There wasn’t much space left in the system warehouse, but since the payment had been settled, procurement had to continue. Otherwise, once the apocalypse arrived and chaos broke out, supplies would become items that were in high demand but impossible to find.

For convenience, Jiang Le rented a warehouse converted from an abandoned factory building on the outskirts of the city. On one hand, he stored various room-temperature-stable foods, bottled water, common medications, and cold-weather gear purchased in the city center there; on the other hand, he made bulk purchases on factory-direct shopping websites, having the logistics companies ship the packages directly to the warehouse.

Since the warehouse was frequently rented out for storage, the constant comings and goings of delivery trucks didn’t attract any attention from nearby residents.

Over the course of a month and a half, with the exception of perishable fresh produce—which Jiang Le planned to purchase separately after the system upgrade—the warehouse on the farm and the one in the real world were stocked with enough non-perishable supplies to last Jiang Le for several lifetimes.

After locking the warehouse door, Jiang Le spent most of his time in the mountains.

In addition to tending to the farm’s poultry and crops, Mao Xiaofei would drop by from time to time.

The money from selling the watermelons greatly alleviated Mao Xiaofei’s immediate financial crisis. Moreover, compared to the purchase price other villagers received for their second crop of watermelons, Mao Xiaofei was convinced that Brother Jiang’s friend had given him special treatment. He kept quiet about the good price he’d received, so that other watermelon farmers wouldn’t all go to Jiang Le asking him to buy their crops.

In any case, after this incident and their daily interactions, even though Jiang Le was a man of few words and seemed somewhat aloof, in Mao Xiaofei’s eyes, he was already an absolute good guy.

Every time he came to see Jiang Le, he either brought some homegrown food or found a way to help out with chores. Everyone has their own area of expertise; no matter how much research Jiang Le did or how many videos he watched, when it came to actual farm work, he simply couldn’t match someone like Mao Xiaofei, who had grown up in the fields.

Sometimes, seeing how restless he was, Jiang Le felt like just tossing him straight into the system space to work his heart out.

But it was just a fantasy. Not only was it impossible to carry out right now, but Jiang Le wouldn’t let anyone know about the system’s existence. The cucumber, tomato, and chili seedlings planted two months ago had changed dramatically.

The tomatoes and cucumbers were bearing fruits of all sizes on specially designed trellises, while the chili plants were also bearing varying numbers of green and red fruits on their branches of varying heights.

Unlike leafy greens, these fruits and vegetables don’t lose their value once a single crop is harvested. For the past couple of days, the first thing Jiang Le has done every morning upon entering the farm has been to harvest the fruits that appear ripe in the fields.

Although the experience points gained from this type of harvest aren’t as high as those from one-time crops like Chinese mustard greens, when you factor in the number of harvests and the growing period, it’s still much more cost-effective overall than short-term crops like Chinese mustard greens.

Thanks to the harvests over the past few days, combined with the experience accumulated from his daily work over the past two months, Jiang Le’s personal experience progress bar is now about 20% away from Level 3, and the system’s own experience is only about 2% short of an upgrade—victory was in sight.

Jiang Le placed the last ripe cherry tomato into the bamboo basket and then fed the poultry.

After all this time of feeding, the ducklings and chicks have completely shed their initial, fragile appearance; outwardly, they are almost indistinguishable from adults. Although their displayed level has advanced from 0 to 1, it will still take some time for them to fully mature. Once they reach full maturity and begin laying eggs, they will provide a steady daily source of experience.

After finishing these daily tasks, his system experience level jumped up by 1%.

Jiang Le wasn’t sure of the exact timing of the meteorite’s arrival in his previous life; he only knew that around the end of summer vacation or the start of the new school year, news reports of meteorite impacts had surfaced in many parts of the world. Calculating the timeline, he realized he’d spent most of his free time these past few days—outside of farm work—scrolling through short videos, the fastest channel for news dissemination at the moment.

However, he hadn’t come across any related news yet. Judging by the rate at which the system’s experience points were increasing, perhaps two more harvests in the next day or two would be enough to complete the system’s upgrade from Level 1 to Level 2. It was highly likely this would happen before the meteorite struck—and Jiang Le’s personal level might even advance from Level 2 to Level 3.

Leaving the farm, Jiang Le picked up the jars that had been washed and dried under the eaves, inspecting them several times. After confirming there were no water stains inside, he followed an online tutorial to make a few pickle jars using the farm’s cucumbers, supplemented with other vegetables.

