Chapter 59: Preparing to Raise Silkworms
At the dinner table, Lan Jingtian told Lan Mo that the cotton and grain had all been dried and could be hauled back. As for those coal briquettes and coal, they could be left there for now and slowly brought back when the weather turned cold.
Starting next month, the house would officially be rented out to their unit as dormitories.
Lan Mo planned to hand the house over to her father to manage. She would open a bank account and have her father deposit the rent into it. After ten years, she would check how much rent had accumulated in the passbook.
After all, she wasn’t short of money now, and those small amounts would quickly be spent if she kept them on hand. She needed to learn to start saving, setting aside a sum of money without deliberately managing it.
After dinner, Lan Mo quickly bathed and washed her clothes, then hurried back to her room to enter the space.
“Little Useless in the Cultivation World” had said that tonight, he would send over those ingredients infused with Spiritual Energy. She needed to hurry and process them.
Otherwise, in a few days when she went to the countryside, she didn’t know whether she would sleep alone or have to squeeze into a bed with others.
Sleeping alone would be fine, but sharing a bed would definitely affect her ability to enter the space to farm.
These past few days, she had been planting pears. Last night, while she had some free time, she even brewed a large pot of pear syrup.
Tomorrow, she would take out a few jars of pear syrup for her family to drink, especially her dear nephew—he needed to drink a few extra cups to soothe his throat and keep him from talking nonsense.
Now her farm had already reached level thirteen. Lan Mo had tilled another plot of land today, and this time, she actually unearthed a basketful of cocoons from the soil. The cocoons were multicolored.
She had seen white and yellow cocoons before, but what on earth were these red ones? There were even ice-blue, pink, and green ones. Had they eaten the wrong mulberry leaves?
Shortly after emerging from the soil, they broke out of their cocoons, paired up affectionately, and began mating. Were they preparing to lay little eggs?
Lan Mo quickly found several large cardboard boxes, placing silkworm moths of the same color into each box. She also lined the bottom of each box with white paper.
At that moment, a flash of light appeared on the screen, with a warm reminder: Colorful Silkworms will begin laying eggs in 24 hours and hatch in half a month. Please accelerate upgrading the farm to level fifteen to start planting the Seven-colored Mulberry Tree.
What on earth was this Seven-colored Mulberry Tree?
Tilling the land didn’t yield seeds this time—instead, she unearthed cocoons? The Ranch couldn’t be unlocked yet. Was the space forcing her to raise silkworms? This had to be the work of some big shot from the upper realm pulling strings behind the scenes.
It was already late autumn, so it seemed this would be the last batch of late-autumn silkworms this year.
She could learn to raise silkworms, but where was she supposed to buy silkworm nets and set up a silkworm bed now?
Sigh, she could only ask her friends for help. She didn’t know if the one named “The Sea Turns into Mulberry Fields” raised silkworms at home. She would contact him when she had time.
Ding-dong!
“Little Useless in the Cultivation World” sent a large gift package. Lan Mo quickly opened it, only to find a large ice coffin, 2.5 meters long, 1 meter wide, and 1.2 meters high, lying right in front of her.
What on earth was “Little Useless in the Cultivation World” up to?
Her little nephew had said he would bury her in the yard after she died, and now “Little Useless in the Cultivation World” immediately sent her a coffin. Was he afraid she would “leave a stench for ten thousand years” if buried in the yard?
With a dark expression, Lan Mo sent a message to “Little Useless in the Cultivation World”: [Little Useless, what do you mean by sending me an ice coffin?]
【Please call me Miss, I’m no longer Little Useless now. Little Pitiful, what ice coffin? You ignorant thing, that’s the Millennium Profound Ice Box I gave you. It’s a storage box used to preserve foods containing Spiritual Energy.
I estimate your space lacks Spiritual Energy, so those foods with Spiritual Energy will spoil easily if not handled quickly, eventually losing their spiritual properties.】
It gave her quite a fright—she had thought “Little Useless in the Cultivation World” had sent her a coffin!
So it was a storage box after all. Wasn’t this just a big refrigerator? In her kitchen, she had a double-door fridge and a large freezer.
She just didn’t know whether this so-called Profound Ice Box was better than a refrigerator. Millennium Profound Ice sounded so advanced!
【Miss, couldn’t you have made this Millennium Profound Ice Box square-shaped?】
Making it look like a coffin was just asking to scare people to death, wasn’t it?
【Oh right, why didn’t I think of that? Next time I’ll make it square and send you another one. By the way, you should open it and take a look first. I’ve already processed the internal organs of those Spirit Beasts.
As long as you keep the ingredients inside the Profound Ice Box, they won’t spoil—they can last for a hundred years without any problem.】
【How do I open it? I can’t push aside that coffin lid on top.】
【Little Pitiful, I already told you this isn’t an ice coffin. Press the small sphere in the middle, and the ice box will open automatically.
