Not long after Yan Yue finished the meal, he took a bag of tomatoes that Lu Lingxi picked for him and said goodbye. Although he wanted to stay a little longer, he knew that if he stayed late, he would only arouse Wang Shuxiu’s suspicion, so it was better to keep a low profile.
After sending Yan Yue away, Lu Lingxi started his daily watering routine. Dahei squatted aside watching him, his little eyes glancing eagerly at the tomatoes around him every now and then. Lu Lingxi couldn’t help but feel his heart soften when he saw Dahei’s eyes. He put down the water hose and squatted in front of Dahei, looking at him seriously: “You know, it’s for your own good that I don’t let you eat tomatoes.”
After Brother Dong heard that Dahei especially liked to eat tomatoes, he once warned Lu Lingxi that although a stray dog like Dahei had a better stomach than an average pet dog, he couldn’t be allowed to eat indiscriminately. If you were not careful, he would easily get enteritis and diarrhoea. In comparison with how skinny and bony Dahei was when Yan Yue brought him to Brother Dong, now that Lu Lingxi had managed to fatten him up a bit, he could barely be called shiny and smooth. So naturally Lu Lingxi couldn’t let Dahei get sick again, especially with something like enteritis that would make him vomit and affect his appetite, or diarrhoea. So he took Brother Dong’s admonition to heart and began to limit the amount of tomatoes Dahei ate each day.
Dahei seemed to have understood his words and gave a short bark.
Lu Lingxi curved his eyes, raised his hand to touch Dahei’s head and praised, “But Dahei was obedient today, so he can be rewarded with half a tomato.”
Dahei had eaten quite a lot in the evening, and Lu Lingxi was somewhat afraid to let Dahei eat more. Half a tomato was just a matter of relieving Dahei’s cravings, and it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Lu Lingxi then watched as Dahei’s ears twitched and his eyes lit up. He saw his reflection in Dahei’s brown eyes, full of closeness and trust.
Lu Lingxi smiled softly, washed his hands and picked a big tomato, cutting it in half, one half for him and one half for Dahei.
Dahei narrowed his eyes in satisfaction and quietly squatted at Lu Lingxi’s feet.
After eating the tomato and watering, Lu Lingxi took Dahei and rinsed the mud off his paws, then picked up the book on the chair and brought it back inside to read.
Wang Shuxiu just came out of the shower and hesitantly called out to Lu Lingxi when she saw him enter the house. She wanted to talk to Lu Lingxi about resigning. Wang Shuxiu didn’t want Lu Lingxi to make a decision, but since they were the only ones at home, without a man as the backbone, they could only discuss anything between themselves.
She was forty-two this year, and in Lin Mei’s words, she was not young anymore. Even though she took good care of herself, there was no way she could compete with the young girls in KTV who were as tender as flowers. Wang Shuxiu was not unaware of this, but she really didn’t know what she could do if she quit her job. She couldn’t let the little bastard support her, could she? She was still young and didn’t want to be a burden to Lu Lingxi. Besides, Lu Lingxi was already eighteen and should soon get married and have children, so Wang Shuxiu was still thinking of saving up to buy Lu Lingxi an apartment. Nowadays, young girls were proud; not many were willing to live with their in-laws, and she didn’t mind it, so she still had to work to earn money. But Lin Mei was also right; her body really couldn’t bear it. If she had a brain fever and collapsed, it made her heart ache to think that the little bastard would have to look after her alone.
With all this forethought, Wang Shuxiu still couldn’t make up her mind to quit.
Lu Lingxi didn’t think as far as Wang Shuxiu; it was too far away to get married and buy a house. He felt that it was good for him and Wang Shuxiu to live together, and as long as he did a good job and the Tiny Garden business was slowly getting on track, he would have no problem supporting Wang Shuxiu. Wang Shuxiu had been working hard for so many years, it was time to take a good rest.
Wang Shuxiu snorted with laughter after hearing this and casually slapped Lu Lingxi on the head. “Little bastard is good at saying nice things. You think it’s good to live with me now, but when you have a wife, you’ll probably think I’m an eyesore.”
When Lu Lingxi wanted to refute, Wang Shuxiu joked, “Okay, you need to find a wife first.”
Lu Lingxi: “……”
After talking for a long time, mother and son still didn’t have a unified opinion. Wang Shuxiu saw that it was getting late and rushed Lu Lingxi to go to bed first. Even if she wanted to resign, she had to report a month in advance, so it was still early.
Lu Lingxi took Dahei back to the house, but his mind was still on Wang Shuxiu. He didn’t know anything about the outside work, and he didn’t know what Wang Shuxiu could do if she quit. Why doesn’t he ask Big Brother Yan tomorrow? Big Brother Yan must know more than him in this area. Lu Lingxi made up his mind and quietly began his daily reading.
“Huh? Where’s that piece of paper?”
Lu Lingxi flipped through the “Encyclopaedia”; he remembered that there was a sheet with his notes sandwiched inside, and there was also a half-finished sketch of Dahei. But he had searched for a long time and couldn’t find this piece of paper. Had it been stuck in another book and he had remembered it wrong? Lu Lingxi looked puzzled, but didn’t think much of it; the notes were not important anyway, so he could look for them in other books tomorrow. After reading for a while Lu Lingxi was ready to go to sleep. He had an appointment with Yi Hang to go to the plant nursery tomorrow morning and had to get up early.
