mild and modest. But Zhou Ziang knew in his heart, he was afraid of the world.

This mentality was due to the spiritual energy in his space growing increasingly scarce. All the magics he was proficient in, except for Cloud Ascension Technique, had vanished.

Once the spiritual energy in his space was completely depleted, he would likely lose even the spiritual power to use the Cloud Ascension Technique.

Yun Guanzi could adapt to the most complicated environments and the most hypocritical faces, but he couldn't bear to live and die like an ordinary person, leading a life of mediocrity without accomplishment.

Before his cultivation, Yun Guanzi had loving parents and a privileged family background, yet he was inherently indifferent and pursued the path of immortality all his life. After stepping into the realm of cultivation, he cut off worldly ties and disconnected from all passions and desires.

Such a temperament was now reflected in Zhou Ziang.

The first to notice the changes in her son was Xi Lijuan, his mother, who grieved in secret, lamenting that her son had not even called her "Mom" recently.

Zhou Qiang, on the other hand, didn't react much; as long as his son became more normal, it didn't matter if he was distant. After all, it had been years since his son last called him "Dad."

"I hope to discover something at the botanical garden this time," Zhou Ziang had tried various methods. The vegetative coverage rate in Shanghai was too low, and the plants were artificially cultivated secondary gardens, from which his space could absorb very little Spiritual Energy.

After multiple attempts, he confirmed that the most Spiritual Energy his Gold Grade Space could feel within a day was at around four to five in the afternoon. So for the past month, he would not immediately go home after class every day. He either exercised to increase this body's capability to absorb Spiritual Energy in cooperation with the space, or he went to places with lush vegetation to obtain limited Spiritual Power.

After searching through countless materials, Zhou Ziang had confirmed that the so-called Spiritual Energy in this world should indeed be the substance defined as oxygen in textbooks.

During his time in Yunteng, the coverage of vegetation was remarkably high, the population density was low, and Yunteng's crops carried out photosynthesis day and night, releasing oxygen, which made the Spiritual Energy always abundant. But in this new world, plants only performed photosynthesis during the daytime and emitted Spiritual Energy (oxygen). The people of this world survived on oxygen, and he dared not nor could he absorb too much Spiritual Energy (oxygen).

At night when only respiration occurred, without Spiritual Energy, the absorption of Spiritual Energy was limited to daytime.

Facing such a change, Zhou Ziang had no choice but to accept it. He could only adjust his attitude and absorb the limited Spiritual Energy.

Zhou Ziang did not know that in a deep mountain in the Southwest of China, there was a six-year-old girl from the same sect as him but with a completely different cultivation method.

The cultivation waste of the Yunteng Continent, Zhou Xiaoxian's space, even the Sect Leader of Yunteng had never seen through it. Her space was not "trash," but a Chaotic Space never before seen in Yunteng Sect.

The omnipresent Spiritual Energy (oxygen) in Yunteng was useless to her space, but the waste gas (carbon dioxide) from the increasingly severe greenhouse effect in the new world was the optimal Spiritual Energy for her "trash" space to cultivate with.

That is Fate, unpredictable and impartial, capable of bringing someone down from the clouds and making someone else a top figure of the world.

As soon as he entered the botanical garden, Zhou Ziang's eyebrows lifted; as he expected, the abundant wild plants planted in the Shanghai Botanical Garden slowly emitted a stream of Spiritual Energy (oxygen).

Compared to other parts of the city surrounded by skyscrapers, it was more plentiful. After walking a few steps in the botanical garden, Zhou Ziang stopped by a 500-year-old locust tree, from which a surge of pure Spiritual Energy emanated.

The fresh air made his thoughts more agile. Merely traveling to and fro the botanical garden was insufficient; he had to find other means to supplement his Spiritual Energy.

"Teacher, why is this watermelon square?" Also in the botanical garden was a group of primary school students led by their teacher. Not long after entering the botanical garden, they were captivated by a square-shaped mutant watermelon and gathered around the foreign watermelon chattering excitedly.

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