Liu Jianhua didn’t come alone; his youngest son, Liu Tianyang, was right behind him.

Jiang Le took after his mother, while Liu Tianyang looked as if he’d been carved from the same mold as a young Liu Jianhua. Combined with the fact that he’d taken his father’s surname, Liu Jianhua had always cherished Liu Tianyang as a precious treasure deep in his heart.

The moment the door opened, the two of them tried to squeeze inside. Liu Tianyang eyed Jiang Le while scanning the room, his gaze as if he were looking at a prize already in his possession. Jiang Le blocked the doorway with one arm, and the father and son couldn’t budge him.

“What are you doing, coming so early in the morning?”

Liu Tianyang grumbled, “I’m putting up the money to buy this place—don’t I have the right to inspect it first?” “You’re putting up the money?” Jiang Le sneered at him.

Liu Tianyang’s pride was wounded, and his face flushed red. Liu Jianhua shot Jiang Le a disapproving look. “This apartment is for your younger brother in the future. There’s no problem with him inspecting it.”

He paused for a moment before continuing, “Because of the down payment I gave you, your aunt’s been in a bad mood these past few days. She says I’m playing favorites with you. Dad has already tried his best to be fair to both of you.”

Liu Jianhua’s act of playing the “Good Father of China” struck Jiang Le as laughable, but he no longer felt like arguing with them. “Stop beating around the bush. I’ll sell the apartment to whoever pays me. The rest is your family’s business.”

After speaking, Jiang Le let go of his hand, took a step back, and let them enter the house.

As soon as Liu Jianhua stepped inside, he was taken aback. The room was completely empty—nothing remained but the bare walls. “Where’s the furniture?” 

“The furniture belongs to my mom and me. Of course, I took it with me,” Jiang Le said, his expression unreadable.

There was nothing wrong with what he said, but the scene before him made Liu Jianhua feel a bit uneasy; Jiang Le had cut all ties with him too cleanly.

“I bought that sofa!”

“Then I’ll chop it up for firewood when I have time.” Seeing that Liu Jianhua was still going on, Jiang Le cut him off bluntly, “I heard this area might be demolished after the New Year?” 

That single sentence choked Liu Jianhua’s complaints in his throat and gave the Liu family—father and son—a huge scare, as they feared Jiang Le might raise the price on the spot or decide not to sell after all. Liu Tianyang said, “Haha, where did you hear that? We, locals, haven’t heard a thing.”

Liu Jianhua also laughed nervously, “That’s nonsense. If something that good were happening, wouldn’t Dad have told you?”

“Exactly, bro. Let’s just go get the paperwork done ASAP. Property prices in Hai City are changing by the day.”

With this change of subject, no one mentioned the furniture anymore.

Jiang Le had no intention of delaying either, so that morning the three of them took the necessary documents to the relevant departments to get the paperwork done. When they emerged from the service hall, Liu Jianhua seemed to have unloaded a huge burden. He dropped his earlier polite demeanor and stopped making small talk with Jiang Le, simply saying, “That’s all for now. We’ve got some things to take care of at home, so we won’t keep you any longer.”

He didn’t care in the slightest where Jiang Le was staying afterward. Jiang Le, of course, was only too happy to be rid of him, and the three parted ways there.

Jiang Le didn’t linger in the city. In the garage of the old house was a small electric car that his mother had used to get around when she was alive. Though it was a bit small, it still ran smoothly. Before heading out to run some errands, Jiang Le had charged it up, and by the time he returned, the battery had enough power for him to drive a hundred or so kilometers.

Jiang Le drove the electric car away from the city center, heading straight for the mountainous area of Jiang City. His maternal grandparents had passed away long ago; before their deaths, they had lived in a small village deep in the mountains. Jiang Le’s only memories of the place were from summer vacations he’d spent there with his mother before he turned ten.

Later, he heard that the village where his grandparents had lived had been entirely relocated to the town at the foot of the mountain, leaving behind only a few uninhabited old houses, which had only been completely vacated in the past year or two.

