Not long after, Yufang came out holding a bundle of gauze and handed it to Xia Huai'an.
Xia Huai'an took the gauze, unfolded it, and saw seeds wrapped in plastic wrap. Each packet of plastic wrap was one centimeter square. He counted them, and there were twenty in total, not one more nor one less.
The outside of the plastic wrap was thoroughly cleaned. Xia Huai'an carefully peeled it back to find the strawberry, watermelon, and cucumber seeds, as well as the sprouting potatoes and sweet potato chunks, all in perfect condition. He nodded repeatedly and said, "The Immortal Seeds are all here! Not a single one is missing!"
Yufang was overjoyed and immediately knelt to kowtow: "Thank you, Big Brother, for taking pity on the common people and bringing the Immortal Seeds! With these Immortal Seeds, there is hope for our days ahead!"
Xia Huai'an helped Yufang up and said, "Now that we have the Immortal Seeds, the next step is sowing."
"The spring air is still bitter and the weather is cold; we can't just sow them like this, can we?" Yufang clearly knew a thing or two about farming. "Shouldn't we wait for the weather to warm up?"
"Not necessarily! The Immortal taught me a special planting method that isn't affected by the weather. We can sow tomorrow, but today we need to do some prep work!" Xia Huai'an said.
"First, we need to find a suitable location. These Immortal Seeds are of the utmost importance, so we'd better keep them hidden from outsiders, and we certainly can't let wild animals ruin them. Planting them in an open field won't do. Let's go take a look at the back courtyard first."
Yufang led Xia Huai'an to the back courtyard, where a wave of chicken manure odor immediately hit them in the face.
Xia Huai'an looked around the back courtyard and nodded repeatedly. In his view, the place was quite decent. Enclosed by a wicker fence, as long as they dismantled the bamboo chicken coops, there would be enough space to build a vegetable greenhouse of about ten square meters.
The transparent plastic film he had brought with him was limited, so he could only cover a greenhouse of that size. With a greenhouse, they could plant and sprout early and harvest food sooner.
Xia Huai'an said, "Let's dismantle the chicken coops. This chicken manure is good stuff and can be used for fertilizer. Let's start now! Go borrow some bamboo strips from the village chief—one finger wide will do, about one zhang long, and bring back ten of them. He's a bamboo weaver, so he has plenty of those strips at home."
Yufang immediately went to do as she was told.
Meanwhile, Xia Huai'an took out his entrenching tool and got to work.
First, he dismantled all the chicken coops and piled them in a corner of the back courtyard.
He gathered all the chicken manure from inside the coops and on the ground, then used the entrenching tool to trace out a rectangle about 1.2 meters wide and 8 meters long on the ground.
He turned over the soil within the rectangle and dug ten half-meter pits, each spaced less than a meter apart.
He placed the collected chicken manure into the ten pits respectively, then covered them lightly with a layer of soil.
Yufang had already returned with the borrowed bamboo strips and was now standing by with a hoe, helping to turn over the soil.
She didn't understand what Xia Huai'an was doing, but she simply did whatever he told her to do.
After the soil was mostly turned, Xia Huai'an fetched some firewood, stacked it neatly over the tilled earth, and used a lighter to ignite the firewood to burn the soil.
The reason modern agriculture achieves bumper harvests and high yields—aside from superior seeds—comes down to two major aids that modern people deeply detest: chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Pesticides protect crops from pests and diseases, while chemical fertilizers drive high yields. It is precisely these two pieces of "technology and black magic" that create abundant harvests.
"Organic agricultural products" produced without chemical fertilizers and pesticides usually suffer a sharp drop in yield, which is why their prices are correspondingly higher.
Chicken manure is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, and plant ash is rich in potassium, so the fertilizer aspect was basically solved.
The purpose of burning the soil was secondarily to provide plant ash, but primarily to eliminate pests.
Through high-temperature roasting, the insect eggs in the soil were killed off, which could greatly reduce pests and diseases. As the saying goes, a timely snow promises a good harvest; one of the functions of snow is to freeze to death the insects and eggs in the soil. This served much the same purpose as roasting with fire, just cold versus hot.
Since they had no pesticides, the task of exterminating pest eggs had to be done thoroughly. Otherwise, if they encountered a pest infestation, all the effort put into bringing the seeds would be wasted!
Xia Huai'an added firewood and burned the soil while turning it over. For some of the soil that the fire couldn't reach, he collected it and had Yufang dump it into a large wok to stir-fry over the fire.
This was Yufang's first time stir-frying soil, and it left her covered in dust and grime, but she didn't utter a single complaint. Despite her slender frame, she worked with extraordinary diligence.
Whenever she had a spare moment from her chores, she would steal glances at Xia Huai'an. There was a light in her eyes—a light of hope, and the promise of a future to look forward to.
After working for a good half-day, as dusk fell, the soil-burning step was finally completed.
Xia Huai'an mixed the plant ash and the roasted soil evenly, spread them flat within the rectangle, and then poured water over them until thoroughly soaked.
Next, he and Yufang bent the bamboo strips into arches and inserted them along both sides of the narrow edges of the rectangle, shaping them like an arched bridge. They inserted a bamboo strip about every meter or so.
