The beloved baby has a space

Chapter 21 Soybean Vine

Little Ayu knew that going directly into that huge place would make her faint. So she ran out happily, found a place where miscellaneous items were piled up, sat down there, and seeing everyone busy, she slipped into her spatial dimension.

"Elf, you were looking for me?" Little Ayu saw the white ball floating in the air and happily rushed over.

The little dumpling didn't run away; she held it in her arms and stroked its head with her five little fingers for a while.

Stop rubbing!

Look at the beans you brought!

At Tuanzi's prompting, Xiao Ayu saw bean sprouts growing on the soil in the space.

The bean sprouts clearly didn't look like they had only been planted for two days; they were already half the length of Xiao Ayu's arm.

The soybeans I planted, though called bean sprouts, have already grown more than ten leaves. If you look closely, you can see that these leaves are growing at a noticeable rate.

"Wow, it's vegetables!" Little Ayu hadn't seen vegetables in a long time.

In winter, Hujia Village has turned into a black, white and gray world. Even the evergreen pine and cypress trees are covered with thick snow, and you can't see any green at all.

[These are pea shoots; they are not edible.]

If the kid had come in earlier yesterday, he could have harvested a bunch of soybean sprouts, but after a day and a night, and then another day, he'd already missed that stage.

The soil in this space is rich in nutrients and contains healthy radiation that promotes rapid plant growth. It can easily change the growth habits of ordinary plants, allowing them to grow quickly.

They are generally used for cultivating specialty crops.

However, the child unintentionally planted low-grade soybeans.

Move them away, don't plant them here.

But Xiao Ayu had already figured out Tuanzi's personality. She could listen to what Tuanzi said or not, since Tuanzi was just talking anyway.

Little Ayu had overheard her mother saying that the soil outside had frozen solid, making it impossible to grow vegetables anymore.

Without soil, we can't grow crops, and everyone will go hungry.

“We won’t move it, we’ll plant it here,” Little Ayu insisted. “Ayu knows how to grow vegetables.”

She remembers that growing vegetables is very simple. Just separate the vegetable babies, and they will grow flowers and little babies. Then plant the little babies, and more vegetable babies will grow.

Someone taught her.

Tuanzi could only watch as Xiao Ayu huffed and puffed as she separated the soybean sprouts.

The old woman gave her a total of thirty-odd soybeans, of which more than twenty sprouted and grew lush and green.

Little Ayu didn't mind the trouble; she planted each plant one by one and even stomped on them with her little feet.

After planting, Xiao Ayu went to see the Wanling Water.

She knew that the vegetables needed watering after they were planted.

【No, no, no, don't mess it up! Go outside and get some snow, snow water will do too!】 Anyway, these plants won't die no matter how you take care of them in this space.

But if it's raised with the All-Purpose Water, it'll probably be full of soybeans by tonight. It's finally managed to collect a bowlful, and it doesn't want its offspring to waste any more.

When Xiao Ayu returned to her body, she felt that the snow was too cold. What if the vegetable baby got frostbite?
So she went to the kitchen, saw the water in the water vat, and asked her daughter-in-law who was cooking, "Aunt Hua, can I have a little bit of water?"

She cupped her two little hands together, indicating the size of a bowl: "Just this little bit."

When the cook heard her call out her surname, she felt a warmth in her heart. She immediately scooped a large ladle of water for her and asked, "Are you thirsty? Your aunt has some boiled water here. Drink the hot water so your stomach won't hurt."

"It's not for me to drink, it's for Cai Baobao." Little Ayu picked up the ladle, walked carefully, and after taking two steps, turned back and said, "I'll give this back to you later."

The daughter-in-law didn't pay any attention to the "vegetable baby" she mentioned, assuming it was some little kid surnamed Cai.

On second thought, there doesn't seem to be anyone with the surname Cai in the village.

Are you going to water the vegetables?
The wife immediately shook her head, saying, "Where can we grow vegetables in this weather?"

When no one was looking, Xiao Ayu poured the water from the ladle into the soil in the space, so that every bean sprout could drink water.

While watering the vegetables, she chanted, "Baby vegetables, grow quickly. No bugs, no yellowing. Drink your fill, grow tall and strong..." She remembered this nursery rhyme and hummed it, extremely happy.