Oh, and there are also several types of Spirit Fruits inside that can be used as seasonings. If you don’t know how to use them, check the illustrated guide yourself.
The guide is inside the box. This Miss is going to cultivate now. Leave a message if you need anything.】
“Little Useless in the Cultivation World” went offline. Lan Mo quickly went to contact “Vast Sea Turns into Mulberry Fields.”
【Uncle, are you there?】
Soon, a reply came. 【Little Pitiful in the Sixties, what can I do for you?】
【Uncle, does your family raise silkworms?】
【Yes! But our last batch of silkworms has already cocooned. Do you want to raise silkworms? I can give you a few pounds of cocoons.】
【Uncle, could you help me buy a few dozen silkworm nets and silkworm racks? I’ll send you ten pounds of braised beef and ten pounds of Cured Beef in return. How about that?】
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and since this was their first time chatting, she could only trade goods for goods.
Anyway, she had made over a hundred pounds of braised beef and Cured Beef last time, and it wasn’t convenient to take them out for her family to eat now.
“Vast Sea Turns into Mulberry Fields” sent a smiling emoji. 【Thank you, Little Pitiful in the Sixties! Are you planning to raise silkworms? Then I’ll also give you a book on silkworm raising and twenty large winnowing baskets. You only need to move the silkworms onto the nets when they’re about to spin silk.】
【Okay, thank you!】
Oh right, how could she have forgotten that she needed winnowing baskets to raise silkworms? The feces of silkworm babies, silkworm sand, is a traditional Chinese medicine for reducing internal heat. She could use it to make a silkworm sand pillow for Xiao Li’er and sell the rest to a pharmacy.
Lan Mo quickly went to the large freezer and took out ten pounds of braised beef, then went to the Warehouse to get ten pounds of Cured Beef to send to “Vast Sea Turns into Mulberry Fields.”
The other side immediately sent Lan Mo a bunch of silkworm nets, silkworm racks, and the large winnowing baskets needed for raising silkworms. They even prepared a sprayer for disinfecting the room and a silkworm-raising manual.
After tidying up these items, Lan Mo hurried to “steal” some of the “vegetables” her friends had planted—keeping what she needed and selling the rest.
After finishing everything, she realized it was only 8:30 p.m., still too early to sleep. So she walked over to the Millennium Profound Ice Box, gently pressed the blue ice bead on the lid, and opened the storage box.
The color of this beef is so tender and pink, with no hint of a gamey smell at all. I wonder if it would taste good in hotpot. Charcoal grilling or teppanyaki might also work? Maybe I’ll try cooking some tomorrow?
Those skinned ones are Gale Rabbits, and the Seven-Colored Brocade Chickens have been plucked clean.
Lan Mo counted them—there were twenty each of the Gale Rabbits and Seven-Colored Brocade Chickens. The Yellow Spirit Ox, after removing its head, organs, bones, and hooves, left only a little over five hundred jin of meat. It seems the oxen in the Cultivation World aren’t particularly large either.
On the far left side of the box lay a pile of brightly colored fruits, with an illustrated guide resting on top.
Lan Mo carefully flipped through it. The crystal-clear, honey-golden fruit turned out to be called “sugar balls”!
The white, clustered fruit resembling paddy rice was called “salt fruit.” The green, spindle-shaped fruit was “sour fruit.” The brown, string-like clusters were “thousand-mile fragrance.” As for the red fruit, it was called “fiery spicy”—no need to read the description to know it was a super-sized version of chili peppers from the mortal world.
Even the fiery spicy fruit carried a fresh, fragrant scent. Could it also contain Spiritual Energy? The Cultivation World truly is on another level—everything seems infused with Spiritual Energy.
She needed to think carefully about how to handle all this meat, ensuring none of such high-quality ingredients went to waste.
Half of the meat here was reserved for her, so she decided to leave it untouched for now. She would save it to enjoy fresh, and only when she grew tired of fresh meat would she turn it into cured or air-dried products.
Lan Mo decided that tonight, she would marinate the ten Gale Rabbits and ten Seven-Colored Brocade Chickens meant for “Little Useless in the Cultivation World” using salt fruit, thousand-mile fragrance, and sugar balls. The Seven-Colored Brocade Chickens would be made into savory soy sauce chicken, while the Gale Rabbits would be prepared as spicy rabbit.
As for the Spirit Beef, she would handle it in a couple of days, turning it into soy-braised beef, spiced beef, cured beef, and beef jerky.
The seasonings provided by “Little Useless in the Cultivation World” today weren’t particularly comprehensive. For any other seasonings needed, she would simply substitute with those used by mortals.
She was busy until eleven o’clock before finishing. It was getting late, and it was time for her to wash up and sleep…