Chapter 32: The First Money

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: The First Money

In the evening, the three siblings sat around the table, each of them holding a tube of high-grade nutrient fluid.

Everyone tipped their heads back and drained it in one go, the fastest dinner there had ever been.

Once Benjamin had thrown the three empty tubes into the waste processing bin, he said: "Tomorrow morning we start harvesting the Sawtooth greens. Tomorrow afternoon we take them to the purchasing station."

"All of them?"

"Mm, all six acres. Once they’re in we turn the soil over for the next crop."

Liam more or less understood now why the soil in this world went barren so fast. On Earth, after each crop people would generally let the land rest for a while before planting new vegetables. Here, the moment a harvest was in they planted again.

With a vegetable like Sawtooth greens that harvested in two months, it wouldn’t take long for the soil to die. But with land kept alive by restoration fluid the way it was now, a day of rest was a day wasted.

It seemed that once the soil was restored, he would have to set up a crop rotation plan to protect it.

Liam tapped his fingers on the tabletop, thought for a moment and then said to Benjamin: "Brother, don’t plant all of it tomorrow, leave me one of the fields. I want to use it as seedbed ground."

Benjamin went blank: "A seedbed ground? Don’t you just sow seeds straight into the ground?"

Isabella lifted her head as well, and looked at Liam in confusion.

Liam looked at the two of them, and explained: "Those new seeds are grown in a completely different way from the vegetables we have now. Potatoes have to be cut and left somewhere dry to sprout before they go into the ground. Sweet potatoes go into the ground to put out vines, and then you cut those vines and plant them out in rows. Things like corn, cucumber seed and mandarin seed also have to be raised into seedlings before you lift them with their root balls out to the main field."

Benjamin and Isabella looked at each other, and nodded blankly. So ancient seeds had to be sown in such a complicated way. Isabella immediately pulled out her smart watch to take notes, muttering calculations about how many plots she could divide.

Just then, Benjamin’s smart watch buzzed.

He glanced down at it, and then his whole body went rigid.

Isabella lifted her head: "What is it?"

Benjamin didn’t answer. He stared at the screen, his lips moving several times without producing any sound. It was a long while before he switched on image sharing, and showed his siblings what had surprised him.

On the screen was a notification from the Interstellar Connection network:

[The vlog channel "Farming with the Martinezes" has received its first encouragement gift from a fan: 2,180 silver stars. The sum has been transferred to the linked account.]

Two thousand one hundred and eighty silver stars. That sum wouldn’t even have bought one meal at the restaurant Liam had taken Benjamin to the other day.

But Benjamin sat there, looking at that line of text for a long, long time.

He had farmed all his life. Growing vegetables, picking vegetables, hauling vegetables to market, selling to traders, having his prices squeezed, arguing, and then putting his head back down and going on working. Every coin he had earned had been exchanged for sweat falling on soil.

This was the first time in his life he had earned money by anything else.

Isabella looked at the screen in silence as well. After a moment, she swiped at her eyes with one hand, and said with a laugh: "Two thousand, is it. More than I thought."

"Mm." Benjamin answered hoarsely: "More than I thought."

Liam smiled, and patted his eldest brother on the shoulder:

"Congratulations. It’ll only get better from here."

Benjamin nodded. Liam took out six mandarins, and gave his brother and sister two each, and ate two himself.

There were still nearly eight kilograms left in the bracelet, and he intended to give Daniel five kilograms, and keep the rest for the household.

The Trading Hall opened every day and allowed ten exchanges a day. If he didn’t use all ten, they could accumulate up to a maximum of ten. He could accumulate and trade twenty times in one day.

But the blue cat had taught him a new piece of knowledge about the Trading Hall that he had forgotten. That was that the Trading Hall had a limit on its opening hours. It opened for exactly ten days. For the remaining twenty days it stayed closed, and the host was no longer permitted to do anything at all on the stall interface.

That was why a great many hosts chose to spread those ten days evenly across the month, because you couldn’t trade it all away in the first ten days and then sit breathing fresh air for the rest.

