Farming Together Chapter 65: The wonders of flower seeds

After Wen XingYao left, Bai Li opened the quest panel, and checked the current progress of the quest “Village Chief’s Residence.”

After two days of hard work by all the players, the progress of collecting each material was a small step forward.

Soil (4,789/1,000,000), Stones (2,478/500,000), Copper Ore (1,368/100,000), Wooden Boards (856/100,000), Flower Seeds (278/50,000), Glazed Stones (125/10,000), Silver Ore (178/10,000), Koi (99/5,000), Rare Tree Species (27/500), Several pieces of Furniture (15).

In general, the more materials in demand, the higher the number of submissions, like soil, stone, copper ore and other materials, the numbers were jumping upwards every time he’d refresh. While those with less demand, like relatively rare materials that were a bit difficult to collect, weren’t. Cherished tree species actually hadn’t even reached 50, so the degree of difficulty was shown by that.

Although it had only been two days, Bai Li believed that with the players’ skill proficiency, the progress of the task would be faster and faster. Maybe it wouldn’t even take a month for this task to be completed.

What Bai Li found surprising was the last item of ‘furniture.’ Here the furniture wasn’t bought from the game store in order to be submitted to the village chief, but through the ‘woodworking’ life skill. It was hand-made by the players. Those furniture pieces could not be defective products, not to mention missing arms and legs, or when the village chief and the village chief’s wife used it and accidentally got hurt, who would be responsible?

Bai Li had added this item as a material, considered it, and hadn’t given it a number in case the players couldn’t make complete furniture. If nothing was turned in for this one goal, it was also okay.

However, there were actually players who had submitted fifteen qualified products.

Out of curiosity, Bai Li mobilized his authority to check which players had submitted them, and found that it was actually all one person, and an acquaintance.

‘Give Me a Bowl of Rice.’ The name alone looked like a dry rice man, but in fact, no matter what he said or did, he was very serious and had the style of an old cadre. He was the newly promoted Zheng Yi.

It was actually him.

Bai Li remembered that the man said he would start live broadcasting today, so he simply went to the live broadcasting platform Fox and found his live room. As he expected, there weren’t many viewers in this live stream, only 20,000. The pop-ups weren’t enthusiastic, they were just quietly watching the man who had his head buried in what he was making. Occasionally, when someone asked a question, Zheng Yi would stop his movements and answer it seriously.

What he was making now was a wooden chair with a backrest. The main body had been completed and he was holding the tools in his hands to give the chair a carved pattern. His movements were slow and rhythmic, leisurely and self-contained. He was really enjoying the process, almost to the point of forgetfulness.

Bai Li remembered the conversation between the two of them last night. The other man wanted to replicate ancient architecture in the game. Now, from the most basic things, he had started to learn. He seemed to have a plan in mind, so silently Bai Li quit the live room, and no longer continued to pay attention.

After that, he went to Jiang Huaibi’s live room. The little girl had a basket in her hand, and was jumping around in the forest. She rattled the bushes here, and turned over a rockpile there. As long as she found it interesting, she gathered everything into her backpack. Perhaps because of the aura of attraction, those who chose to enter that live room more or less shared the same hobby as Jiang Huaibi, and those who were deeper were rewarding gifts while they gave Jiang Huaibi ideas on what she must stock up on, and even told her her what might be useful! Whenever Jiang Huaibi found a new item, it caused a round of cheers.

Bai Li watched for a while before retreating from the live treasure hunt.

As for Wen Chen’s ‘food tasting’ live broadcast, the regular start time was from 22:00 to 24:00 every night, so it was still very early for that show.

After watching the progress of the task, and with a number in mind, Bai Li cleaned up the yard, then decided to contribute to the task.

With the new strawberry jam, he initially intended to go to the river to fish. However, when he arrived at the fishing spot near the village, he found that there were a lot of people around. Not only were there a lot of players doing business at the nearby stalls, but there were also a lot of people coming to fish. He also saw a few people who were fighting for a particular spot.

It was only after Bai Li listened to the conversations of the people next to him that he learned that the fight was over the location where Demon Xing caught the golden koi. He hadn’t expected that even though only an hour or so had passed, that the place would become a popular spot. Perhaps there was a wonderful metaphysics in it. Someone thought that if they fished where the big man had been, their chances of catching a koi would be greatly increased. They might even become the second person to catch a golden koi!

Well, they were only slightly confident!

It didn’t seem to be a good day for fishing.

Bai Li shook his head and walked towards the forest. With the ability to learn two life skills, Bai Li learned fishing and gathering. To use the gathering skill, he needed a shovel, but he only had the ‘ordinary shovel’ given to him by the village chief’s wife. It was enough for Bai Li who wanted to have a good time on the spur of the moment.

He took the shovel into the forest, found a random corner where the grass was abundant, squatted down, and dug!

Weeds, wild vegetables, mushrooms, grass seeds, earthworms…Everywhere he went, it was a mess, a good example of how to pull out the feathers from a goose. Bai Li wasn’t worried that his work would damage the ecology of the forest since he set it up at the beginning that a place dug by a player would refresh after 10 minutes. New resources would grow again. In short, the resources in the forest were inexhaustible.

