Chapter 136: The Risk of Getting Beaten Up

Fortunately, as a Tier 4 peak Plant Spirit Enhancer, her body and consciousness had been tempered through several rounds of refinement. Otherwise, she truly would not have been able to withstand such a high level of mental strain.

Speaking of mental strain... hmm, Yu Yan felt a bit hungry. She pulled out a piece of roasted mysterious turtle meat and began to nibble on it, pondering the matter of planting vegetables in her Plant Spirit Minor World. Calling it "planting vegetables" wasn't quite accurate; she only had some red beans, mung beans, soybeans, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

Would these count as coarse grains?

Never mind. Since the dungeon world descended and she finished the last of the home’s vegetable stock, Yu Yan had been eating nothing but meat for every single meal. Fire bird meat, mysterious turtle meat, fire rhino meat, Qu Ru bird meat... after eating like this for over a month, she was craving vegetables to the point of madness. The last few potatoes and sweet potatoes had only escaped being eaten because they had started to sprout.

However, she did have quite a lot of mung beans, red beans, and soybeans left.

Mostly, these were durable and did not spoil easily, so Yu Yan had bought and stored plenty. She also had some miscellaneous grains, rice, and flour, but those had been processed using modern techniques and would not sprout under normal circumstances, so she didn't bother counting on them.

She decided to start by planting what she had.

No sooner said than done, Yu Yan sank her consciousness into the Plant Spirit Minor World.

She circled the minor world once, finally chose a suitable patch of land, and "planted" the three types of beans and two types of root vegetables.

This so-called "planting" simply meant tossing the seeds and chopped root vegetable chunks onto the ground.

There was no helping it; Yu Yan’s physical body could not enter the Plant Spirit Minor World, and her consciousness's influence on the world was limited to things related to energy. For instance, she could use an energy barrier to create an activity area for the little crocodile, but for meticulous work like farming, she could only make do.

The feather-leaf banyan branches and purple star bamboo from before had been planted in exactly the same way. Their survival was entirely due to their own powerful vitality!

Sigh, her Plant Spirit Minor World was perfect in every way, except for the fact that she, the master, couldn't get inside. It was rather frustrating.

Upon reflection, however, Yu Yan felt a sense of relief.

The Plant Spirit Minor World existed in reliance on her physical body and soul sea. If she could actually enter it... hmm, that seemed like a paradox. Entering the soul space within her own body? It just felt like something wasn't quite right.

After "planting" the three types of beans and two types of root crops, Yu Yan still felt a lingering desire to do more.

She ran home and rummaged through cupboards and cabinets to find the vegetable seeds her mother had collected—before the dungeon world descended, Chen Biqin had a habit of gardening. Among those Yu Yan knew of, there were pumpkins, winter melons, taro, luffa, bitter greens, string beans, and tomatoes.

Sure enough, behind the stairs leading to the attic, she found a few packets of small green vegetable seeds and baby bok choy seeds. There was also a packet of tomato seeds.

Yu Yan didn't turn her nose up at any of them; she gathered them all and tossed them into the patch she had designated as her "vegetable garden."

Although she couldn't enter the Plant Spirit Minor World to perform delicate tasks, she could at least plan out the growth areas for each crop. The rows of green vegetables, baby bok choy, and tomato seeds were arranged quite neatly.

Even the spacing between them looked as if it had been precisely measured.

"Yan’er, what are you doing?" Chen Biqin asked, rubbing her eyes as she pushed open the door to the small cubicle.

"Nothing much, Mom. Are there any other seeds at home?"

Only then did Chen Biqin notice the empty seed packets in Yu Yan’s hands. "No more. There were some taro left, but your brother was craving *mi-shai-pa* noodles. Whenever I make *mi-shai-pa*, I’m in the habit of tossing in a few pieces of taro."

"I figured that since the dungeon world had arrived, there was no way to grow vegetables anyway."

"So I washed the remaining taro, peeled them, and threw them in to boil with the noodles."

Yu Yan: "..."

Very well, that was indeed Chen Biqin’s style.

