Carrying a Hoe to Cultivate

Seeing that he was awake, everyone exhaled in relief and sat around him.

“Xia. You scared the shit out of us. Just now, you cried and shed tears, you even struggled, kicked and swung your fists around. Now that you are pregnant, all of us are afraid of something happening to you. How are we supposed to tell our leader about that by then?” While supporting him to stand up, Qing Xiu said, still recovering from the shock.

Xia Yi had already calmed down by now. His pale face had regained some of its pink color on it.

Upon hearing Qing Xiu’s words, he immediately used his hands to touch his own belly.

It was still there.

Then he patted it with some force. In response, an area of his belly popped out a little. It was his baby kicking in discontent.

Alright alright. Xia Yi finally felt better.

With this scene, everyone around him showed complicated expressions with mixed feelings.

Xia Yi began to observe around him, making Qing Xiu hurried and introduced an elegant cultivator with a long beard beside him, “Xia. This is the Elder that you had never met, Tian Xuan.”

So this was his so-called master. He had to greet him then.

Tian Xuan saw Xia Yi struggling to move a bit, then he hurriedly raised his hand to stop him from doing so, “There is no need for you to do that. Just rest.”

As it was not convenient for him to move with his large belly, he did not insist on being polite and only greeted Tian Xuan with words.

With Qing Xiu’s help, he sat down, still looking around.

Surrounding him was a naturally formed cave about the size of half a basketball court. Light shed from the very top of the cave, making the area very bright. There were around a hundred people in the cave, all standing or sitting chaotically. Seeing Xia Yi looking at them, they all nodded and greeted him tiredly. All of them were wearing Qi Shan Sect’s uniform, all looking blank and yellowish.

These must be the missing apprentices and leader of Qi Shan Sect.

Qing Xiu saw the scene and smiled bitterly towards Xia Yi, “Right. Our missing apprentices are all here. Now that we are too.”

“What’s this place?” Xia Yi asked, but his voice was so hoarse that he felt as if his voice did not belong to him.

Qing Xiu quickly used a gourd bowl to fetch him some water. Feeding him water, Qing Xiu answered him, “I was awake a little earlier than you did. When I woke up, I was already here.” 

“We are inside Mount Shi Hu. The area is enchanted and we cannot get out.” One of the apprentices sitting on the side for a long time replied.

Xia Yi looked at him, and so Tian Xuan sighed, “We had been fed poison by Cheng Yu Wan of the demonic world. Our power thus cannot be moved inside us and we are not able to break the enchanted area to get out. We all tried every kind of medicine that we had, but we still failed to heal ourselves.”

Cheng Yu Wan? How does this name sound so familiar?

In an instant, some scenes flashed in Xia Yi’s mind:

Wang Lan turned to leave in anger, but Ze Yuan laughed and pulled him into his arms, “I was not trying to avoid you. It’s just that the elder of the demonic world had been rebelling with some troops and wanted to eliminate my father.”

Wang Lan immediately stopped being furious, he turned to ask with concern, “How did that end? Did he succeed?”

Ze Yuan’s hands went under Wang Lan’s clothes, and he mumbled with Wang Lan’s earlobe in his mouth, “He is not capable of doing so. And I wouldn’t be here if he succeeded.”

“Then are you hurt?” Wang Lan took that hand in his clothes out and asked with a serious expression.

“No. He has already been locked up in the cell of the demonic world prison.”

After saying so, Ze Yuan carried Wang Lan up and walked towards a small cottage beside them, “Without seeing you for days, I seriously need some reward from you.”

……

Cheng Yu Wan. Right. The Elder of the demonic world. The one who Ze Yuan locked up.

“Isn’t Cheng Yu Wan being locked up? When did he come out? How is he taking so many of us?” Xia Yi asked.

Tian Xuan laughed bitterly, “Who knows? After being forced to take the power-draining pills, we have been locked up here all along. We don’t know what he’s up to.”

