The Fantastic Little Farmer

“Would you mind having another girlfriend?”

Zhang Yun nearly choked. He couldn’t fathom what kind of nonsense she was spouting. It wasn’t that he was some paragon of virtue, but he had only been talking to her for a few minutes, and unpleasantly at that.

“I do mind,” Zhang Yun smiled, then emphasized, “And my girlfriend minds too.”

“…”

Xu Li felt awkward. She had chased after him on her own initiative and dropped hints, completely tossing her pride aside. She even offered to be ‘another girlfriend’, yet she was still rejected!

“Since Mr. Zhang is so outstanding, your girlfriend must be very beautiful. I’m truly envious of her. However… just like with this food, eating the same dish all the time can get boring, no matter how delicious it is. Maybe you’d want to try a different dish. Besides, after trying it, perhaps you’d like the new dish even more?”

Zhang Yun really wanted to ask what would happen if the other dish was stinky tofu or fish mint, but considering she had thrown away her pride to say this, he held his tongue.

“You make a fair point, but I’ll pass on trying it for now.”

Xu Li was a bit disappointed, but she quickly figured it out. How long had they even known each other? The ‘girlfriend’ might just be an excuse! She couldn’t come on too strong; affection had to grow over time.

She perked up again and actively looked for a topic. “What line of work are you in, Mr. Zhang? Let me guess… hmm! Your skin is better than a girl’s, so you clearly don’t work out in the elements. You must sit in an office, right? And since your schedule is so flexible, do you have an online startup?”

Zhang Yun smiled and shook his head. “I’m a farmer, and I have a side gig raising fish.”

“…”

Xu Li was rendered speechless. “Side gig” felt like such an outdated term, something from her father’s generation. No matter how she looked at him, Zhang Yun didn’t seem like an unrefined country bumpkin.

Zhang Yun sped up his eating and asked, “Do you want to order anything else?”

Xu Li smiled. “How sweet of you! But there’s no need to spend more. The sweet and sour spare ribs haven’t even arrived yet.”

Zhang Yun stood up immediately. “Then take your time eating. I have some business to attend to, so I’ll be leaving first. The bill is on me!”

“Hey!” Xu Li grew a little anxious, but she couldn’t just go up and grab him. She could only watch resentfully as Zhang Yun paid the bill and left.

Originally, Zhang Yun had been eating slowly to kill time, but he left early to avoid Xu Li’s pestering. What if she chased after him again? He decided he might as well set off for Ancient Tree Back Village right now.

Riding a motorcycle at noon on such a hot day meant enduring the scorching sun. In the past, he would have enjoyed the refreshing feeling of the wind in his face, but after driving a car, he had to admit that sitting in the air conditioning was much more comfortable. The harsher the sun beat down, the more Zhang Yun wanted to pick up his new car. However, as he followed the navigation app along rural paths and mountain trails toward Ancient Tree Back Village, the motorcycle proved to have its own advantages.

Zhang Yun had never been to this area before. If not for this errand, he might never have visited a place called Ancient Tree Back in his entire life. Fortunately, modern navigation data covered almost every natural village; otherwise, it would have been incredibly difficult to find without a local guide.

Even so, he had to stop frequently to verify the roads and the navigation directions. Although the map labeled every village, many of the small dirt trails connecting different community groups hadn’t been mapped. Taking just one wrong turn could lead him to an entirely different village.

Just as he had analyzed, the village called Under the Ancient Tree was indeed located at the foot of a mountain. After following the mountain road all the way up, he spotted a massive ancient tree at the summit. It was an enormous banyan tree—the Ancient Rong Tree—so thick that it would take many people linking arms to encircle it. The villages on both sides of the mountain were named after it, and it was estimated to be at least several hundred years old.

There was a flat, open space surrounding the Ancient Rong Tree, likely cleared by the joint efforts of the two villages in the past. Later, when the government’s rural road-building project reached the area, a concrete plaza had been poured, and a large flower bed was built around the base of the tree. Banyan trees naturally drop a massive number of aerial roots. When these roots reached the soil, they would burrow in, grow thick, and form pillar roots to support the gigantic branches. After all, a single banyan tree could form a forest all on its own. However, because of the poured concrete plaza, the roots could no longer penetrate the ground. To compensate, artificial concrete pillars—crafted to look like tree branches—had been installed beneath the larger branches to provide support.

Zhang Yun parked his motorcycle beneath the tree, walked to the edge, and looked around. Spotting Ancient Tree Back Village on the other side of the mountain, he sent a message to Song Tie, telling him that he had arrived.

While waiting for Song Tie’s reply, he strolled around the area. He noticed a wooden sign nearby claiming the tree had an eight-hundred-year history. Regardless of whether that was an exaggeration, a tree like this would be considered a minor tourist attraction in a big city. But here in the countryside, naturally, no one would go out of their way to look at a banyan tree. On the other side, near the edge of the summit, sat an incense burner filled with a large amount of ash. It was likely that villagers from the two surrounding settlements would come up here to burn incense on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month.

“An eight-hundred-year-old ancient tree…” Zhang Yun muttered to himself, suddenly struck by an idea.

Everything he had absorbed Energy from before had been an inanimate object. Could a living thing also possess Spiritual Energy? Copper, iron, wood, and paper could all accumulate and absorb Spiritual Qi, so logically, this ancient tree should be even stronger. Positioned at the summit, it could ‘absorb the essence of the sun and moon,’ as the old saying went, while its roots plunged deep into the soil, actively drawing in the earth’s Spiritual Qi.

With this in mind, Zhang Yun jumped straight into the flower bed and reached out, pressing his hands against the Ancient Rong Tree.

He sighed. There was nothing. It completely lacked the kind of Spiritual Energy found on Ancient Artifacts.

Just as Zhang Yun was about to pull his hands away, he suddenly felt it: fragmented traces of Spiritual Qi converging from all over the ancient tree! It seemed it wasn’t that he couldn’t absorb it earlier, but rather that the Mysterious Iron Ring had been taking time to identify this type of Energy.

Although it was invisible and intangible, it felt as if this Energy was a faint green—different from what he had collected from Ancient Artifacts. As this “green Spiritual Qi” entered his body, it instantly gave Zhang Yun a nourishing sensation, brimming with a vibrant, thriving life force.

He could actually absorb Spiritual Qi from the ancient tree!

Zhang Yun grew excited, keeping his hands pressed tightly against the trunk. Such a massive ancient tree, with hundreds of years of accumulation, had to be incredibly powerful.

However, a sliver of moral guilt crept into his mind.

This Ancient Rong Tree was jointly owned by the village Under the Ancient Tree below and Ancient Tree Back Village behind the mountain. Did it truly bless the local area? If he drained all its Spiritual Qi, would it negatively affect the two villages? Everything in the unseen world was interconnected. If absorbing a little Spiritual Qi ended up destroying the feng shui or the ancestral veins of the two villages, bringing misfortune to the locals, Zhang Yun would never be able to overcome the psychological guilt.

But… who knew if it was actually a blessing? What if it was relentlessly devouring the nutrients of the area, rendering both mountain villages barren? In that case, draining it dry would essentially be eliminating a threat, which could very well be saving the local environment.

Zhang Yun had no way of making that judgment. It was also possible that both scenarios were merely his own subjective notions. To the great mountain, it might just be a simple tree.

Just as Zhang Yun was hesitating, his consciousness suddenly sensed a trace of fear and pleading! He was certain it wasn’t a figment of his imagination. He genuinely felt it. It seemed to be… the will of the Ancient Rong Tree!

Could a tree actually possess a will? Was this a personal delusion, or a truly mystical existence?