At this moment, his gathering skills were moderately capable but he kept going forward. He didn’t look back, and continued to dig as he went deeper into the forest. As he went, his backpack got two more flower seeds that were hard to dig, and a large mess. Ordinary players would weep if they looked at it, and hoarders (specifically Heart’s Jade) would scream when they saw the clutter.

The depths of the forest were much quieter than the entrance. A person only had to stop and close their eyes to hear the tiny insects chirping.

“Well, there should be more critters in the forest, I’ll go arrange it later,” Bai Li said as he observed the surroundings. In his mind, those small animals weren’t just ornamental. As long as the players had that skill, they could go catch them, or even take them home as pets, and when it came to pets, only ornamental fish wasn’t enough. He wanted to give them something to care for and love, then add little pet skills.

Bai Li’s brain was thinking fast. He quickly got the general idea straightened out, then decided to wait for night before adding these things.

Today, there was first the new item, then the “achievements and titles” system, and now the forest animals to arrange. Bai Li felt like a conscientious designer. He was too hardworking! Bai Li cheekily praised himself in his heart, and was about to look for the next digging spot when he heard an enthusiastic exchange of voices that was coming from ahead.

It wasn’t that he was deliberately trying to eavesdrop… Rather, the sound of this group of female players talking was really too big and too loud. The loudest voice might even be able to shake off a few leaves.

“Strange, how did we unknowingly run inside again? I thought I was just picking outside, and only collecting for about an hour. Now look at the time! I have to go! How has it been more than three hours? That’s to say, I didn’t feel like the time passed so quickly, and somehow three hours are gone. That said, did Jimmie collect anything good? How many flower seeds?”

“Yes! And flower seeds, I almost forgot about it! I ended up indulging in digging in the soil. Let’s see…Well, how come there are only five, that’s too few, right?”

“You actually have five? I only have three! Was I not digging hard enough or did you find a feng shui treasure?”

“Share your experience, I also want to dig up more flower seeds!”

Five different female voices chattered and reported the number of flower seeds they had dug.

Bai Li added up the number of seeds reported by the girls and found that there were almost nineteen seeds. This result gave him a strange feeling in his heart, feeling as if there was something that didn’t make sense.

The group didn’t wait for him to figure out the problem, the discussion among the female players afterwards answered the question.

“Hey, don’t go out just yet. I can still dig for another two hours!”

“Sisters are right! Only three or five flower seeds are nothing! We need to give half to the village chief, so we can only bring home one or two. How can I plant a garden?!”

“Haha, now you should thank me for the reminder, right? If I hadn’t told you that flower seeds could be planted in the yard to sprout and bloom, I don’t even know when you rough spirits would have discovered it. Let me tell you, the seeds I planted three days ago are already blooming. They are rosy red, called rose balsam, and they are quite beautiful. When this is over, will you come to my house and take a look?”

Now Bai Li finally understood what the strange feeling was about. The quest panel for the flower seed progress was slower than other materials. Combined with the conversation of the female players in front of him, he came to a conclusion that the players weren’t turning all the collected flower seeds, but choosing to take them home to plant.

This discovery not only didn’t make Bai Li feel angry, it made him feel that it was good that the players weren’t just playing the game for the sake of the mission, but for themselves. The former was tired of running, the latter was enjoying life. There was a fundamental difference.

After he thought about that point, he was ready to quietly leave when the female players’ conversation changed again.

“Talk, talk. Your two hands are dancing around and your little thumb is almost to the sky. By the way, what’s wrong with your nails? Why are they red? Could it be that you’re injured?”

“…” Bai Li was keenly aware of the unpleasant pause in the voice of the previous female player who spoke.

After that the female player who discovered the effect of flower seeds continued to speak.

“What’s that? My finger isn’t hurt. I just want to show you guys my nails. They are red and bright! Quickly say whether it looks good or not ah?!”

“It looks good…But what are you talking about? I’ll get some when I get back!”

“I want one too! I want one too! The color of this red is just what I want! Good sisters need to be neat and tidy!”

“Hey, you guys don’t get it.” The female player with dyed nails said dejectedly. “I can’t just go to a place to get this nail color, this is my exclusive secret recipe. You see, I’ve brought everything here. It’s the petals of the rose balsam. The squeezed juice can directly dye the nails red. You can see the effect. How about trying it?”

“Really? So powerful!”

“Give me a try. I want the reddest one!”

“Hey, not to mention, besides your dyed nails, sister, you seem to have a little more feminine scent!”

“Fuck off! I’ve always had a feminine smell, okay?” The female player first feigned anger and scolded, then her voice turned, and actually became tangled up. “Sisters, quickly look, my nails look good, ah…?”

The response to her was a vomiting sound. Apparently her companions were disgusted by her tone.

Bai Li didn’t hold back for a moment, and lightly laughed with one hand covering his mouth to prevent the sound from leaking out, while he backed up since he wanted to change his direction. However, there was an audible “click.” There was a dead branch under his feet somehow, and when his foot stepped on it, it made a crisp breaking sound.

The female players heard the sound and looked his way, and discovered Bai Li’s presence.

Bai Li, “…”

This was awkward.