“179. Check it out for me, see if there is anyone other than us around.”

A moment later, 179’s voice rang, “Host. This is a distant mountain. There is no one except you.”

Xia Yi then became frustrated, “Then what are we gonna do? Zhu must have found out that I was not there. He must be searching for me frantically. The baby and the mother of the baby are missing. How can he be calm? And we don’t know when we are going to get out.”

“Master. What do you eat for all the time you are here?” Xia Yi knew that except Tian Xuan who had been practising inedia, all the other apprentices still needed to eat.

One of the apprentices lying beside them answered tiredly, “Xia. Saying less helps to retain your energy. You can have some moss from here. Don’t waste your energy.”

Then he looked at his belly, “Let alone you need to use it to give birth to your child.”

When he finished, all the apprentices around him turned to look at his belly.

These people had experienced the state of being shocked, then Qing Xiu’s messy explanation about the baby being a grandson of Ciang Yi, and now everybody had accepted the fact that he was pregnant with correct mindsets.

Xia Yi suddenly felt embarrassed, he faked coughing for a couple of times, and he used his hands to hold his belly which was as big as a winter gourd.

Winter gourd, right, system space.

“179. I remember that I have stored tons of potatoes in the system space. Go and see if they are still there.” Xia Yi summoned the system merrily.

“Host. They are. All of your harvest is stored in space.” 179 answered.

“Quick. Quick. Quick. Take the potatoes out.” Xia Yi sat up straight.

“Host. Are you sure you want to take them all out? I doubt that they will fill up the whole cave.” 179 replied with suspicion.

“Then take piles. One pile.” Xia Yi almost burst out and laughed at this point.

If there was food, there was no problem. They could figure their way out slowly after filling their stomachs.

Some elite apprentices who were lying on the ground in extreme hunger heard someone screaming in disbelief, “Potato! It’s a potato!”

“He must have gone mad due to starvation. We have nearly scratched up all the moss in the cave. How will there be any potatoes?” The apprentices thought, but they still looked towards where they heard the screams.

By now, all of them were stunned.

They saw a small hill of round and brown things appear on the ground in the middle of the cave.

With that shape, what could it be if it’s not a potato?

Already some of the apprentices had climbed up and staggered towards that small hill. The others did not even have the time to stop him and he had picked one up.

He looked at the item from both sides, then he used his fingertips to scratch off some skin of it. He then yelled in surprise, “It is really a potato. Really.”

All the apprentices had gathered some spirits to stand up.

Some of them lit fires, searching for wood inside the enchanted area in the cave, producing a lot of cooked potatoes immediately.

They shoved the potatoes down their throats, and kept burying potatoes into the burning ashes.

Qing Xiu picked up two potatoes in his hands as well. He patted and blew at them, then gave Xia Yi the potatoes, “Xia. Go ahead.”

Seeing that Xia Yi was not taking the potatoes, he then said, “Screw it. These fell from the sky. I don’t care if they are poisoned or not, at least we do not have to starve to death. And now you need energy to give birth to a child.”

All the apprentices who were chewing the potatoes agreed, “Yes. Yes. You still need to labor.”

In the end, this was the cultivation world. Everyone was fine with movable spaces. However, it was still amazing for Xia Yi to carry this many potatoes with him on his way.

With everyone stuffed, Xia Yi took out carrots and onions, “Hi all. These are some gifts from me. Please have them. Thank you. Thank you.”

Then people began to scream in shock. Some of them even cried in joy.

Even Tian Xuan took that onion to appreciate it repetitively, not wanting to let it go. Xia Yi looked at them with a smiling face, then suddenly there was something in his palm. He looked down to see a purple little fruit as big as a pea.

“179. What’s this?” Xia Yi looked at the small fruit, asking the system.

“Oh. That’s wrong. I wanted to take out two onions, but I accidentally took the fennel seeds out which were put together with the onions.” System explained swiftly.

