My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 166 Dragon King

When Wang Susu saw Chen Ling suddenly become lost in thought, she smiled and said, "What's wrong? Zhenzhen is the child's aunt, an elder. She said it's nothing."

The reason for this is that there is a local saying that if a child tells a pregnant woman whether she is carrying a boy, a girl, or how many babies she has, the prediction is usually accurate.

Of course, this is just an old-fashioned superstition and shouldn't be taken seriously at all.

Otherwise, if it were true that every prediction was accurate, based on the old idea of ​​valuing sons over daughters, any child would be born with only sons and no daughters.

"That's not it……"

Chen Ling shook his head, his eyes glazed over, as he recovered from the changes in the Sun and Moon Cave. "It's nothing. You and Zhenzhen rest first. I'll go outside and arrange the flowers and plants. I just dug up some orchids and chrysanthemums from the mountains. They look quite pretty."

"Is it a lot? Let me help you with it."

Upon hearing that there were flowers, Wang Susu became restless.

"Not much, you rest first. I still need to find some soil and get a few flower pots, otherwise our yard is too hard, and with autumn approaching, it will be difficult for flowers and plants to survive if planted directly."

"That's fine."

And so, Chen Ling turned and went out the door again.

Since he obtained the Sun and Moon Grotto, there had never been any major changes. Now that something was amiss, he naturally dared not be negligent and wanted to see what exactly had happened inside.

But at the same time, I was worried that something might go wrong, and it would be bad if something like the first time happened again. I decided to find a secluded place.

After thinking for a moment, he headed south towards the mountain. When he reached the village entrance, he happened to see several fishing boats moored in the reservoir. On a whim, he threw down his shovel and bucket, set off in one of the boats, and slowly made his way south along the reservoir.

As they approached Nanshan, Chen Ling found a place with calm water and trees growing on both banks. He then moored the boat there, tied it to the trees with hemp rope, and with a flash of white light, he disappeared from the boat.

Inside the Sun and Moon Grotto.

Chen Ling suddenly appeared in an unfamiliar place.

The place was shrouded in thick, milky-white mist, which startled him at first glance. He thought that the changes had returned to the state when he first entered the cave, which meant that everything he had raised inside the cave was gone.

However, he soon realized something was wrong, because if he looked behind him, he could still see the scene from before: the woods, the tree-lined path, and even the lotus pond and the arched bridge.

"Wait a minute, how come I can suddenly see so far?"

Just as he was wondering what was going on, he suddenly heard the sound of flowing water. It turned out that with each breath he took in, the thick fog was drawn into his body and slowly thinned out, his vision cleared, and a stream appeared beside him.

It was a stream that ran through the forest, a section he hadn't encountered before, and now he was standing outside the dense forest.

"Goodness, so the interior space has become larger. It turns out it wasn't fully open to me before."

Chen Ling looked around, and was immediately filled with both surprise and delight.

Previously, the interior space of the cave was about a hundred acres in size, but everywhere outside of these hundred acres was covered by thick, milky-white fog, making it impossible to see anything clearly. Even when Chen Ling walked up to see what was behind the fog, he was blocked by an invisible barrier and could not get through at all.

This led him to believe that this was the boundary of the cave.

However, that was not the case. Now he knew that it wasn't that he couldn't get through, and that the boundary was far beyond the thick fog; it was just that the cave hadn't been open to him yet. Now, for some unknown reason, it had opened up access to him further.

Not only did the interior space of the cave expand, but the source of the stream also appeared before his eyes as the thick fog thinned.

I was immediately shocked.

As you follow the clear stream, winding its way forward, you see its source is a small pool, only a few feet square and shallow. Water constantly overflows from it, turning into trickles that converge into a stream that flows into the distance.

In the very center of this pool stood a small, jade-green tree, not very tall, only a little over two meters, but with lush foliage, a gnarled trunk like a dragon, a canopy like a canopy, and leaves so vibrant and green they seemed to drip with moisture, like transparent jade leaves. Surrounding it were wisps of white mist, which condensed on the leaves and dripped into the pool below.

"Ding Dong, Ding Dong..."

The sound was crisp and melodious, but it captivated Chen Ling, leaving him speechless with his mouth agape for a long time.

"This……"

"What kind of tree is this?"

"So that's how the stream inside the cave came to be!"

Chen Ling shook his head, and suddenly a thought appeared in his mind.

[Gathering the essence of heaven and earth, and the spirit of the sun and moon.]