Then, Xia Huai'an took out the transparent plastic film, unfolded it to cover the top of the bamboo strips, and tied it down securely with hemp rope. A makeshift vegetable greenhouse was thus completed.
The residual heat from burning the soil was enough to keep the greenhouse warm. By the next day, once the soil temperature stabilized, they could begin sowing.
The greenhouse was not tall, only about a meter and a half. Blocked by the fence, it couldn't be seen from outside the house, offering decent concealment. Unless someone stepped into the back courtyard, it would generally be hard to spot.
With the work finished, Xia Huai'an intended to rest.
Yufang brought him a basin of warm water: "You've worked hard, Big Brother! Mother asked me to wait on you and wash your feet."
It was only natural for a wife to tend to her husband's bathing. Since Yufang had not yet formally married Xia Huai'an, she didn't strictly have to do this, but judging by her expression, she didn't show the slightest reluctance.
Xia Huai'an wasn't quite used to it and said, "I'll do it myself. You must be tired too. Get some good rest; we still have things to do tomorrow."
Yufang said, "I'm not tired. As long as there's hope for the future, I feel like I have an endless supply of energy."
Xia Huai'an washed his own face and hands, gave his body a quick wipe down, washed his feet, and then lay down to rest.
The bedding on the bed was rather thin, so he slept fully clothed.
He took out his cell phone, but the signal kept cutting in and out. He could only send a few text messages to his family group chat to report that he was safe and briefly explain his current situation.
"What? Big Brother, you have a wife? And she's quite pretty?"
"I don't believe it! This must be a single guy's fantasy!"
"Are you hiding in some cave so the production crew can't find you?!"
"Son, keep hiding. Don't come out. Hang in there for one more week, and the ten-million-dollar insurance payout will be yours!"
Feeling the care of his family, Xia Huai'an angrily turned off his phone and went to sleep.
In the dead of night, he woke up to some movement outside. He put on his headlamp to take a look and found Yufang and Xiaomao huddled together, sleeping in the main room.
The sister-in-law and sister were holding each other tight for warmth, but even so, they were still cold.
"Why are you sleeping here?" Xia Huai'an asked.
Yufang said sheepishly, "Mother was afraid you might suddenly leave in the middle of the night, so she had us stand watch here."
Xia Huai'an was torn between laughter and tears. He said, "You can rest assured. Once I say I'm not leaving, I won't leave. Even if I do have to leave, I'll make it clear and won't slip away without a word. Go back to the inner room to sleep; the main room is cold, so be careful not to catch a cold."
"What is catching a cold?" Xiaomao asked.
"It means getting chilled and falling ill," Xia Huai'an said. He had originally intended to bring cold medicine, but the production crew was too stingy, allowing only one type of medicine to be carried. Two types of medicine counted as two items of equipment, so he had only brought anti-inflammatory medicine and no cold medicine.
Therefore, if someone caught a cold, it would be quite troublesome—they would just have to drink some hot water and tough it out.
At Xia Huai'an's insistence, Xiaomao and Yufang went to sleep in the inner room. As for Xia Huai'an, he went out to the back courtyard to sow the seeds.
Feeling the lingering warmth on the bed, Yufang felt as though she were dreaming. Dazed and half-asleep, she couldn't tell if she was awake or dreaming, though Xiaomao quickly drifted off to sleep.
Wearing his headlamp, Xia Huai'an lifted the transparent plastic flap of the greenhouse entrance, ducked inside the greenhouse, and felt a wave of warmth wash over him.
He touched the soil on the ground; it was lukewarm, estimated to be around twenty-something degrees Celsius, which was ideal for sowing and germination.
He took out the seeds and his entrenching tool and began to plant.
A path was left down the middle of the greenhouse, about twenty centimeters wide, just barely wide enough to walk through. The sides of the path were used for planting.
Most importantly were the potato and sweet potato seeds—five of each. They were all stem chunks with bud eyes, and several already had little sprouts poking out.
There were over a dozen watermelon seeds, planted separately. There were over twenty cucumber seeds, planted separately in the center of the greenhouse, where the ceiling was slightly higher, making it convenient for future trellising and vine climbing.
The strawberry seeds were the smallest. Although there was only a small packet, there were easily forty to fifty of them. Xia Huai'an planted them one by one.
The seeds weren't very numerous, and there was still some space left in the greenhouse. After a moment of thought, Xia Huai'an took out the jar of dried chili peppers, scooped out all the chili seeds inside, and sowed every single one of them.
Originally, he had only intended to use the dried chili peppers as seasoning; after all, *Solitary Island Survival* would only last for a year, and a jar of dried chili peppers should be just about enough.
Yet, having traveled through time to Xiaoyu Township, there were no chili peppers here. If he wanted to eat chili peppers in the future, he would have to grow them himself.
These dried chili seeds might have been processed and could be hard to germinate. But treating a dead horse like a live one, out of several hundred chili seeds, even if only one percent germinated, he could still grow a few plants.
Water and fertilizer were already in place, and the temperature was right. Now that the seeds were sown, the rest was left to time.