Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Mo Ka Forest

Same tree. Same batch of apples. Only a few days’ difference in harvest time.

The taste, though, was worlds apart.

The apples nourished by waterwood stone were larger, redder, and noticeably sweeter.

The downside was that the more waterwood stone she collected, the more water-chilling stone felt scarce. So she decided to spend the last day by the stream and focus on gathering.

What she didn’t expect was how crowded the banks had become.

A little eavesdropping was enough to learn why: silver moon fish and longevity cicada.

Longevity cicada were limited ingredients. Each one wasn’t worth much, but they were easy to catch, and one good night could equal a full day’s work.

As for silver moon fish, they were fast, but for someone with water talent, catching them was almost effortless.

“Everyone here has been robbed,” a tall girl told Ling Mo as they spoke. She looked about the same age—probably a student. “If they want to keep their right to stay in the game, they have to band together.”

Her words sounded sympathetic, but her gaze kept drifting to the vegetable basket in Ling Mo’s hands.

Ling Mo didn’t mind. She held it out openly.

When the girl saw how pitiful the score looked, a flash of pity crossed her eyes, and her voice softened. “Don’t worry. We have numbers here. Those people won’t dare act up. Oh—my name is Piao Miao Yun Yan. What about you?”

“Sesame Rice Ball,” Ling Mo said smoothly, without blinking.

They chatted a bit more, and the girl warmed quickly.

Maybe because Ling Mo’s points looked so low, as if elimination was inevitable, Piao Miao Yun Yan’s expression kept carrying that same faint pity.

Ling Mo didn’t mind it. Pity was better than envy.

When night came, Ling Mo watched the group light a fire without even trying to find shelter. She couldn’t help asking, “You’re not going to hide?”

Piao Miao Yun Yan walked over with a leaf folded into a bowl, holding a steaming wild-vegetable mushroom soup. She offered it to Ling Mo and giggled. “We found a method. The beasts won’t come close.”

Before Ling Mo could ask what it was, several people emerged from the forest carrying a bulky bundle wrapped in leaves.

Piao Miao Yun Yan beamed. “That’s our secret weapon.”

Ling Mo had a pretty good guess what it was before the leaves even came off.

When they unwrapped it layer by layer, everyone nearby frowned instinctively.

“Smear this manure around the area,” Piao Miao Yun Yan explained. “No beasts will come near at night.”

It was revolting, but she wasn’t wrong. It would work.

Ling Mo glanced down at the soup in her hands and suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore.

Piao Miao Yun Yan directed the others to smear the stuff onto the trees around their camp. They gagged and grimaced, but for points, they forced themselves through it.

Ling Mo quietly drifted away from the group. If she stayed near them, they’d probably catch zero longevity cicada tonight.

Better to keep distance and not interfere. Everyone benefited that way.

Piao Miao Yun Yan didn’t stop her. She likely assumed Ling Mo had given up and was just waiting to be eliminated.

Ling Mo found a tree hollow she’d used before and climbed in with practiced ease. While waiting for darkness, she kept collecting water-chilling stone from the stream. Now and then, she even flipped a silver moon fish out from beneath a stone.

She checked her ranking. She’d fallen from first to fifth.

Honestly, that was better than she expected. She’d thought she might drop to eighth or ninth—or even out of the top ten entirely.

When night finally settled, she heard the familiar sound again and closed her eyes, focusing.

Longevity cicada began pushing up from the soil. She caught them one after another and fed them into her vegetable basket.

Then she froze in surprise.

There were far more than yesterday—several times more. She had to pull out every vegetable basket she owned just to keep up with the flow.

Was it because she was close to water?

She worked nonstop all night. Her mental power nearly ran dry, and only advanced recovery serum kept her from crashing.

By the time dawn lightened the sky, the longevity cicada finally stopped emerging.

Ling Mo exhaled slowly, consolidated the scores from all her vegetable basket, and climbed right back into first place.

Through the cracks of the tree hollow, she could already see people wading in to fish.

She’d taken an advanced recovery potion and felt full of energy, so she climbed out and joined them.

Piao Miao Yun Yan spotted her and looked startled. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”

Ling Mo just smiled politely.

It was the last day. She decided to head upstream again.

She’d planned it before, but the men she’d run into—and that massive shadow in the night—had thrown her off.

Now everyone was busy scrambling for points. They wouldn’t waste time on someone they believed was doomed.

After several hours, a massive plant appeared ahead, lying across the stream and blocking the upper flow.

Ling Mo stepped closer and whistled under her breath.

No wonder the stream had seemed so shallow. This thing had been choking off nearly half the water.

When she moved around to the other side, she found a cluster of silver moon fish hiding beneath it.

Ling Mo rubbed her hands together, delighted. A deal this good didn’t come twice.

“All right,” she murmured. “Be good, little fish. Sister will find you a new home.”

The fish didn’t get a choice. With a wave of her hand, she transferred them into the pond in her pocket space.

Then she examined the plant itself. It was jade green, patterned with beautiful green markings, and its leaves looked… stripped bare.

The ground around it hadn’t been disturbed. So how had it ended up here?

Had it fallen from the sky?

Ling Mo cared because her mental power picked up strange ripples radiating from it. This wasn’t an ordinary plant.

And when she leaned in to smell it, a faint medicinal fragrance drifted into her lungs. Warmth spread through her body, soothing and blissful, like sinking into a hot spring—followed by the lingering ease of a full-body massage.