Chapter 006: Dead Seeds Embrace Spring, Green Shoots Pierce the Fiend

The morning mist had yet to disperse as a lone winter crow let out two raspy caws from a withered branch.

Gu Qingwei squatted at the head of the newly reclaimed third of an acre of Black Spirit Loam, spreading a frayed hemp cloth flat across the moist, warm dirt.

Untying the twine, thirty-six mother seeds of Scarlet Cloud Spirit Rice rolled out onto the cloth.

These grains were discarded dregs picked over and left behind in the outer servant storehouses. Their husks were as dark and pitted as rusted iron, sunken and hollow, their embryo eyes coated in a grayish, lifeless pallor. To any ordinary spirit farmer, even casting an eye upon them was bad luck; tossed into the mud, they were fit only to rot into dead slime.

Yet Gu Qingwei’s gaze did not waver in the slightest. Rolling his worn sleeves up past his elbows, he pinched a shriveled seed between two fingers, slowly rubbing his calloused thumb along the rough husk.

Cultivators fight for a lifetime of immortality; spirit farmers fight for life and death within an inch of soil.

In his eyes, these thirty-six dried-up, discarded grains were not trash cast aside by the sect—they were thirty-six lifelines for him to survive and stand tall in this scorched wasteland.

A pleasant warmth stirred against his chest as the bronze talisman flared with a gentle, soothing gleam.

Relying on this subtle radiance, his spiritual sense threaded into the interior of the grain like a gossamer strand of silk.

Under his microscopic sight, the grain's inner flesh was indeed parched and calcified, its botanical channels severed and dry. Yet at the deepest, most tightly retracted core of the embryo, there lingered a minuscule, fragile spark of innate life—flickering like a candle in a gale.

It was the primordial spark of the plant, trapped because its outer channels were choked by dryness, unable to draw in water to break through its shell.

"The Myriad Transformations return to one; Kan and Li generate life."

Gu Qingwei’s thoughts shifted. Within his dantian, his five-element spiritual root began its reciprocal rotation, distilling an exceptionally pure, gentle thread of five-element vitality that flowed steadily from his fingertips into the grain.

Microscopic dust permeated the kernel like silent spring rain.

Under the nourishment of the five-element harmony, the choked botanical vessels stretched and unfolded like withered branches in spring. The grayish embryo eye quietly shed its murkiness, glowing from the inside out with a lustrous, cinnabar-red radiance.

Then came the second seed, and the third...

Within moments, all thirty-six shriveled seeds plumped up, their husks shimmering with a delicate, ethereal halo of scarlet cloud light.

“MOOO—”

A low, ancient lowing echoed from behind.

The old ox stepped slowly to the edge of the furrow, the slate-blue keratin upon its mended horn now firmly set. It lowered its head to inspect the glowing grains in the youth’s palm, blowing two plumes of white steam into the chilly air before speaking in a deep rumble:

"Boy, waking dead seeds is only the first step. Back in the Hundred Herbs Garden, this old one saw entire fields of Scarlet Cloud Rice incinerated into charcoal by fire fiend. Though the poison has receded from this third of an acre, the heat buried deep in the bedrock has simmered for ten thousand years. If your depth is off by half an inch, the tender roots will be stewed to death by the subterranean heat. The furrows must be three inches deep, and the seed hollows seven inches apart. Do not be greedy."

"Understood," Gu Qingwei answered briskly.

He lifted an old wooden plow and harnessed it over the ox’s broad, scarred back.

The beast gave a low grunt, its four hooves planting firmly into the soft, warm black loam. Its sinews tensed like drawn bowstrings as it took steady, measured strides forward.

The iron plowshare sliced through the earth with a crisp, rhythmic hiss. Guided by the ox's veteran pacing, four straight, immaculate furrows—ruled like ink on parchment—were carved across the black soil. The dirt was loose, the warmth restored, breathing out a rich and sweet earthy perfume.

Gu Qingwei followed closely behind, stooping to deposit each seed.

The thirty-six mother seeds, glowing with scarlet vitality, were placed into the earth according to the Nine Palaces alignment. He covered each hollow with two fingers of warm black loam, then lightly pressed the soil with his open palm.

The moment the final seed was tucked into the earth, the bronze seal against Gu Qingwei’s chest gave a gentle thrum—as if resonating in harmony with the ancient earth awakening beneath his feet.

A single heart holds the spark of creation; an inch of soil bears its own dawn.

The following evening, the setting sun bled across the sky.

Gu Qingwei had just returned with firewood gathered from the perimeter of the shack when his eyes caught a subtle stir atop the furrows. At all thirty-six planting hollows, the black earth had parted, revealing tender, emerald-green shoots breaking through the crust!

The old ox flicked its tail, a look of quiet praise in its ancient eyes.

Yet before the joy of this breakthrough could settle on Gu Qingwei’s brow, a sudden crisis struck!

Sizzle—

A faint, burning hiss whispered from beneath the bedrock.

As twilight thickened, the volatile crimson niter fire poison—evaporated by the day's scorching sun—began to surge violently upward through the loosened soil!

Thin, wispy tendrils of reddish smoke seeped from the surface of the rich black loam.

The thirty-six newborn shoots began to tremble violently. On the tips of nearly half the leaves, coin-sized blackened spots of dead tissue appeared at a visible rate. The tender green stems curled and withered, their edges yellowing rapidly!

"Not good!"

The ox’s expression shifted instantly. Stepping forward, its hoof kicked up a cloud of ash as it rumbled urgently:

"The fire fiend deep in the earth was stirred by the life-force of the seeds! This is the primordial furnace poison from tens of thousands of years of alchemy slag. It corrodes newborn vessels on contact. Once it enters the marrow, even immortals cannot save them!"