This was exactly where Jiang Le was headed. Although his memories were vague, thankfully, the route was clear thanks to his phone’s GPS.

With about two months left before the meteor strike, there wasn’t much space left in the system warehouse. Jiang Le was determined to focus on developing his farm during this time. At the very least, before the apocalypse arrived, he hoped to successfully upgrade the farm and see what specific upgrade rewards he would receive.

There was no need to look for a new place during this time. After all, once the apocalypse arrived, crowds would be the greatest danger, and having lived through a previous life, Jiang Le was more accustomed to going it alone. Moreover, due to his improved hearing, the sounds of the city were somewhat difficult for him to adjust to, so he wanted to stay away for the sake of peace and quiet.

At the foot of the mountain lay a small town. Jiang Le still remembered coming here with his grandfather as a child to visit the early morning market, where the shops on the old street were shrouded in smoke from the breakfast stalls and teahouses.

Parking his car by the roadside, Jiang Le stepped onto the old street once more. It was already afternoon, and many of the shops were shuttered. Looking down the street from the entrance, he saw only a few elderly people sitting and chatting; there were no younger faces in sight.

Apart from the teahouse, the only other places open were an old general store and a wonton shop. The paint on the sign of the old general store had peeled away so much that the characters were barely legible, and the merchandise inside looked as though it hadn’t been restocked since the last purchase of the previous century.

Jiang Le picked out a few commonly used farming tools inside, then ordered a bowl of wonton soup at the wonton shop next door. The middle-aged shopkeeper from back in the day was now in her sixties, but the taste of the wonton soup hadn’t changed.

Jiang Le drained the wonton broth in one gulp, then got back in the car with his tools and continued on his way.

The car wound its way through the mountain roads, passing several peaks. Along the way, Jiang Le encountered only two or three other vehicles, but after rounding a certain intersection, they all went their separate ways.

After more than an hour’s drive, Jiang Le finally arrived at the village of his childhood.

The houses scattered sporadically along both sides of the road bore the marks of time’s erosion; climbing plants densely covered the walls, almost merging with them, while various greenery intertwined with the weathered wood in a strange yet harmonious way.

Fortunately, most of the village roads were paved with stone slabs and had not been reclaimed by the forces of nature.

The village looked exactly as Jiang Le remembered it. He quickly found the small courtyard that had belonged to his maternal grandparents, but the gate was locked with a rusted padlock.

Jiang Le pulled a set of keys from his backpack—the only keys his mother had kept before she passed away, which he’d retrieved from the old house. He tried them one by one and found the right one in no time.

With a click, the chain sprang open, cascading down from the gate and landing in Jiang Le’s palm.

Unvisited for years, the grass and trees in the courtyard had grown as tall as Jiang Le’s waist. Remarkably, the neglected peach tree in the yard had even borne bright red peaches, perfectly ripe, quietly thriving in this secluded corner of the mountains. Beside the peach tree stood a well; its crystal-clear water reflected Jiang Le’s face as he leaned in to look down.

Beyond the courtyard stood an old-style house with blue-tiled roofs and brick walls. Faint traces of pale pink could still be discerned on the faded couplets above the wooden door. He removed the lock, pushed the door open, and let sunlight pour into the room, illuminating the still-silent old house.

In the living room, the octagonal table and rocking chair stood quietly in their original places, as if the dust-covered years had never passed.

That afternoon, Jiang Le used farm tools to clear all the weeds from the courtyard. He then fetched a ladder from inside the house, climbed the peach tree, and picked every single peach from the branches. Aside from a few he ate on the spot, he stored the rest in his system space.

To Jiang Le’s surprise, the old house actually had electricity. Although he had prepared himself for the lack of power in a mountain village—having grown accustomed to such a life during the apocalypse of his previous life—the presence of electricity was still a pleasant surprise. At the very least, it would make things much more convenient for the next few months.

