Fearsome Farmer c1-60 Page 12

  The river water was half a meter deep, but it wasn’t a problem for the two of them.

  Old Zhao was as tall as 1.9 meters, and although Li Siwen was only 1.7 meters tall, his 13 points of strength weren’t for a joke. More importantly, he was very experienced.

  Even though the fish washed up at this timing wasn’t easy to catch, the two of them cooperated and caught a big fish. Wasting no words, they only had one thing to do, eat!

  Only those that ended up in their stomach could be considered as theirs.

  chapter 24

  The fish weighed almost 50 kilograms. Li Siwen and Old Zhao had half each. They didn’t light a fire, but only removed the scales and started eating.

  When Old Zhao’s stomach became round and he couldn’t eat anymore, he still had a third of his half remaining.

  As for Li Siwen, he practically ate everything but was only half-full.

  This was the advantage of having 17 points of stamina, being able to eat a lot, and wouldn’t become fat. Yup, the emphasis and essence were on the last word (fat).

  “Brother, you are quite a good person.”

  After being full, Old Zhao threw the rest of his fish to the nine farmers who were already mouthwatering long ago. Sitting on the hill and looking at the water, he said that to Li Siwen.

  However, Li Siwen wasn’t as free and carefree like him. He was pondering on how to make use of Old Zhao’s remaining usefulness and to turn Old Zhao into his biggest protection.

  Because at the current stage he wouldn’t be able to go solo, he wouldn’t be able to survive outside alone. This was an undeniable fact. Therefore, he needed to hide in the territory and develop himself.

  However, this not only required a high-level of technique, but he also needed to create a suitable environment for himself.

  For example, Li Siwen ensured that he stayed as the lowest level farmer. This way, not only could he enjoy the protection from the Feudal Lord, but he also wouldn’t attract the attention of the Feudal Lord.

  Sounds like a perfect plan, right?

  But in fact, this was impossible. Farmers had to complete their share of the task every day and also constantly monitored. They had to start work early and end late, with little free time at all. And in times of crisis, they would be the first to be abandoned.

  And if he dared to even slightly resist or do anything out of the norm, he would be noticed and expose himself.

  Therefore, he needed to befriend someone in the territory who’s at the middle level. Only so would he be able to act with no restriction.

  For example, if he didn’t persuade Old Zhao today to build a hut, he wouldn’t have an excuse to go cut tree. He could only do his work obediently and clear the weeds. If not, Old Zhao would report him, and with no Feudal Lord to make a move, Sun Tieshi alone would give him enough trouble.

  Therefore, he needed to play a little strategy.

  As he thought of this, Li Siwen was also casually chatting with Old Zhao, changing the topic without Old Zhao noticing.

  “Looks like the territory is flooded again.”

  “That’s right. Once there is a rainstorm, it will be flooded. It’s annoying. Looks like we can only sleep in the hut today.”

  “But the Lord doesn’t seem to think of moving the territory, so we can only take it as it is. But speaking of which, Old Zhao, have you ever considered why the wheat fields aren’t important to the Lord?” Li Siwen guided Old Zhao’s thoughts along.

  “What do you want to say?” Old Zhao wasn’t a fool too. He instantly asked cautiously.

  “What I want to say is that we can’t do anything when the territory is being flooded. But you saw too that 30 acres of the 50 acres of wheat fields are flooded too. Shouldn’t we do something about it?”

  “Do what?” Old Zhao subconsciously asked, but immediately said, “Brother, don’t create trouble. I am grateful for today, but I will definitely not allow you to trick me.”

  “Ha! Why will I trick you? I am just thinking about what food we will have during winter. Do you see that snow mountain, that means that there is definitely winter in this place. By that time, there won’t be rain, meaning no fish that’s coming to our doorstep. What will we eat then?”

  “What will we eat?” The focus in Old Zhao’s eyes was a bit scattered. “But it’s only summer now.”