Within a dozen breaths, the weakest sprout in the northwest corner was entirely enveloped in reddish fiend-qi. Its slender stem drooped, its inner light flickering like a candle about to die!

A look of desolate regret flashed in the ox’s eyes: "Boy, the spiritual vessels of that one have shattered. Abandon it! We must focus on saving the rest..."

Gu Qingwei stood cold as glacial ice, refusing to yield an inch.

"Every seedling is a life! Since it entered my furrow, death will not steal it away!"

Before his voice faded, Gu Qingwei drew his cleaver across the index finger of his right hand.

A bead of crimson lifeblood, carrying a faint azure spiritual sheen, welled from the cut.

Dropping to his knees between the furrows, his left hand grasped the Myriad Transformations Seal at his chest while his right finger flicked the drop of lifeblood into the coarse earthenware jar at his side.

The jar held morning dew collected from the deep mire, housing countless thousands of the Poison-Devouring Spirit-Drawing Sacred Microbes.

As the blood struck the water, faint red and green ripples expanded across the surface. Gu Qingwei unleashed his spiritual sense to its absolute peak, infusing the ceaseless vitality of his five-element root into the jar, commanding the microbes to consume his essence blood.

In an instant, the water erupted into a thick, glowing emerald nectar!

Nourished by his lifeblood, the sacred microbes multiplied into ten thousand shimmering green threads!

"Disperse!"

Gu Qingwei lifted the earthenware jar, moving along the damaged furrows, pouring the glowing emerald liquid evenly around the roots of the endangered seedlings.

The moment the solution touched the soil, Gu Qingwei pressed his palms flat against the earth, leaning his entire body over the ridge, his mind stretched taut to the breaking point.

Through the microscopic vision of the bronze seal, he locked onto the root system of every single sprout. Swarms of sacred microbes surged over the tender roots like an emerald tide, throwing up an invisible spiritual barrier that forcefully severed the corrosive advance of the fire fiend.

Not only that—supercharged by his essence blood, the microbes ravenously engulfed the surging crimson poison, transmuting the lethal heat into cool, nourishing earth-qi that was pumped back into the dying roots!

A breathless war between destruction and vitality raged half an inch beneath the crust.

Time trickled away second by second.

The night wind blew like a razor, whipping the ragged thatch of the shack. The temperature across the wasteland plummeted, yet beads of sweat the size of soybeans rolled down Gu Qingwei’s forehead, his coarse tunic soaked through and dried repeatedly by the freezing wind.

His eyes were bloodshot from supreme concentration. His fingers stayed locked in the wet earth, unmoving for the entire night.

Beside him, the great ox stood silently like a living stone bulwark, using its broad bulk to shield the youth from the biting northern wind, its dark eyes filled with heartache and deep reverence.

At long last, the night broke, and pale white light crept over the eastern horizon.

When the first golden ray of dawn pierced the heavy morning mist and fell upon the sheltered hollow, the raging heat beneath the soil finally subsided.

The blackened scorch marks upon the curled leaves began to flake and peel away like dead skin. At the heart of the shoot that had nearly died, the stubborn stem split its charred shell, thrusting out a pristine, emerald spear of new growth!

All thirty-six stalks of Scarlet Cloud Spirit Rice stretched their leaves into the morning breeze, shimmering with emerald vitality. Not a single one had perished—every shoot stood proud and tall upon the ridge!

And at the tip of each vibrant leaf rested a single droplet of dew the size of a soybean, glowing with a soft, ethereal crimson dawn light.

The spiritual dew drank in the purity of heaven and earth, untainted by a single speck of dust.

As the morning draft blew past, thirty-six green shoots swayed in unison, producing a delicate, joyous rustle of rustling silk.

“Say not the withered hull holds no spark of life;
The subtle pulse of a single heart guides celestial design.
Greeting the morning dew, azure radiance unfurls;
Upon the barren ridges, green garments spread at last.”

Gu Qingwei slowly pushed himself up from the soil. His face was pale from exhaustion, but his eyes burned as bright as morning stars.

Yet the moment the thirty-six stalks condensed their spiritual dew, an intoxicating, sweet perfume of high-grade spiritual rice drifted into the breeze. Caught by the low wind current of the valley, it traveled silently toward the outer perimeter of the wasteland miles away.

Several miles out, along the mountain patrol highway of the Qingling Sect.

Two outer sect patrol disciples dressed in grey servant robes, iron badges dangling from their belts, were yawning as they walked. Suddenly, the taller disciple in front stopped dead in his tracks, sniffing the morning air with a look of utter bewilderment:

"Hold on... do you smell that? Why is there a sweet aroma of high-tier spirit rice floating on this wind? Isn't that direction the toxic wasteland where Manager Zhao sent that trash Gu Qingwei to rot?!"

The shorter disciple beside him turned pale instantly, frantically tugging his companion's sleeve:

"Shut your mouth! Manager Zhao is ruthless to the bone! Any servant thrown into those toxic pits never survives past three days! If you start spreading rumors, he’ll tear your tongue out to brew medicine!"

The tall disciple shivered, but his squinting eyes couldn't resist glancing back toward the distant wasteland, a flicker of greedy suspicion burning deep in his gaze...

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying Gu Qingwei and the old Kui-ox's journey to turn toxic wasteland into an immortal harvest, please consider hitting that Follow button and leaving a Rating/Review. Every favorite and rating helps this humble barren ridge grow more than you know!