Jiang Le tidied up the old house until it was livable, then stepped out of the small courtyard and walked around the entire mountain village. His goal was twofold: first, to confirm whether he was the only person left in the village, and second, to familiarize himself with the surrounding area.

Even at its peak, Jiangjia Village had only a few dozen households, so it didn’t take Jiang Le long to walk the entire length of the village. From the outside, it truly looked uninhabited; many houses were dilapidated, and there were few signs of daily life.

Jiang Le stood before a collapsed mud wall, gazing at the large water jar overgrown with weeds in the courtyard and the crooked wooden window wedged into the mud. Just as he was about to walk away, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of several lotus leaves floating on the surface of the water jar.

Jiang Le stepped through the weeds and walked closer.

The cistern was filled with silt, and a few lotus leaves, kept alive by years of rainwater, were barely clinging to life, marked as Level 1. Jiang Le pulled them out by the roots and brought them directly into his farm space.

The pond in the farm only held a dozen or so fish; given its four-square-meter size, this capacity felt a bit sparse and wasteful.

Ever since Jiang Le successfully leveled up to Level 2, several grid frames similar to those on the farmland had appeared on the pond. Jiang Le guessed this meant he could plant some aquatic crops inside them.

As Jiang Le walked to the edge of the pond, he indeed saw the words “Ready for Planting” begin to flash within the grid frames on the water’s surface.

He gently placed the lotus stem and leaves, still attached to their roots, along the edge of the pond. The “Ready to Plant” text in the corresponding grid frame vanished, and the leaves unfurled gently on the water’s surface.

The sun set, a warm lamp lit up inside the house, and a mountain breeze blew through the courtyard. Lying on a lounge chair under the eaves, Jiang Le gazed at the deep blue sky and let out a soft sigh.

Days like this were growing fewer by the day.

Summer nights in the mountains are not stifling; on the contrary, they are quite cool. Jiang Le slept in his old-fashioned cot until he woke naturally, then cooked himself some porridge over a wood fire on the stove. Before the sun had fully risen, he put on his rain boots and headed out.

The success of planting the lotus flowers yesterday had encouraged him. He remembered there was a pond behind Jiangjia Village; in his childhood, during the summer, it had not only lotus flowers but also water chestnuts.

After passing a few houses and walking about a hundred meters toward the woods, a medium-sized pond indeed came into view. The pond’s edge was lined with stone slabs laid by villagers, now overgrown with water plants. The surface of the pond was densely covered with lotus leaves, and the flowers and seedpods swayed gently in the morning breeze, their fresh fragrance wafting into Jiang Le’s nostrils.

Jiang Le stepped onto the stone slabs and peered inside; sure enough, a few clumps of water chestnut leaves were floating among the gaps in the lotus leaves.

The farm pond had limited growing space, and Jiang Le didn’t need too many water chestnuts. He used the hook he’d brought to snag a few clumps, selecting the one closest to him and carefully pulling it out, making sure to keep its underwater root system intact.

The water at the edge of the pond wasn’t deep, so Jiang Le could wade in wearing his rain boots. Following the method his grandfather had taught him as a child, he found a smooth, thornless lotus leaf stalk and felt along it underwater until he found the lotus root lying across the mud.

Jiang Le pulled the lotus root out of the water; at this stage, it was still crisp and tender, and hadn’t yet reached its full size. Judging by its appearance, the lotus flowers here were not the same variety as the ones Jiang Le had taken from the water jar yesterday.

About ten meters away from this large pond was a small pool. Here, there were no lotus flowers or water chestnuts to be seen; instead, there were water hyacinths packed tightly together, which from a distance almost looked like a small patch of green grass.

In the wild, water hyacinths grow so rapidly that they can easily take over an entire body of water, making them a constant headache for many farmers.

But ducks actually love to eat them. Plus, the farm offers generous rewards for crop diversity, and since different plots on the farm do not affect one another, there is no need to worry that water hyacinths planted in the pond will take over the entire water surface.

So Jiang Le collected some water hyacinth seeds and brought them into the farm as well.