  “Therefore, no one thinks the wheat fields are important. Oh, that’s not right. At least the Lord values the wheat fields. He knows that when winter comes, all creatures will be in hiding. That’s why we must farm to survive through winter. But as you can see, the Lord is very busy, he has too many things to take care of and can’t care for farming too. And you, Zhao Da, the warrior that the Lord has praised before and praised again just now, don’t you think that if you don’t do something about it, you will not live up to the expectation the Lord has of you?” Li Siwen stared at Old Zhao solemnly.

  “What the heck, brother, don’t use words to lure me. Could it be that you have a solution?”

  Old Zhao’s mind was very sober. He was full of the desire to survive.

  “Very simple, build a dam. I saw just now that when the wheat fields are flooded, it’s only half a person deep. We just have to build a dam to block the water. As long as we can preserve these 50 acres of wheat fields, we will have enough food to eat during winter. Do you think the Lord won’t reward you heavily if this happens?”

  Li Siwen tried his best to make it sound as simple as possible. It really is very simple. It’s just that he wasn’t sure why the Feudal Lord didn’t think of this.

  Old Zhao went quiet. After a long while, he stared at Li Siwen and said in a deep voice, “Don’t you want to be rewarded by the Lord?”

  Great, this fellow was getting suspicious.

  However, Li Siwen wasn’t surprised. After all, this fellow wasn’t stupid. But so what?

  Therefore, he purposely gave a bitter laugh.

  “Zhao Da, I shall be honest with you. It’s because my luck isn’t good. Previously, I was obviously the one who killed the grey wolf, but the Lord mistakenly gave the credit to you. At that time, I could have raised this up. My ax had blood on the blade, but your ax was lost outside. But could I have spoken the truth at that time? If I had, would your arm have been cured in a single night? Do you think that Sun Tieshi would have been so generous to cure you? You would have died, Old Zhao.”

  “But I really didn’t expect that because of such a small thing, the Lord would use a precious fire amulet and turn you into a Fire Guard from a lumberjack. Do you know? Even until now, I regret it so much that I wish to strangle you to death!”

  Li Siwen angrily roared in a low voice, “Especially when you didn’t even know that I had saved you, but even came running up to me and act high and mighty in front of me, my wish to kill you is even stronger than your wish to kill me to silence me!”

  “But you should thank Sun Tieshi. That fellow didn’t like me and always tried to kill me. But I had lost my chance to for the Lord to notice me. Do you understand that? I don’t have a chance anymore! That’s why I need someone with enough authority to protect me from Sun Tieshi, that’s why I need to help you plan so much rubbish stuff.”

  Hearing Li Siwen’s explanation, Old Zhao hurriedly placed a smile on his face and said, “Brother, don’t be angry, I am just a normal uneducated man, but I am definitely not an ungrateful one. Don’t worry, once the water receded tomorrow, we will start building the dam. I will take the lead. If that bastard tries to find your trouble again, I definitely won’t allow him to.”

  Li Siwen stared at Old Zhao, then pretended to spit out a bad breath after a long while. He slowed down his speed of talking, trying to act very sincere.

  “Actually, there isn’t a rush in building the dam, but after we catch some fish later, bring some to Old Song. Old Zhao, say sorry, say some friendly words, having another friend is always better than having another enemy.”

  Without a doubt, these words would move Old Zhao even mo
re than all the other stuff he had said.

  As expected, Old Zhao was excited. After all, his conflict with Song Hu had almost become a thorn in his heart. This was much more to his liking than building a dam.

  “Brother, you are really my brother! How can I forget this matter! You are right! Then, I shall trouble you to look after things here for me, I shall go and catch some fish now.”

  Old Zhao hurriedly ran off.

  As for Li Siwen, for a split second, his eyes were so deep that it couldn’t be measured.

  chapter 25

  Li Siwen sat alone on the hill, rubbing his chin and pondering about his plan to create a suitable environment for himself.

  It looked like his first step was a success, making use of Old Zhao’s guilty conscience to let him think that Li Siwen had saved his life. But Li Siwen was clear of what the actual situation was. Would Li Siwen have dared to let the Feudal Lord take heavy notice of him?