Looking at the lush green bean sprouts, Xiao Ayu put her hands on her hips and felt especially happy.

Wow, they'll be so beautiful and delicious when they grow up!

The dumpling covered its eyes with its two wings.

[What a terrible thing!] If the Land of Ten Thousand Spirits could speak, it would definitely cry.

Little Ayu, of course, knew nothing of this. She took the ladle back and returned it. Several village children came to call her, and she followed them again.

She has lots of playmates now!
Dr. Hu recovered completely after three days of rest and also indicated that he would no longer pursue the matter of Shanyang Village.

Zhang Zhan, whom they rescued, also took his leave the next day after scaring away the people of Shanyang Village. Before leaving, he said, "Please don't panic. Once we get through these few days, the imperial court will send someone."

At that time, the villagers didn't really believe it. If the imperial court wanted to send someone, it probably would have done so long ago, otherwise they wouldn't have ended up in such dire straits!

With the arrival of spring, the spring tax will have to be paid again, and who knows what the situation will be like then.

Instead of waiting for the imperial court to provide aid, it's better to find a way to survive on your own.

Before we knew it, it was the tenth day of the first lunar month. After three consecutive days of sunny weather, the snow in the village was melting at an extremely fast pace.

When the snow melts, it forms streams. Village Chief Hu leads everyone to divert the streams into various irrigation ditches, allowing the water to flow away along the ditches.

Otherwise, once this water accumulates, it will likely cause another flood.

The houses were gradually cleared, and more than half of them were damaged, with some even completely collapsed.

The able-bodied men in the village went up the mountain to cut wood, while those skilled in stonemasonry went to the other side to quarry stone. Everyone built the houses in a hurry.

Most people couldn't build proper houses, so they went to the bamboo forest to cut bamboo, split it, and weave it into large bamboo slabs. They would then tie the sturdy bamboo slabs to the foundation, stand the slabs upright, tie them to bamboo poles, and then plaster them with yellow mud. Two bamboo slabs standing parallel to each other, with the mud filling the space between them, could also become a thick, windproof wall.

Once the walls are finished, the roof is covered with thatched roofing after it has been dried in the sun, and the house is complete.

However, such houses cannot last more than a few years and are prone to collapse during heavy snow.

Old Wang's family has several houses built like this; luckily, they weren't crushed when the snow collapsed.

But there was nothing anyone could do; they didn't have that much money. They could only endure it until things got a little better, and then they could fix up the house a bit.

When the houses were being built, everyone was busy, so the children were left unattended, and little Ayu became the object of protection for her older brothers.

By the tenth day, the soybean seedlings in Xiao Ayu's space had fully grown into soybean vines, with clusters of soybean pods hanging on the vines like strings of tassels.

Little Ayu wasn't very good at counting and couldn't count how many there were, but she still followed Tuanzi's instructions and dug up more than twenty soybean vines, planting them next to Old Wang's house.

Leave only one plant in the space, and wait for it to turn completely yellow before shelling the soybeans to use as seeds.

"Ayu, are you watering the grass again?" Wang Wulang called out to little Ayu from afar, a blade of grass dangling from his mouth, and instructed her, "Don't go too far."

After the snow melted, the grasses hidden in the snow all eagerly sprouted.

The older brothers were assigned the task of clearing all the weeds from the family's thirty-odd acres of land and taking care of little Ayu.

Little Ayu was carrying a small water bottle, which Old Wang had specially carved for her; it was just the right size for the little girl to hold.

The little lamb followed at her feet, hopping and skipping along, occasionally pooping out a few black beans.

"Fifth Brother, Ayu's little beans have sprouted!" Little Ayu had finally managed to move all the soybean vines out, and couldn't wait to pull Wang Wulang to see them.

Wang Wulang found it amusing, thinking to himself, "It must be some kind of grass that has sprouted seeds."

Or maybe the lamb pooped in the grass again.

When Xiao Ayu pulled him to the side of the house, he saw a row of very sturdy soybean vines and densely packed soybean pods.

He was so frightened that he dropped the grass in his mouth.

(End of this chapter)