Immediately afterwards, an indescribable feeling filled his heart, and he suddenly realized something, a smile appearing on his face.

"So that's how it is. This water is spiritual water formed from the essence of heaven and earth and the essence of the sun and moon. No wonder it's so powerful."

So I walked up to the jade tree, reached out and collected a few drops of dew from its leaves, and gently put them in my mouth. Instantly, my mouth was filled with a refreshing fragrance and a sweet, pleasant taste. My whole body felt refreshed, as if I had been cleansed, and my spirit was completely renewed.

Then he bent down, scooped up a handful of water from the pool and drank it, but it was not much different from what he had drunk before.

"What a wonderful thing! This pool is also amazing; it can naturally dilute the spiritual water, turning a single drop of dew into hundreds or thousands. This Sun and Moon Grotto-heaven truly lives up to its reputation as a blessed land of immortals; its many wonders and mysteries are astonishing..."

Chen Ling stood up with a deep sense of emotion, his heart filled with joy.

"I like this change. The spiritual water has broadened my horizons. I need to try something else."

So I returned to the familiar place to test the ideas in my mind.

...In the blink of an eye, after many experiments, he had a general understanding of his current abilities. Apart from the spiritual water, his control over the Sun and Moon Cave Heaven had greatly improved.

In the past, the influence on the cave was only achieved through the subconscious, which was a gradual, invisible, and intangible process with very slow results.

Things are different now. Now, with just a thought, one can accomplish most things within the cave.

For example, digging ponds, opening irrigation ditches, and planting trees—things he used to have to do himself with physical effort, he can now do with just his mind.

In general, he could control the land and water within the cave. Whenever he wanted, the trees would automatically make way, the dense forest would open up into clearings, and the ridges would be neatly arranged, as if they had just been plowed, with uniform depth and width.

As long as he wants, the spiritual water can turn back into mist, freeze, or transform into wind, frost, rain, and snow, so that the cave can display the scenery of all four seasons.

Of course, this applies only to areas open to him, where he can do as he pleases. Other areas still shrouded in white mist are different. Furthermore, Chen Ling can also control medicinal herbs, fruits, vegetables, and other plant-based crops, preventing them from growing wildly and instead guiding them to grow in a useful direction, focusing on quality rather than quantity.

They will no longer grow into a messy, tangled mess.

The same applies to animal-related items.

Under his control, everything became orderly and no longer grew wildly.

At the same time, he also vaguely figured out some tricks of the trade, and was able to make better use of the convenience brought by the cave. Most of these were related to planting and breeding, which would need to be developed slowly in the future.

"Good, good, that's more like it."

Chen Ling put his hands on his hips, looked around, and left the cave satisfied.

Back on the boat, seeing the reservoir's rippling blue waters, he suddenly remembered a small experiment he had conducted earlier. He reached out and pressed his hand against the water's surface, and with a thought, he heard a rushing sound as streams of water were drawn into his cave, turning into mist that accumulated into clouds in the sky. As the clouds grew thicker and thicker, they eventually turned into raindrops that fell from the sky, gradually increasing in intensity and speed, eventually bringing a torrential downpour to the cave.

The cave is perpetually spring-like inside, free from wind and rain, a rare occurrence.

Now it's pouring rain.

In an instant, the fishpond churned, and the fish leaped out of the water with great joy. The turtles also crawled out of the water and came to the shore, craning their necks and squinting their eyes to welcome the baptism of wind and rain.

Pheasants and sparrows hid in the thatched hut, hopping around by the window with their wings outstretched, watching the heavy rain outside in amazement, chirping incessantly.

"Sure enough, the water from the outside world became cleaner after entering the cave." Chen Ling carefully sensed it and found that the water quality had indeed improved, but it was just ordinary clean water and did not have the miraculous effects of spiritual water.

So they untied the boat and continued exploring and experimenting as they walked.

Gradually, the rain in the cave stopped, but it had been raining for almost an hour before Chen Ling reluctantly stopped.

His ability to manipulate clouds and rain was so captivating that even he couldn't help but become fascinated by it.

"It's a pity that it can only be used in the cave. If it could be done in the outside world, wouldn't it be almost the same as the Dragon King?"

With these thoughts in mind, we rowed our boat slowly towards the shore. It was only about 11 a.m., and a large group of people were noisily standing on the dam. With the autumn harvest approaching, the villagers were usually busy until past noon, with little free time. It was strange that so many people had gathered today, many of them holding hoes and shovels, gesturing with their hands, and it was unclear what they were doing.