“Fennel seed? This is a fennel seed?” Xia Yi raised that purple fruit in front of his eyes, observing it with narrowed eyes.

“Yes. Fennel seed. Have you forgotten? You planted onions for half of that 25 points of land, the other half with fennels. Then I put them together when we harvested them.” 179 answered.

Xia Yi laughed coldly, “Good. Fennel seeds.”

Then he placed that purple fruit on his palm and let Tian Xuan see it, “Master. Take a look at this. I have some on me too but I don’t know them.”

Tian Xuan put the onions and carrots carefully away, then looked at Xia Yi’s palm. He took one to look, shaking his head, “I don’t know either.” He was preparing to give it back to Xia Yi, then he hesitated, “Wait. I recalled seeing it in one of our books. Let me think.”

Tian Xuan put that fruit under the light to observe it carefully, frowning, thinking hard.

Xia Yi saw that he did not recognize it and he prepared to retrieve the left fennel seeds to let Ciang Yi check them out later.

At this moment, Tian Xuan burst out an astonished scream, “I remember. This is the fruit of Life and Death.”

Everyone looked up at him. Tian Xuan excitedly explained, “Life and death. The exact opposites. This fruit is called the fruit of Life and Death because of its effect of enabling a person to become lively again when he was in his gravest state.”

“This is a very rare anti-poison item. I have never seen one before. I have only read about it from a picture book in the library. So I did not recall immediately.” Tian Xuan circled in the cave in excitement, then he came to Xia Yi to ask, “Yi. Where did you get this?”

Just after saying this, he did not wait for Xia Yi to answer but thought of something himself, he laughed at himself, “Even if you know where it’s from, what for? There wouldn’t be enough of these to heal everyone from the poison.”

“Even if you and I eat this fruit of Life and Death, I cannot break the enchanted area by myself.”

Seeing Tian Xuan’s disappointed face, Xia Yi became serious, “How many of these are needed to heal one person? A handful? Two handfuls?”

Half of the 25 points land of fennel seeds were not that many, half of those three acres land were onions. If everyone needed a handful and a hundred something people needed to be fed, there was no way to meet the need.

“A handful? Two handfuls?” Tian Xuan smiled bitterly, “Do you think that planting these fruits of Life and Death is that simple?”

“Is that hard?” Xia Yi asked curiously.

“How is it not? If it’s simple, why does it only appear in books?” Tian Xuan stared at that fennel seed in his palm and answered absentmindedly, “For healing everyone, only one for each of us is needed.”

Xia Yi heard the answer and sighed in relief. His voice sounded delighted, “Master. Then we are good. What a coincidence. I happen to have farmed a pile of fruits of Life and Death.”

————————————-

After every last one of the apprentices had taken the fennel seeds with respect and sat down with crossed legs to circulate their chi, Tian Xuan was still finding it hard to recover from the shock. He had too many questions. He opened his mouth, wanting to ask Xia Yi, he wanted to know how he got these fruits of Life and Death, Mu Ges and fruits from the Heavens. But he closed his mouth after all.

This was their leader, Ciang Yi’s daughter-in-law, the wife of the prince of the demonic world. He was an unknown entity to them in the first place. This person was no ordinary young master of some magistrate’s house. With all these in mind, wasn’t it normal for him to have some magical fruits and herbs? And that he must have taken some unknown medicine to get pregnant as a man.

Thinking of this, Tian Xuan took the fennel seed without hesitation, then he sat down to circulate his chi.

After a couple of hours or so, everyone from the sect opened their eyes one by one. They looked merry, showing that they were no longer poisoned. Under the order of Tian Xuan, they all used their spiritual power to form a bundle pointing outside the cave.

With a buzzing sound of something like being electrified by an electricity net, the enchanted blockage which was floating like a sheet of waterfall out of the cave broke a hole. Everybody rushed to walk out from the cave and out from the enchanted area.

There were clouds and mist out of the enchanted area. The original entrance of the cave was located on a cliff. All of them summoned their magical items, preparing to return to Qi Shan Sect, then planned for later actions.

