Siheyuan, integrating everything, cultivating the city

As he was walking, he suddenly stopped, as if he realized something, turned around and hurriedly ran towards his yard.

"Could it be..." Li Xiangqian whispered to himself, and suddenly a strange thought came to his mind. He recalled the scene in the morning when he and Yang Xue had breakfast in the kitchen and saw potatoes. At that time, there was nothing unusual about the potatoes, but at this moment, a picture suddenly emerged in his mind that he could not ignore - the potatoes sprouted.

He almost ran home with a hint of uneasiness, his heart full of premonitions, as if something was wrong and he had to go check it out.

When he stepped into the courtyard again, Yang Xue was still sitting at the table, and the kitten was lazily lying on her knees, seemingly unaware of Li Xiangqian's anxious expression. The lights in the house were still warm, but all this could not calm his inner tension.

"Xue!" Li Xiangqian suddenly called out, his voice a little hurried, even with a barely perceptible tremor, "Potato, what's going on today?"

Yang Xue looked up at the sound and was a little stunned. She obviously couldn't understand her husband's sudden change of mood, but she still stood up slowly and said softly: "What's wrong with Tu Dou? Nothing is wrong."

Li Xiangqian had already walked towards the kitchen, his steps hurried, his heart inexplicably flustered. At the door of the kitchen, he paused for a moment and looked up at the shelf where food was stored. His eyes immediately locked onto a pile of messy ingredients on it - and the potatoes.

He walked over, his heart beating faster, and quickly pushed aside the piled ingredients with one hand, uncovering a bag of potatoes. At that moment, an inexplicable chill suddenly surged in his heart.

The surface of the potatoes, the originally smooth skin has begun to show a subtle change - the buds are protruding, abnormal spots have appeared on the potato skin, some potatoes have grown slender green buds, and tiny roots are coiled on the surface of the potatoes, like some kind of ominous sign.

Li Xiangqian's heart almost stopped beating, and when his fingers touched the sprouting potatoes, he felt a cold touch. "How could it be..." He murmured in a low voice, his tone full of shock and confusion.

"What's wrong? Didn't you say there was nothing wrong?" Yang Xue finally walked up to him and her face changed when she saw the sprouting potatoes. "This is not right. How can potatoes sprout so quickly?"

Li Xiangqian did not respond. His eyes were fixed on the sprouting potatoes. Many thoughts flashed through his mind, but none of them could explain it all.

He suddenly remembered the piece of land that Xu Damao had mentioned before - the soil seemed to contain some strange energy that seemed to be able to change the growth state of certain objects. He couldn't help but take a deep breath, and his doubts rose again. The speed at which potatoes sprouted was obviously different from the normal growth pattern.

"The potatoes we bought before were not like this." Yang Xue said with some doubt in her tone. She squatted down and carefully examined these abnormal potatoes. She looked at them for a while and suddenly raised her head. "You said... these potatoes, were they brought back from that field?"

Li Xiangqian's heart suddenly tightened, and the doubts in his mind became deeper and deeper. He was almost certain that the sprouting of those potatoes was related to the land mentioned by Xu Damao. Waves of chills and uneasiness intertwined in his heart, like a huge net, tightly wrapping him in it.

"Maybe... it's true." Li Xiangqian whispered, his eyes complicated. He gently put the bag of sprouted potatoes back to its original place and reached out to touch his forehead. At that moment, his mind was extremely confused and he felt a headache coming.

"Xue, maybe... maybe there's something wrong with the soil of that piece of land." Li Xiangqian continued, with an anxiety that was difficult to conceal in his tone, "We have always ignored that piece of land, but it seems that it is not as simple as we thought."

When Yang Xue heard this, her expression instantly became serious. She stood up, was silent for a while, and said softly: "Then what are you going to do? Are you really going to look for that piece of land?"

Li Xiangqian did not answer immediately. His eyes gradually became deep, as if he was thinking about something. The feeling that the land gave him became stronger and stronger, like some kind of dark force that was quietly infiltrating their lives. He could neither ignore it nor continue to escape.

"I don't know." Li Xiangqian whispered, his eyes still solemn. Suddenly, he thought of something and turned to look at the corner of the kitchen, the shelf where various foods were stored. He stood up suddenly, walked quickly to the shelf, and began to carefully check the other foods. Every time he touched these items, his heart felt like being pressed by a huge rock, unable to breathe.

"Xue, come and take a look." Li Xiangqian's voice was filled with a hint of urgency.

Yang Xue came over and looked at the cans and bags in Li Xiangqian's hands with a puzzled expression. "What's wrong?"

"Take a look at this." Li Xiangqian handed her a bag containing some rare dried fruits. On the surface, they looked normal, but he still had a bad feeling in his heart. As his fingers gently touched them, the fruits in the bag seemed to have lost their former luster, and their appearance also looked a little wrong.

"Xue, do you think these things are normal?" Li Xiangqian's voice no longer had the usual calmness, but carried a hint of nervousness that could not be ignored.

Yang Xue looked at the dried fruit in her hand, and her expression instantly became solemn. She carefully observed the surface of the fruit and found that the texture and color of the peel were indeed a bit abnormal - it looked drier than normal fruits, and there was almost no bright color.

"Not normal." Yang Xue said softly, "Should we go take a look at that piece of land?"

Li Xiangqian's thoughts were disturbed by the sprouting potatoes for a long time. Those abnormal thoughts kept echoing in his mind, and he couldn't extricate himself. Everything in the house seemed to be warning him, and there was an unignorable heaviness in the air. He looked around and his eyes stopped at the corner of the kitchen, where some scattered food was still piled up. Thinking of this, his appetite suddenly became a little uneasy, and the uncertainty in his heart made him feel a little breathless.

"Biscuits, they should make me feel better." He muttered to himself in a low voice, and almost unconsciously wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand. Whenever he was in such a complicated mood, the habitual action always brought him a little comfort. So he walked to the locker and took out some expired biscuit packaging bags, trying to fill his empty appetite with this little food.

However, Li Xiangqian's hand stopped on the packaging bag, and his eyes couldn't help but stare at the faded biscuit bag. At this moment, he was not in a hurry to open it, but took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.