*Mi-shai-pa* was a type of noodle dish from the Jiang-Zhe region, and it was just as tedious to make as wheat cakes.

Ever since the twins were born, she, the eldest daughter, had been relegated to the "cold palace." Her mother didn't pay much attention to the younger twin, Yu Wan, either; the vast majority of Chen Biqin’s maternal love was poured into Yu Lei.

On any ordinary day, if her son said he wanted to eat something, she would arrange it without fearing the trouble or effort.

As for her, in the past, whenever she managed to return home, her mother would just fob her off with leftovers.

For some reason, a wave of bitterness welled up in Yu Yan's heart, and her tone turned sharp. "If they're gone, they're gone. Mom, I'm hungry."

"If you're hungry, then you're hungry. Why are you shouting?"

Chen Biqin seemed to recall something and raged, "I haven't even settled the score with you yet! What kind of thing did you give me to eat yesterday? If I hadn't had a strong will last night, you wouldn't have a mother anymore. I think you're trying to murder your own mother!"

She knew it would be like this.

Yu Yan said helplessly, "Refining a blood crystal is like that; it remodels the meridians and bones in your body."

"It is a necessary pain. Didn't you complain that the blood crystal I gave you was of too low a grade? If I had given you a Tier 6 blood crystal, the pain you experienced last night would have been at least three times worse."

Chen Biqin shivered immediately. "I don't want it, I don't want it."

"If I had known that refining this thing would be so painful, a Tier 4 would have been fine. Yan’er, you really are something—why didn't you tell me sooner? Do you think I wouldn't have believed you? You made me suffer such a great ordeal for nothing."

The suffering was real; Chen Biqin’s slightly plump face looked a circle thinner now.

But as for what Chen Biqin said, Yu Yan couldn't help but scoff internally.

Even if she had told her in advance, her mother wouldn't have believed her at all. She would have thought that Yu Yan was just being stingy with good things and trying to swindle her with empty words.

People who only shed tears when they see the coffin—that was exactly the type of person her mother was.

This was also the reason why she had given Lou Yuhui a Tier 6 Gale Leopard blood crystal last night, but only a Tier 5 to her own mother. It wasn't that she was stingy; if she had given Chen Biqin a Tier 6 blood crystal at the time, whether her mother could have survived the energy remodeling was one thing, but even if she had luckily survived, the first thing she would have done would probably have been to chase her around the house to beat her.

Yu Yan wasn't stupid.

For a woman like her mother, who was a paper tiger—fierce in appearance but timid inside—the opportunities to enter dungeons for combat would be few and far between. It would be enough if her strength was just decent; there was absolutely no need to risk getting beaten up just to make her mother challenge her physical limits.

Besides, the bloodline of a Tier 5 Fire Bird wasn't bad at all.

"Mom, hurry up and make me some breakfast. I'm starving."

"Duoduo will be waking up soon, too. After breakfast, let’s see what kind of bloodline skill you’ve awakened."

Yu Yan employed the "change the subject" technique.

Sure enough, Chen Biqin was distracted by the topic of "bloodline skills" and stopped dwelling on the pain of the previous night. She headed toward the kitchen, muttering under her breath, "I suffered all night. If the bloodline skill isn't powerful, wouldn't that mean I suffered for nothing? I hope the awakened skill is strong."

"It doesn't have to be better than Xiao Wan's, but it shouldn't be worse, either."

"What was Xiao Wan's bloodline skill again? She seems to have two. One is Explosive Fireball, and the other... hmm, right, it’s Chain Rocket! That Chain Rocket looks so cool, and the Explosive Fireball is good, too."

"It explodes the moment it hits something."

"She and I are both fire-type, so I imagine the awakened bloodline skill should be about the same."

Yu Yan, following behind, heard her mother’s rambling and couldn't help but wipe the sweat from her forehead.

Mom, you’re really overthinking this!

Her younger sister had refined a Tier 7 Earth-grade Fire Rhino blood crystal, which is how she managed to awaken two bloodline skills...