Then, the sky grew darker. Black clouds gathered on top of them. A strange wind suddenly came up. All the birds and animals made alerted sounds and ran away frantically.

“Master. What now?” Xia Yi looked towards Tian Xuan with his hand supporting his belly.

Tian Xuan, seeing this, had his gloomy expression on. He loudly urged everyone, “All apprentices onto the magical items. Quickly get away.”

Then, he summoned his own magical item and he wanted to grab Xia Yi onto it as well.

A laugh from nowhere rang and echoed in the cave, “Hahahaha. Want to run away? But can you?”

An apprentice said in fear, “Oh no. Cheng Yu Wan is here.” 

“Don’t pay attention to him. Let’s go.” Tian Xuan commanded loudly.

The apprentices stepped on their magical items with eyes half closed, trying to push against that strong wind which was blinding them. The magical items were nearly falling in the wind. Some of them wanted to stumble their way out the wind, but they struggled to move for a meter.

“It was useful to keep you around, letting Ciang Yi and I work together to kill Jie Shang. But now you are running away.” Along with his voice, in that black and heavy swirl of wind, a person stepped out. This person was big with a black aura around him and a dark expression. And he had an eagle on his shoulder.

He stopped in mid air in front of everybody, his eyes fell on Xia Yi. His eyes were cold and vacious and made Xia Yi shiver as if a solid thing touched him. He naturally tried to protect his belly. Cheng Yu Wan stared at Xia Yi fixatedly, with a frightening smile, “However, you are no longer of use. After all, I have better bargain now. Strelitzia spiritual baby. So I see that you are fine. At first when Wu Qian Yuan knew about you because of me. He must not be able to catch you. Then Jie Shang and CIang Yi had that little bastard and he messed around with you everyday. They thought that no one knew. Hahahaha.”

Cheng Yu Wan burst out laughing, facing the sky all of a sudden, then he abruptly halted, staring at Xia Yi with excited sparkling eyes, “Now it’s even better. You now have an even purer spiritual baby in you with mixed spiritual energy from the gods and the demons.”

“Host. This pervert is planning to get the baby.” 179 yelled in anger. He was so angry that his voice was shaking, “I am going to scratch his face and pull off all his hair…”

Tian Xuan pulled Xia Yi to behind him, and he pointed at Cheng Yu Wan with his sword, scolding him loudly, “You are such a lunatic demonic person. Your mind is ill. Do you want to start a war against both the cultivation world and the demonic world?”

Cheng Yu Wan did not respond to the question, he kept staring at Xia Yi with hatred glittering in his eyes, “Spiritual baby. Do you know what I experienced when I was in the cell? Ze Yuan and Jie Shang did that to me. I was in that water cell with no daylights. There was not one moment that I did not want revenge. Fate has its way to let me back out now. It’s such a nice gift from the gods. After taking the baby out from you, I will use all the tricks they used on me to pay back, double, to your baby.”

“Hit him. Let Tian Xuan hit him. This son of a bitch.” 179 quickly jumped in his mind. His voice sounded so angry that Xia Yi could hear sounds of electricity.

Cheng Yu Wan slowly approached everyone with a thick black aura.

Tian Xuan shot out his sword like a strand of light, cutting through the air towards his front. All the apprentices used their spiritual power to shoot swords towards Cheng Yu Wan. In a second, all the shiny light of swords broke through the dark clouds, lightening half of the sky.

“Yes. Kick his ass.” 179 said with a winning smile. He also quickly started playing Piggy Pepper, “The baby must have been scared. Let him relax.”

However, when those chi of the swords dashed their way and reached near Cheng Yu Wan, with some clanging sounds, he used a iron staff with a snake head to block all of them. Xia Yi saw him putting back his iron staff and showing him that vicious smile as cunning as a snake, “Spiritual baby. You cannot run away from me.”

