CHAPTER 467: CHAPTER 20: GROWING LOTUSES TAKES SKILL (PART 2)

Until six or seven o’clock, Xuerou sat down to catch her breath and took out the camping cookware, ready to prepare dinner.

Throughout the process, the door of the temple remained tightly closed. Despite all the noise they made, Monk Tianya didn’t come out to take a look.

Xuerou took out two bags of sparerib-flavored instant noodles, added two sausages, and two marinated eggs. The water in the pond was muddy and undrinkable, but fortunately, she had also brought bottled water. In the mountains, one couldn’t be too picky.

Xiao Xian glanced into the pot, then walked around and picked some wild vegetables, "Chenopodium and mustard, adding some greens to instant noodles is good for health." Soon, an enticing aroma wafted from the pot of noodles heated by the alcohol stove.

After eating, Xiao Xian and Xuerou followed the guide to set up a Mongolian tent, which had a solar-powered light inside.

Xuerou found a comfortable spot inside the tent, murmuring, "Turns out physical labor is no easier than mental work."

Xiao Xian casually hummed in agreement, holding the Spiritual Rhinoceros Scissors in hand, and was considering where to start cutting among the several dozen diseased lotus seeds.

Seeing the Spiritual Rhinoceros Scissors, Xuerou exclaimed in recognition, recalling that they were the same scissors that had shorn the Feng Bird of its feathers in an urgent situation that evening. At the time, Xuerou hadn’t gotten a clear look at the scissors, but now upon closer inspection, they seemed quite ordinary.

Xiao Xian picked up a lotus seed between her forefinger and middle finger, considering, "Who would have thought lotus seed shells could be so tough. The Spiritual Rhinoceros Scissors are too sharp; if I just stab it in, it’s easy to damage the inner seed."

"How about soaking it in water first," Xuerou suggested, having seen her grandmother sprouting green beans with water.

"Okay, let’s soak it in water for a while," Xiao Xian stepped out of the tent, and soon returned with a basin of shimmering water.

"Eh, I remember the water in the pond was very murky. How did it become so clear just during dinner time?" Xuerou initially wanted to compliment the beautiful water brought by Xiao Xian, but decided against it, thinking it was too much to describe a bowl of water as beautiful.

"Just soak for an hour or so," Xiao Xian stuck her tongue out playfully.

Half an hour later, they peeled off the lotus seed shells. Xiao Xian made a small cut at the end of each lotus seed with the Spiritual Rhinoceros Scissors. After the cuts, she soaked the seeds in the water.

"Xiao Xian, you’re not really planning to grow a pond full of lotus flowers in seven days, are you? That’s way too fast," Xuerou mentioned, recalling her trip to Yunnan where she saw a kind of potted horticulture known as Xiao Hua. From seeding to germination, it took at least two or three days at the fastest. But Xiao Xian was talking about going from seeding to blossoming in just seven days, which seemed exaggerated.

"Just seven days. If it were before, I wouldn’t dare say this, but now, I can guarantee it. Don’t worry, we still have more than a week of vacation left. As long as we appease Monk Tianya before Aunt comes to pick us up and find out the real reason Mei Nian sent us here, we’ll be fine," Xiao Xian said, laughing mysteriously. At Meijia Village, she learned from Mei Xiang to use the Biological Extraction Method to control Spiritual Energy and soaked roses in silver solution. From bud to bloom, it took only a few seconds, so surely seven days would be no problem.

Reassured by Xiao Xian’s multiple guarantees, Xuerou finally fell asleep peacefully.

The rented Mongolian tent was simply constructed; lying down, one could directly feel the grass through the tent fabric and smell a waft of fresh aroma.

Upon waking up, the first thing Xuerou did was to check the bowl Xiao Xian used for the lotus seeds.

The full basin of water had been drained to only half left, the lotus seeds that had been punctured now showed the creamy white lotus seeds, the green lotus hearts had swollen and sprouted.

"They really did sprout," Xiao Xian saw Xuerou’s stunned look and found it amusing.

"Of course, they sprouted. If Yiyi saw you like this, she’d definitely laugh at you," speaking of Zhang Yiyi made Xuerou worried again. Hearing that she had accidentally swallowed a wall lizard that looked like a four-legged snake, Zhang Yiyi vomited several times and kept saying that she was doomed.

"Come on, when you were doing the hospital admission, she even specifically asked me to buy several bags of cookies and cola, saying she wanted to fight poison with poison, using junk food to counteract the toxicity brought by the four-legged snake," dealing with someone like Zhang Yiyi, even a spiritual lizard would be helpless.

"Alright, then our task for today is to clean up the pond and plant the sprouted lotus seeds?" Xiao Xian and Xuerou had already removed the excess silt from the pond the previous evening. What was left probably involved clearing out the lotus flowers and roots that only grew leaves but did not bloom.

"Yes, let’s not waste the lotus roots; we’ll use them to stew lotus root soup tonight, though there aren’t many ribs, not enough to flavor it," even in the wild surrounded by cattails, Xiao Xian knew how to make the best of a hard situation.

Xiao Xian further cut open the skins of the lotus seeds, exposing a row of tender lotus seeds. She peeled a shell and popped it into her mouth, tasting its freshness.

The two were busy all afternoon. The silt next to the Night Lotus was cleared.

Once the Lotus Pond was cleared, Xiao Xian and Xuerou enjoyed a fresh meal of lotus root porridge that night.

While resting at night by the pond where several washed lotus roots lay scattered, light footsteps were heard outside in the middle of the night. Xiao Xian alertly opened her eyes in the tent.

Monk Tianya walked to the Mongolian tent with blue and white patterns, looked again at the cleared Lotus Pond, picked up a few pieces of lotus root, his face thoughtful.

**

Thank Cunning Rat for the pink ticket~

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