When they saw Chen Ling rowing over in his boat, someone on the dam quickly gestured to him, telling him not to come directly over and to go ashore somewhere else.

"What happened?"

Chen Ling frowned immediately, looked around, but didn't see anything unusual.

However, he still went around in circles and returned to the shore from the west.

He carried the fish from the boat and walked towards the crowd.

These were fish that he had caught in the current when he was collecting water from the reservoir to the cave, and he casually tossed them onto the boat.

"Is Fugui catching fish for his wife again?"

"Yes, we caught two fish. What's up, Second Sister-in-law? Is something the matter? You shouldn't be holding a meeting here, should you?"

"What meeting? Come here and see! Come on over here, there's a monster in our reservoir!"

Chen Guoxing's wife shouted and waved at him.

"A monster?" Chen Ling was taken aback, then immediately remembered the thing he had encountered while fishing at the reservoir before entering the mountains. He hadn't seen its true form underwater at the time, but Chen Ze's father, Lao Niwai, and Wang Laishun had also encountered it. They said that when this thing saw people and ran away, the eddies it stirred up were bigger than millstones, which was very frightening.

"Yes, Fugui, come quick! I'm the one who saw this thing. It looks really fierce, just like a monster."

Chen Ze shouted from the crowd, grabbed Chen Ling and pulled him forward, pointing to a direction for him.

"See that? I saw it not far from that patch of grass with those 'chicken head' buds. My dad and fifth uncle told me that these things stay deep in the reservoir during the day and don't go near the water. They only come over at night. Today, they chased the ducks over and ate several ducks in the water. Before you came over, there were lots of duck feathers and blood bubbles floating on the surface..."

"Yes, I saw them too. Two of the ducks belong to my family."

"..."

The villagers were talking all at once.

After listening to everyone's account for a while, Chen Ling roughly understood what had happened.

The houses in the south of the village are close to the reservoir. When they have nothing to do, their ducks and geese like to swim in the pond and reservoir. Today was no exception. However, they were in trouble not long after they went into the reservoir. They were so scared that they quacked and tried to run away, but they couldn't. One after another, they were chased and dragged into the water and eaten by things in the water.

Chen Ze happened to be with his father when he heard the ducks from the reservoir outside the yard quacking incessantly. At first, he didn't pay any attention to it, but after a while, they started quacking again, which annoyed him a lot. So he took a bamboo pole and went out to chase them away.

As soon as they stepped outside and arrived at the reservoir, they saw a terrifying sight.

He said there was a huge, dark mouth on the surface of the water, as big as a washbasin. It pulled the ducks into the water in one gulp. There were about ten ducks in the flock. They were so scared that they quacked and swam to the shore. But the thing was very cunning. It was fast underwater and kept circling around to drive the ducks away, not letting them escape. It wanted to eat them all.

Chen Ze didn't think much of it at the time and swung the long bamboo pole at it. Although it only splashed water and didn't hit the thing, he finally saw what it really looked like.

At that moment, he saw a huge, dark head emerge from the water; judging from his gestures, it was bigger than a washbasin.

He was so frightened that he screamed, his legs went weak, and he almost lost his balance and fell into the water.

Just then, several villagers who were working on the north side of the dam heard the commotion and rushed over to see what was going on. Being close to the water, accidents could easily happen, especially with young children. Drowning is no small matter, and everyone was on guard. No one would ignore a commotion.

When Chen Ze saw them running over, he pointed at the reservoir and said there was a monster in it. But the villagers didn't believe him at all and laughed at him, saying that he was a grown man with a child and was still making a fool of himself.

Seeing this, Chen Ze became very anxious. In order to prove that he was not lying, he used a bamboo pole to drive the ducks swimming towards the shore back into the water. The ducks were already terrified and dared not swim back. They just rushed towards the shore like madmen, which surprised everyone.

Then something unexpected happened. Just as the ducks were about to swim to the shore, something in the water chased after them and swallowed two ducks in a row with its mouth wide open.

Good heavens, this is terrible! The villagers were terrified to see a monster underwater.

They ran towards the dam, shouting "monster!"

According to the villagers, the monster in the water was two or three meters long, with horns on its head, scales all over its body, claws, and a mouth that could swallow a calf whole when it opened...

After hearing this, Chen Ling couldn't help but find it funny: "What you're saying doesn't look like a monster at all. It has horns, scales, and claws. It's clearly the Dragon King!"

(End of this chapter)