“Peppa, get dressed. Pretend that these are your father and mother.”

“What are you talking about?” Xia Yi asked loudly.

“I will torture you slowly. I will make you live but you will suffer.”

“Papa piggy does not have his glasses so he can’t see, making him very agitated.”

“Can you speak up?” Xia Yi yelled towards him.

Cheng Yu Wan’s face became blue, then Xia Yi finally recalled, “179. Turn off Peppa the Pig. I can’t hear him.”

After 179 turning off the cartoon, Xia Yi then told Cheng Yu Wan, “Alright. What do you have to say? Say it now.”

Cheng Yu Wan did not speak a word with his mouth shut. He raised the snake-head iron staff and a heavy dark demonic cloud of chi attacked his way.

Are they not fucking negotiating before the fight? How can he just start the fight?

Tian Xuan used his sword to block it off. A loud sound rang. Although the demonic chi had been blocked, Tian Xuan still stepped back due to the attack and he was not looking too well.

“Your hand.” Xia Yi saw a black aura with the shape of a snake climbing up Tian Xuan’s arm, and he screamed.

“It’s bad. I am poisoned. There is poison in his chi.” Cheng Yu Wan extended his other arm to touch his poisoned arm in a few places, then he decisively sat down with crossed legs, intending to circulate his spiritual energy to force the poison out.

“Hahaha. This is my secret recipe. I used a thousand year old snake and a golden toad–” Cheng Yu Wan did not finish his sentence, and he closed his mouth in shock. He saw Xia Yi stuffed something inside TIan Xuan’s mouth, then Tian Xuan’s darkened skin on his face restored its normal color in just a moment.

Tian Xuan’s mouth had been stuffed by a whole lot of fennel seeds by Xia Yi, he was still chewing with difficulties and could not say a word.

He was in shock and felt bad.

These fruits are a treasure. I only needed one. Why would you stuff them all into my mouth?

Xia Yi had already gone to the apprentices, giving out fennel seeds.

“Let them put the fennel seeds under their tongues. Just like taking a vaccine, boasting their immunity. They can take two more after being poisoned to strengthen the effects of the medicine.” 179 exhorted.

In view of this, Cheng Yu Wan’s face grew more fierce. He said behind gritted teeth, “If that’s the case, then you shall all go to die.”

After that, he raised his iron staff, a black tornado dashed out from the head of the staff and shot far towards the sky and connected with the dark clouds at the lower levels. In an instant, the wind swept and the black clouds swirled. There were electrical lights being seen faintly floating in the shape of branches.

“No good. He is making a magic circle to summon electricity.” Tian Xuan swiftly stood up, swinging the sword in his hand to attack Cheng Yu Wan.

The sword was right before him but Cheng Yu Wan did not hide nor move away. He kept working on that magical circle. Two figures appeared beside him with snake head iron staff to block the attack from Tian Xuan. In a matter of seconds, they fought together.

“Elder.” The apprentices saw a splitted self of Cheng Yu Wan himself, and they could not help but scream.

Just when the apprentices were about to help him out, Tian Xuan shouted at them, “Stop. You have no chance against him.” 

Tian Xuan, facing two Cheng Yu Wan, slowly became tired and backed off. Then one of them hit him in the back with his iron staff, making him fly and fall onto the round. Blood bursted out from his mouth.

The lightning was sparkling in the sky and the dark clouds were descending from above, Tian Xuan shouted towards everyone, “Go.”

“Go? Where to?” Cheng Yu Wan smirked coldly and said, “Let me send you off to a better place. After all of you have departed, I will go to Qi Shan Sect to let all of you gather up in hell.”

“Host. Go.” 179 saw that the lightning was striking down, and so he urged Xia Yi to go.

“Look at me. Where can I go? Kirin is not with me. How am I going to escape with that winter gourd?” Xia Yi desperately said with his hand supporting his belly.

Yes, winter gourd. Although it is not easy to fly, it is hard enough to endure the lightning and it seemed to be a nice insulation.