Lately, Jiang Le would occasionally gear up fully, take his defensive mountain axe, and venture deeper into the mountains and forests. Perhaps because ordinary animals have keener senses than humans and can sense the slight difference in Jiang Le since his upgrade, most animals’ first reaction upon seeing him was to flee.

Mao Xiaofei told Jiang Le that it would be best not to venture into the deeper parts of the mountains. He said that when his grandfather was young, these mountains were home not only to bears and wolves, but there had even been tigers—it was very dangerous.

But Mao Xiaofei hadn’t come by in the past week; his grandfather’s condition had worsened, and he had to stay at the hospital to care for him, keeping him so busy he hadn’t had a moment to rest.

Jiang Le placed the pickle jar in a cool, shaded spot inside the house and was just about to take a quick nap on the recliner when the sound of hurried footsteps outside the door made him open his eyes immediately.

Just by the sound of the footsteps, without even looking, he knew it was Mao Xiaofei. He just didn’t know what had happened to make him so anxious; Jiang Le’s first thought was that Mao Xiaofei’s ailing grandfather had taken a turn for the worse.

When Mao Xiaofei pushed open the courtyard gate, he was drenched in sweat, as if he’d been running all the way. His face was flushed red from the sun, but that was nothing compared to the dark circles under his eyes and the red veins in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Le stood up.

Sure enough, as soon as Mao Xiaofei spoke, it was about his grandfather. Last night, his grandfather’s condition had suddenly worsened, and the hospital needed more payment, but Mao Xiaofei had no money left. When he went to ask relatives for a loan, they advised him to give up early; otherwise, if the illness dragged on, it would ruin Mao Xiaofei’s life.

Mao Xiaofei was furious, but he had nowhere else to turn—he’d already borrowed from everyone he could over the years. After mulling it over, the only person he could think of was Jiang Le.

“Brother Jiang, could you… Could you lend me some money for now?” Mao Xiaofei said, wiping away the tears welling up in his eyes. “My grandfather is dying…”

Jiang Le wasn’t particularly surprised by this outcome; he just thought for a moment before asking Mao Xiaofei, “How much money do you need?” Mao Xiaofei quickly replied, “Ten thousand yuan! Can you lend me ten thousand first?”

His tears seemed to flow endlessly. “The doctor said there’s nothing more they can do for my grandfather. These last few days, they’re just giving him medication to ease his pain. My grandfather raised me from childhood, and I don’t want to see him suffer.”

Ten thousand yuan was no small sum, and Mao Xiaofei couldn’t possibly pay it back in a day or two. Although he hoped Jiang Le would agree, he was mentally prepared for a refusal—after all, Jiang Le had no obligation to help him.

To his surprise, after hearing what he had to say, Jiang Le nodded without much hesitation: “Sure, I’ll transfer the money to you.”

Mao Xiaofei froze. Gratitude and elation left him speechless for a moment. When he finally found his voice again, his words came out in broken, stuttering bursts, “Th-thank you, Brother Jiang! I’ll definitely work hard to pay you back.”

Jiang Le patted him on the shoulder: “We’ll talk about that later. Go take care of your grandfather first.”

Ten thousand yuan was nothing to Jiang Le, but to Mao Xiaofei, it carried extraordinary weight. Jiang Le knew all too well how desperately one craves a helping hand when pushed to the brink.

Moreover, from their time together, he could see that Mao Xiaofei was kind at heart. Though a bit slow-witted, he had his own principles. If Mao Xiaofei managed to survive the apocalypse, he’d be someone worth befriending.

Two more days passed. As Jiang Le completed two more harvests, both the system and he personally had finally accumulated enough experience.

The system was the first to upgrade. Just as his experience points reached the maximum, Jiang Le was in the middle of the farm when a large blue screen flashed before his eyes. Text danced across it, and the scene around him first turned ethereal, then began to overlap and shift.

“Congratulations, Host. The farm system has been upgraded to Level 2. Basic functions have been enhanced, and new features have been unlocked.”

“The basic planting area has expanded from 50 square meters to 200 square meters, the basic poultry farming area from 20 square meters to 80 square meters, and the pond area from 4 square meters to 16 square meters.”

“A 100-square-meter livestock breeding area has been added.”

“Warehouse storage space has been upgraded to 500 square meters.”

“One farmhouse has been added.”

“The compost bin has been upgraded to a compost house.”

“Reality Simulation feature activated; the host can place the farm in the real world.”

“Expansion feature enabled. The host can clear wasteland to gain more usable space for the farm.”

“Employee function enabled. Currently have employees (0/3).”

