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墨書 Inktalez
Aunt Wang, with her vegetable basket in tow, widened her eyes as the coarse salt bag slipped from her hands and fell to the ground. Behind her were two farmwomen wielding hoes, and the three of them stared intently at the night jar hanging from the tree.
"Aunt Wang, don’t misunderstand!" Lin Dahe said quickly, thinking on his feet. "This is a... uh... irrigation artifact from the Western Regions!"
The youngest, Sister Li, suddenly covered her mouth. "I heard that eunuchs from the previous dynasty loved to tinker with these strange gadgets..."
Aunt Wang froze mid-motion as she bent down to pick up the salt bag. The three women exchanged nervous glances and hurriedly retreated from the courtyard. Lin Dahe felt cold sweat bead on his forehead—this was a serious problem.
Sure enough, by noon, news had spread throughout the village that "the Lin Family Boy has fallen ill over a night jar." As Lin Dahe squatted in the yard studying potato planting spacing, three or four groups of villagers had already passed by "accidentally" outside the fence.
As the sun began to set, real trouble arrived.
"Scholar Lin, what a refined interest you have."
A sarcastic voice came from behind. Lin Dahe turned to see a tall, thin man in a brown robe. The man had a shiny wooden abacus hanging at his waist, and his fingernails rhythmically scraped against the beads, producing an irritating sound.
"I’ve heard that your family has come into possession of a treasure from the Western Regions?" Zhou Liangzhang—his name popped up automatically in Lin Dahe's mind—squinted as he scrutinized the night jar device hanging from the tree, but his gaze kept darting toward Lin Dahe’s back. Following his line of sight, Lin Dahe's heart sank—those bags of potato seeds were still sitting on the porch!
"There are seven days left until the autumn tax," Zhou Liangzhang suddenly leaned closer, his garlic-scented breath wafting over Lin Dahe’s face. "I heard that bandits recently raided the official grain stores..."
In the distance, two Yard Officers wearing red hats were peering this way. Instinctively, Lin Dahe stepped in front of the porch to block their view but was startled by a piercing alarm from the system: [Warning! Seeds are about to be requisitioned!]
"The grain chief is joking," Lin Dahe chuckled nervously as he backed away. "What seeds could I possibly have..."
Zhou Liangzhang suddenly pressed down on his shoulder with surprising force. "Is that so? Then bring some officials tomorrow to take a look."
Watching Zhou Liangzhang’s retreating figure, Lin Dahe felt his back dampen with sweat. The setting sun elongated that thin shadow, making it resemble a wolf lurking for prey.
After nightfall, Lin Dahe used the moonlight to dig out the first planting trench in the yard. The modified drip irrigation device made from the night jar slowly dripped water onto the freshly buried potato tubers.
"Three days..." He rubbed the last potato he reserved for planting and turned to gaze at the dark village. "I need to prove that this thing can be eaten first."
Suddenly, the system flickered and displayed a small exclamation mark: [Wild potato colony detected, located at the village's west abandoned graveyard.]
Lin Dahe tightened his grip on his hatchet and quietly pushed open the creaking fence gate. Under the moonlight, the grave mounds on the distant hillside stood like silent witnesses watching him slip into darkness.
The night wind rustled through the wild grass of the abandoned graveyard, creating a whispering sound. Lin Dahe crouched beside an unnamed grave that had collapsed on one side; within the circle of torchlight, several plants with thick leaves swayed gently in the breeze. He reached out to part the weeds and carefully examined them in the firelight—oval leaves with finely serrated edges and several wilted pale purple flowers still clinging to their stems.
"These are indeed potatoes!" His fingers trembled with excitement as a prompt appeared on his system screen: [Wild potato colony discovered; 5 experience points can be redeemed.]
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