It is a magical item that can be closed.

Some of the apprentices had already summoned their magical items, not yet stepped onto them, and the magical items had already been swept onto the ground by the strong wind. Some thinner ones had been blown to the end of the cliff. They were lucky enough to have someone holding onto them to stop them from falling.

Right at this time, a loud sound rang, and a green round house stood on the ground in an instant. It held still in the chaotic wind, not moving an inch.

“Come in.” Xia Yi stood in front of the winter gourd house door to shout at everyone outside.

All of them began to support one another to walk towards the winter gourd house against the wind. Around a dozen of the apprentices entered the winter gourd and quickly filled it full. There was no longer room for others.

Xia Yi thought with his mind, then the winter gourd house grew bigger. It grew bigger and bigger, becoming a green building with a firm arch roof. It was thick, heavy and firm. It looked like a steel castle.

When everyone was in, the winter gourd closed its door seamlessly.

Then, a strike of lightning struck down. They could see how bright outside was through the window. It was so bright that they could not open their eyes. And there were buzzing electricity sounds above their heads.

Some of the apprentices had closed their eyes and nervously grabbed onto their clothes.

When that light faded away and the electrical sounds stopped, and everyone was still standing, all of them breathed in relief.

Quickly after that, another stronger lightning came.

In between all the lightning which made it sounded like the end was crumbling upon them, this winter gourd castle looked like a huge glowing ball surrounded by electricity, lighting up half of the sky.

Some apprentices asked Tian Xuan with sobbing voices, trembling, “Elder. Can this hold?”

Tian Xuan was helped by someone to sit aside. He could only sigh, “We’ll see.”

The thunder stopped. The bright world turned back into a dark space. Everyone had their heart settled slowly, thinking that they might have endured a disaster.

The winter gourd castle was standing on the top of the mountain in silence. There was not one crack on its sleek surface.

Then another blow of attack, followed by another blow of attack…

The faces of everyone slowly calmed down instead of being afraid.

By the time the third wave ended, and the fourth wave was coming, all of them were sitting in front of the window to look at the view and roasting potatoes.

“In the past, when that elevated cultivator was cultivating, I was lucky enough to see him at the foot of the mountain. That sky at that time was just like this one now.” Tian Xuan was sluggishly chewing the potatoes handed to him by the apprentices and telling stories to the people around.

Xia Yi loved listening to stories. He swiftly moved forward to listen.

Outside, Cheng Yu Wan was pulling all the lightning he could to smash from every direction. The sky was dark and gloomy like the apocalypse.

Inside, everyone was listening to Tian Xuan happily.

When Xia Yi heard something funny, he laughed out loud holding his belly, then he felt a wave of pain in his belly.

“Xia. What’s wrong?” An apprentice noticed his face looking weird, and he asked hurriedly.

Xia Yi waved his hand, “Nothing. I might have eaten too many potatoes.”

As if to testify his words, the pain was gone. That apprentice saw Xia Yi looking relieved and so turned to look the other way.

Xia Yi wanted to check out what it was like outside through the window, but then his belly felt pain again, and his baby started to move. Xia Yi frowned, “179. I think I am having a stomachache.” 

“Host. I think you are going to give birth.” 179 screamed, panicking.

Xia Yi panicked, “How am I giving birth now? Don’t you say that? I must have had too many potatoes.”

This system had been calling it whenever something was happening with his belly starting from four months after his pregnancy.

He is so easily scared.

Nevertheless, Xia Yi still felt nervous. It was about time for him to give birth, so he calmed down to feel carefully about that pain. But this time around, the pain dissipated after just one or two minutes.

When he was confused, an even stronger pain struck him. And at the same time, there was a feeling of falling off and swelling at his back right at the level of his belly. The baby was moving so hard and the whole belly was dancing along with his movements.

F**k, I can’t say that it’s not anymore, this is labor pain! I am really! Giving! Birth!