“Sales feature enabled. Exchange feature enabled.” “Pet function enabled (0/1).”

Jiang Le finished reading the series of messages, and the scene around him slowly shifted back from the virtual world to reality. The farm had expanded several times in size. The black soil stretched out, and in addition to the existing structures, a blue brick tile house had appeared beside the well.

The layout of the cottage was simple: the kitchen was behind the main room, with a bedroom and a bathroom on either side of the main room. It was about fifty square meters in total, furnished with the most basic furniture, ready for someone to move in.

The system stated that the farm could be connected to reality, but the term used in this context was “simulated reality.” This meant that the system wasn’t actually being fully projected into the real world; rather, it was designed to work in conjunction with the employee function, allowing employees to work in a simulated real-world environment, thereby affecting the farm’s space, without actually bringing them into the actual farm system.

The additional expansion features allow the farm to transcend its current size limitations and gain more experience. The following features were the ones that most caught Jiang Le’s attention.

The sales feature allows Jiang Le to sell the farm’s produce to the farm system in exchange for system coins. The exchange feature, meanwhile, enables Jiang Le to use the coins earned to purchase crop seeds, livestock calves, standard feed, farm tools, and other items provided by the farm system.

Taking cucumbers as an example, Jiang Le took a crate of harvested cucumbers from the warehouse to sell to the system. The system offered 90 gold coins for 30 cucumbers, while a set of cucumber seedlings cost 2 gold coins, and a laying hen sold for 80 gold coins.

The system even offers different purchase prices for the pickles Jiang Le makes from the farm’s cucumbers, based on the cucumber content.

Considering that a single seedling can yield dozens of cucumbers over its entire growth cycle, the returns are actually quite good, and the profits are sufficient to keep the farm running.

This means Jiang Le no longer needs to worry about being unable to obtain industrial goods after the collapse of human society.

As for the pet function. The system’s description of the pet function reads: “A qualified farmer will certainly have a few trusty helper pets. Register your pets and let them grow alongside you~”

The description was simple, but it filled Jiang Le with excitement.

This feature granted Jiang Le the ability to tame animals and plants and form bonds with them. If Jiang Le were to go out right now and buy a dog from a pet store, he could likely get a loyal companion, but that would be a waste of this special ability.

Jiang Le’s goal was to maximize the value of every feature the system provided.

Jiang Le reasoned that since the system hadn’t defined the scope of “animals and plants,” it must include those that had mutated after the apocalypse. The combat prowess of a mutated dog compared to that of an ordinary dog was like the difference between a professional boxer and a newborn baby.

Therefore, this ability should be reserved for mutated animals and plants.

Moreover, the system specifically stated that this ability could be applied to both “animals” and “plants,” including plants, further expanding Jiang Le’s options.

After the apocalypse, many plants had indeed unleashed astonishing destructive power; some even specialized in preying on high-level superpower users and high-tier mutated animals, making their strength not to be underestimated.

However, taming mutated flora and fauna into pets is no easy task.

In the modern understanding, a pet is a docile, non-aggressive, and well-bred species that has been domesticated over generations.

However, after the apocalypse, once creatures mutated, they rarely showed mercy even toward their own kind. The law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—reached its peak among them, let alone toward other species. Moreover, having been dominated by humans for so long, the mutated flora and fauna harbored nothing but hatred toward humans, their minds consumed with the desire to kill and devour them.

Jiang Le recalled encountering superpower users with similar taming abilities in his previous life; they often brought along mutated beasts to fight for them. But the fiercer the mutated animals were, the more reluctant they were to be controlled by humans. Consequently, most of these beasts were driven by humans only because of the disparity in strength; once they found an opportunity to escape, they would not hesitate to turn on and kill their masters.

Consequently, Jiang Le maintained a cautious attitude toward this skill. He opened the newly added “Pets” section on his personal page. Since no pet had been bound yet, it currently displayed only a blurry silhouette and a pet status with no stats.

Age, gender, hunger level, attack power, defense, intelligence, and affinity.

Jiang Le stared at the word “Affinity,” touched it with his fingertip, and a system description immediately popped up: Every effort yields a reward. Every time you fertilize, water, or feed the creatures on your farm, you leave an imprint on their hearts, fostering a bond of attachment toward you. Use this feature wisely, and perhaps one day even the stones on your farm will roll toward you at your call~

Jiang Le slowly broke into a smile. Perhaps the pet harming its master wasn’t entirely unavoidable. The higher the risk of taming mutated flora and fauna, the greater the reward. If used wisely, it might just become a major asset for him in the post-apocalyptic world.