  Basically, he should have gotten rid of Old Zhao’s suspicions by now. If Li Siwen made any more suggestions, Old Zhao wouldn’t think of resisting anymore or suspecting him.

  As for letting Old Zhao befriend Song Hu, this was the second step of his plan. Of course, he was unsure whether Song Hu would accept Old Zhao’s apology. But at least this would lessen Song Hu’s dislike of Old Zhao. When Old Zhao made some more contributions and the Lord praised him, Song Hu naturally wouldn’t seek Old Zhao’s problem anymore. After all, his loyalty towards the Feudal Lord was enough to change many things.

  As for Sun Tieshi, why would a person like him purposely want to kill a small fellow like Li Siwen? Sun Tieshi was telling Li Siwen off because he saw Li Siwen being lazy, that’s all.

  Li Siwen also wouldn’t really target Sun Tieshi. He said this to Old Zhao only because he wanted to get rid of Old Zhao’s suspicion.

  For now, as long as there wasn’t any accident, Li Siwen should be safe in the territory. Only by doing this would he be able to hide and develop himself in a very technical manner.

  Opening his attribute bar, Li Siwen looked at stamina first. After eating half a fish, his stamina was recovering very steadily, already reaching eight points. Once he ate another fish later, his stamina should reach the maximum of 17 points by evening.

  Next, he looked at the yellow orb. The 14 Spirit Points were dazzling inside. Now, he had three options.

  First, continue adding them to his Spirit and increase his Spirit Development.

  Second, add them to the farming skill.

  Third, add them to the woodcutting skill.

  That’s right, this woodcutting skill appeared today. The cause might be the number of trees he cut, or maybe it was more of a qualitative improvement. Either way, this skill was automatically generated in his attribute bar.

  However, from the description of this level one woodcutting skill, it was as useless as the farming skill.

  In theory, Li Siwen should prioritize adding his points to his Spirit to increase his Spirit Development and enhance his Spirit Vision.

  But after some thinking, especially now that he was sure that the Feudal Lord’s martial power had increased again, the odds of the territory being in danger and falling apart have dropped even more. Since he wouldn’t be going solo anytime soon and was also unlikely to meet any danger that might threaten his life in the near future, it would be a bit of a waste for now to increase his Spirit Development.

  Because Li Siwen was constantly worried about what would happen once winter came.

  Without food, what if the low-level farmers would be abandoned? What if he still did not go solo by then? What if the wild beasts in winter became even more ferocious? What if the winter here would be extremely cold? What if some kind of unimaginable danger befalls him?

  Impolitely speaking, he planned even further ahead than that boorish Feudal Lord.

  Therefore, in such a situation, it was necessary to do some things beneficial to the entire team. For example, suggesting to Old Zhao to build a farm, and to build a dam. From the appearance, these didn’t seem to be related to him, since he would be going solo eventually, so why waste energy on these? Wasn’t cutting trees and collecting Vitality Point every day good enough?

  But this wasn’t how one should look at things.

  The farmers were dying because of many reasons, but he was still alive time after time, wouldn’t that be very strange?

  If Old Zhao didn’t make any contribution and wasn’t valued by the Feudal Lord, and had no authority if he was caught by Sun Tieshi not clearing weeds but instead cutting trees, just a few words from him were enough to send Li Siwen to hell.

  Only normal people walk one step and plan one step.

  Walking one step but planning three steps was the way Li Siwen lived his life.

  And if he wished to survive in this mysterious world and to live very well, he needed to plan at least 10 steps with every step he took.

  In actual fact, even so, sometimes he would encounter unimaginable problems that would disrupt his plans. Therefore, he needed to make as many preparations as possible. Leaving behind more escape routes was definitely not a bad thing.

  “Then, let’s increase the farming skill first since I am going to kill more fish later.”

  Thinking of this, Li Siwen extracted one Spirit Point. But what dazed him next was that when he added it to the farming skill, there wasn’t any change.

  Luckily, he reacted very quickly, instantly adding a second point to it. Only then did the farming skill level up by one level.