The next morning, Lu Lingxi woke up at five o’clock, and as soon as he opened his eyes, he heard Dahei’s low whimpering. Dahei couldn’t hold it in anymore; he ate too much last night and early in the morning he wanted to poop but couldn’t open the bolt of the balcony. He didn’t want to wake up Lu Lingxi, so he could only bear it pitifully, squatting at the door and whimpering aggrieved.
Lu Lingxi felt a little distressed, and hurriedly opened the balcony door. Dahei rushed out like an arrow, and Lu Lingxi walked out with him. Seeing Dahei running to the corner skillfully, Lu Lingxi couldn’t help laughing when Dahei was relieved.
The morning air in the backyard was very fresh, invigorating and comfortable. Lu Lingxi stretched his back and habitually did a mental scan. The white panel suddenly surfaced and floated in front of him.
“Second generation tomatoes collected and planted successfully, bonus reward plant heart +50.”
Lu Lingxi looked at the white panel in confusion. Second generation tomatoes successfully planted? What did this mean? Mental scan swept across the backyard, and a few tender plants just showing their leaves growing below the balcony were revealed in the white panel.
Plant name: Tomato
Plant needs: Water
Plant viability: High
Lu Lingxi crouched down in amazement. How could tomatoes grow here? He remembered… The events of last night flashed through his mind, and Lu Lingxi instantly thought of the tomato he and Dahei had shared here. Could it be that the seeds inside had fallen to the ground and grown out on their own?
This conjecture made Lu Lingxi a little excited. The system rewarded tomato seeds were only a tiny packet. Although he had purposely saved half of them when he planted them last time, the total number was there, so with another crop it would probably be gone and he didn’t know when the system would reward them again. If these tomatoes could be planted by themselves, then wouldn’t there be no need to worry about seeds in the future? Lu Lingxi thought of this and immediately went back to the house to look for the book on tomato growing. He remembered that it mentioned how to collect seeds, but he hadn’t had time to read it carefully because he had been busy recently.
Soon Lu Lingxi came out with a book in his hand. He followed the instructions and picked a ripe tomato, first removing the flesh and leaving only the seeds inside, then went to the kitchen and found a piece of gauze to wrap the seeds in, and soaked them in a cup of clean water to wash them. After the seeds were cleaned of the pulp and other filaments, Lu Lingxi took out the gauze and carefully dried the seeds on a sheet of white paper. According to the book, the seeds dried in the sun were the tomato seeds that could be planted directly.
Lu Lingxi carefully pressed the white paper against the windowsill to make sure that it would not be blown away by the wind. After all this was done, he had time to return to the backyard to continue studying the newly grown seedlings. The book said that the tomatoes you bought in the market now were basically hybrids, and none of them were considered to be properly ripened either, so their seeds could easily mutate and grow poorly. But his tomatoes were rewarded by the system, so there shouldn’t be this problem, right?
Lu Lingxi couldn’t remember what the first batch of tomatoes looked like now; the growth rate of these seedlings should be similar to that of the first batch. In fact, it didn’t matter if it grew slowly, as long as the taste remained the same. In order to prevent these seedlings from being trampled by Dahei, Lu Lingxi gave Dahei a special warning. He also prepared a small patch of land around the seedlings and was going to come back in the evening to plant all the seeds that had been dried. If all these seeds grew without problems, they would have a constant supply of tomatoes in the future.
“Are you there, Lao San?” Yi Hang’s voice rang out from outside the fence.
Lu Lingxi said yes.
What Yi Hang saw when he came in over the wall was Lu Lingxi squatting there with his hands covered in mud. “What are you planting?” Yi Hang asked curiously.
Lu Lingxi showed him the young seedlings that had grown and explained about saving tomato seeds. Yi Hang’s eyes instantly lit up, “You can really grow it?”
Lu Lingxi nodded uncertainly, “It should be possible.” The system had already prompted that the planting was successful.
Yi Hang excitedly pulled Lu Lingxi, “Lao San, the tomatoes I’m going to eat in my life all depend on you.”
Lu Lingxi: “……”
After washing his hands, Lu Lingxi dressed and followed Yi Hang out the door with Dahei. Yi Hang’s family’s soon-to-be-retired small Jinbei was parked in front of the building, Yi Hang said with a proud expression, “Don’t look that the car looks shitty, the speed is great.”
Lu Lingxi smiled and nodded. Yi Hang got into the car and said casually while starting the engine, “Lao San, have you noticed that the weeds near your building are growing a bit too well? You’re not secretly fertilising them, are you?”
Lu Lingxi had actually noticed the problem that Yi Hang mentioned. The weeds near Building 3, especially near Gate 3, were growing particularly vigorously, and he had heard the neighbours around complaining about it several times. It felt like these weeds were growing a bit crazy and no one knew what was going on.
“But it’s not just weeds. You know Grandma Wang, the old lady upstairs in your house. My mom heard her bragging yesterday that the cabbages she planted on her balcony this year are growing exceptionally well and will be ready to eat in a few days. Fuck, she has never seen the tomatoes you planted, what she does know what it means to grow well,” Yi Hang continued.
Lu Lingxi smiled and didn’t say anything. His eyes swept over the weeds outside. Somehow he thought of the white panel; it couldn’t have anything to do with it, could it?