The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 295 - 284: The Wood Fairy

Chapter 295: Chapter 284: The Wood Fairy

Manbao squatted at the very edge, entrusted with catching the mushrooms Zhou Silang handed out because he piled them up before passing them on, leaving Manbao rather bored.

She stared at the grass and the earth on the ground, and as she did, she couldn’t help but sneak a glance at her fourth brother.

Zhou Silang was facing away from her, so Manbao took the opportunity to dig up a handful of mud and shove it into the system space, and Keke cooperated tacitly, accepting whatever Manbao dug up.

The system space was instantly stuffed with lumps of separate mud.

Zhou Silang had picked all the mushrooms from the innermost part and, without needing Manbao to catch them, directly bundled them up and walked out.

He gingerly placed them himself into the carrying basket on his back.

Their venture was extremely smooth that day, and Zhou Silang was delighted, so with a wave of his hand, he said, "Let’s go, let’s keep looking."

Manbao, full of ambition, followed, while Keke scanned diligently.

Manbao had never been this far up the mountain simply because she was too young and had no reason to go; she could only roam near the mountains close to the village entrance.

The surrounding mountains were mostly pine and differed somewhat from those near the village; thus, some plants eluded Manbao’s collection.

Some plants already had samples in the encyclopedia, surviving into the future without becoming extinct; a portion were already extinct, but more commonly, the plants that still existed in the future differed from the present, either as variations or branches.

The encyclopedia established complicated criteria for scoring points; rarity was one, its utility was another, but even more important was its significance for the future of biotechnology.

Another factor was aesthetic appeal.

For instance, some of the wildflowers Manbao initially collected eagerly were already extinct, with no particular functional or biological value, but they yielded considerable points after recording due to their significant ornamental value.

Moreover, such plants brought Manbao a steady stream of click-based points.

As long as someone clicked, she would earn points.

At first, Manbao didn’t think much of those points since they were minimal—she might get only one point for a hundred clicks—but as the number of recorded plants grew, it became a substantial income.

Manbao had noticed that even if she didn’t enter plants for a long time, she still had a daily income of points—all from clicks.

Manbao paid special attention to this and found that flowering plants were the most popular, such as the Wisteria and Azalea she had recorded;

Next were plants with medicinal value, like the Ligustrum and yam she had previously collected.

Even the various mushrooms had decent click rates.

But what astounded Manbao the most was that the poisonous mushrooms category had seen a meteoric rise in clicks lately, even surpassing the flower category at times.

Therefore, Manbao was very keen on finding poisonous mushrooms she hadn’t recorded yet.

Unfortunately, there were none.

After digging up two herbs and a vine, Manbao straightened up dejectedly. It was bad enough not finding pretty wildflowers, but why were there no medicinal herbs either?

If there were no medicinal plants, couldn’t there at least be something poisonous?

Manbao believed that the popularity of poisonous mushrooms was surely not due to the word "mushroom," but because of the "poison."

The click rates for other mushrooms she recorded were quite ordinary.

Zhou Silang also straightened up dejectedly, handing over a vine he had separated to Manbao. To make it easier for her to hold, he cruelly pinched off the tendrils, leaving just a section with some roots and stems.

He couldn’t understand, "Can this thing be sold?"

Manbao shook her head.

"Then why must you dig them up?" Zhou Silang had been curious for some time, "I’m telling you, since you were little, you’ve loved to mess with plants and grass. You dig up foxtail grass, pull up cauliflower, and you never let go of the wildflowers and grass on the mountain."

After some thought, Manbao said, "Because I like flowers and grass?"

Manbao had given this reason before, but Zhou Silang had never listened to it so intently.

He thought about it carefully and said, "No, that’s not right. Maybe you have a destiny with these flowers and grass. Yes, could it be that your element is wood? It must be so. I’ll take you to the Daoist temple to calculate it later. I’m telling you, you were able to find Ligustrum, discover yam, and even dug up China root. Maybe you really are a wood spirit or perhaps even a wood fairy in a past life."

Manbao was marvelously astounded, "There are also wood fairies? I’ve only heard of Flower Fairies."

"Since flowers have fairies, wood must certainly have them too. The Flower Fairy just takes care of flowers, but flowers also belong to wood, so a wood fairy must be more powerful than a Flower Fairy."

"But I think Flower Fairy sounds nicer."

"What’s the use of sounding nice? Having great abilities is what matters. Like our dad and uncle’s names," Zhou Silang paused for a moment and then braved on under Manbao’s gaze, "Our dad is named ’Gold’ and uncle ’Silver,’ so isn’t Gold a nicer name than Silver?"

Manbao nodded hesitantly; to her, they seemed the same—both were money.

Zhou Silang then said, "Right, you feel that way too, don’t you? But uncle is much more capable than our dad, so a nice-sounding name is useless. It’s being powerful that counts."

Keke tried to find a joking expression on his face but after a long time realized he seemed quite serious.

"... Host, are you serious too?"

But instead of answering, Manbao countered with a question of her own, "Keke, was I really a wood fairy in my past life, and that’s why I’m so smart?"

Keke: ... No, even if you were a fairy, you couldn’t possibly be a wood fairy because the things you’ve found were actually scanned by me!

But faced with a child not even seven years old, Keke could only respond with silence.

Without hearing Keke’s reply, Manbao took it as a silent agreement and became gleeful, "Fourth Brother, I think what you said is right."

With a wave of her little hand, she strode forward, "Let’s go, let’s keep looking for China root."

She didn’t hand the plants to Keke simply because there was no opportunity to do so.

Manbao, trained frequently by Keke, knew that even when dealing with her parents, she had to be cautious when receiving and taking items.

The two thus continued walking around the waist of the mountain, not allowed to go up, and after a while, just as Zhou Silang hesitated whether to return home first, Manbao stopped in her tracks.

Then he saw Manbao peeking into a thorny thicket, a circle formed by three sturdy pine trees hiding many spiky bushes, the kind that Zhou Silang would definitely not poke his head into to search for anything.

Meanwhile, Manbao squatted there for a long time, finally pointing into it and saying, "Fourth Brother, there’s China root inside."

Zhou Silang squinted into it for a long time before asking, "Is it really there? Why can’t I see it?"

"I’ve always told you my eyesight is better than yours."

After a brief consideration, Zhou Silang, feeling she was right, set down his basket, picked up the hoe and said, "I’ll clear some of these annoying bushes first, move aside."

Manbao stepped aside to the base of a pine tree, feeling a bit tired, and decided to sit down and rest.