  “Farming Level Two. Description: Ordinary people need three years of diligent farming to obtain this ability. Able to plant common crops proficiently. This skill needs to be accurately released in farmland with a unit area of no more than five acres and no less than one acre, and ensure that the participation from the planting to harvesting of crops reaches 50%. Farmland will increase production by 5%. On this basis, for every 10% increase in participation, farmland production will increase by 5%.”

  “Note one: Participation includes deep plowing, sowing, watering, fertilizing, weeding, disinfesting, hilling, and harvesting.”

  “Note two: Once this skill is released, it cannot be changed. If the participation rate is less than 50% or the farmland is destroyed by uncontrollable forces, the release of this skill will fail, and it needs a cooldown of one month before it can be used again.”

  —

  “What the heck, that’s awesome?”

  After reading the description, Li Siwen was surprised. But considering it carefully, he felt that something was wrong. Because even using no special skill, for a normal wheat field, if he had cleared the weeds, did hilling, watered the wheat field, and completed all the other aspects, it might be possible to increase the production by not just 5%, but even 10%.

  Therefore, this skill wasn’t able to digitalize the operation of the farmland, but to monitor the operation digitally. To be specific, it meant that he still had to do the work. There didn’t exist such a thing as casting a spell on the farmland and let it grow by itself.

  Li Siwen continued to level it up. This time, he was experienced. He directly added four points to the farming skill. As expected, he guessed wrongly again. In the end, he had no choice but to add another four points to make it level up. It wasn’t played by the books at all.

  But upon reaching level three, the farming skill became rather luxurious.

  “Farming Level Three. Description: Ordinary people need ten years of diligent farming to obtain this ability. Able to plant common crops excellently and also plant some common herbs.”

  “This skill needs to be accurately released in farmland with a unit area of up to ten acres and at least one acre, and ensure that the participation from crop planting to harvesting reaches 50%, then the farmland per unit area will increase by 15%. On this basis, for every 5% increase in participation, farmland production will increase by 5%.”

  “Note: If the participation rate reaches 80%, when harvesting the farmland, in a
ddition to obtaining sufficient food crops with increased production, also obtain Vitality Points per acre, which are 10 points per acre of farmland. On this basis, for every 1% increase in participation, obtain one extra Vitality Point.”

  chapter 26

  “It seems like I have to be a farmer.”

  Li Siwen thought merrily. The post leveling-up effect of farming abilities really gave him a tremendous surprise and also made him more confident about his plans for the future.

  At that moment, he couldn’t even care to go fishing. He headed right towards the area where there was no backflow of river water, chose the flattest, most complete wheat field where there were the most seedlings and where he had done an enormous amount of weeding. Focusing his attention in his heart, he lit up the level three farming ability.

  Several seconds later, Li Siwen did not notice any miraculous situation within the wheat field. Instead, his Attribute Bar now had a 3D wheat field model.

  Beneath the model was a string of data:

  Farmland acreage: 4.37 acres (calculated as 4 acres)

  Farmland quality: Average (click to see more)

  Farmland cultivation status: Demonized spring wheat ? ?

  Farmland estimated total output: 1587 kg

  Farmland estimated harvest time: Remaining 70 days

  Farmland sowing participation rate: 0, deducting 5% of participation rate

  Farmland fertilizing participation rate: 0, deducting 10% of participation rate

  Farmland hoeing participation rate: Already weeded 80 thousand stalks (other farmers’ hoeing section will be included too), participation rate +10%, within the next one month, continuing to do hoeing can grant you 20% of participation rate.

  Farmland cultivation participation rate: 0, within the next one month, completing the cultivation of wheat can grant you 5% of participation rate.

  Farmland irrigation and drainage participation rate: Current irrigation index 100, participation rate +10%, a month later, when wheat enters grain filling stage, irrigation index 100 will grant 10% of participation rate (Note: Rainfall will automatically be included into participation rate), and, if irrigation index exceeds 120, drainage participation will be unlocked.