Naturally Liam thought the same way. He had already spent the first two days, so he ought to rest for a few days before carrying out the next exchange.

Seeing Isabella still leaning in close to Benjamin, listening to him talk about his plan for the next video, Liam suddenly asked:

"Sister, would you like to start a vlog channel of your own?"

Isabella went blank: "What? But Benjamin already has a channel, and if I start one too won’t the content be repetitive?"

Liam shook his head: "Not a vlog about farming, a vlog about handicrafts." He opened Sunflower, and sent the knitting and crochet course over to Isabella. Then he took the set of crochet learning tools out of the spatial bracelet, and handed it to her: "Give it a try, and if you can learn it that counts as another source of living."

Liam opened the wooden box, and picked up a ball of yarn: "This is called yarn, and it’s the kind that regulates temperature like climate-control clothing. But handmade knitted things are a hundred thousand times more beautiful than climate-control clothing, and they’re certain to be loved."

Isabella looked at the row of crochet tools inside the box, and then picked up a ball of beautiful sea-blue yarn to examine, and a strange fondness rose in her. She nodded at once:

"All right, let me see what I can do!"

That said, she gathered the whole lot up and hurried back to her room, impatient to try.

Liam: "..."

Women always love beauty, and love making delicate things with their own hands as well. That saying has never once been wrong.

Just then, Liam’s smart watch buzzed. He opened it to look, and it turned out to be a video call coming in from Daniel.

"Liam, my Daddy wants to meet you in person. He says a business deal this size can’t be done through a screen. Can you arrange it?"

Hearing that familiar voice, Benjamin’s whole body went tense at once. His eyes fixed on Liam’s smart watch. Liam found it rather funny, and glanced at his brother, then switched on screen sharing before answering Daniel:

"My family is harvesting vegetables tomorrow, and we have to take them to the purchasing station, so we’ll probably be busy until evening."

"Huh, your family grows vegetables? What kind? What quality? How much?"

Liam glanced at Benjamin, and signalled for him to speak. Benjamin stammered: 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Sawtooth... Sawtooth greens. About... about a hundred and thirty tons. Average quality."

Hearing that, Daniel made an interested sound, and said: "Then bring them straight to my family’s purchasing station, I’ll buy them as staff meals. The unit price is three hundred and twelve silver stars a kilogram, does that suit the two of you?"

"Yes, yes it does!"

Benjamin said it immediately. Never mind that the price Daniel offered was a full ten silver stars higher than the purchasing station they usually delivered to, tomorrow he would also get to meet his idol, so of course Benjamin agreed on the spot.

"Good, then call me tomorrow whenever you get to Altair, and I’ll come out to meet you."

"All right, see you tomorrow."

"Mm, see you tomorrow."

Liam had barely hung up before Benjamin leapt to his feet, and the chair legs scraping against the alloy floor let out an ear-splitting screech. He didn’t bother about it at all, and simply turned and shot straight upstairs.

Liam covered his mouth and giggled. The blue cat poked its head out, and asked curiously:

"What’s come over your brother?"

"Heh, he’s admired Daniel for a long time, and now he’s about to meet his idol so he’s a bit worked up. He’s probably turning his wardrobe upside down as we speak."

The blue cat clicked its tongue, and privately marvelled at how difficult humans were to understand. Plainly people, and yet they carried on like peacocks forever wanting to fan their tails to win over a mate.

Liam said nothing, and only tidied the table and chairs before going up to his room.

It was still fairly early, and Liam had slept rather a lot at midday so he didn’t want to sleep yet. He took out his drawing tablet, and from memory drew a few ears of corn lying side by side.

With the corn as the subject, he drew its husk peeled back in a long V, exposing kernels as white as milk.

After adjusting a few details, he posted it to his personal page and then took his clothes and went to shower.

When he had finished showering, Liam opened his personal page again. The picture he had just uploaded had already drawn a great many likes and comments, and most of the comments asked what this fruit was.

Liam only read them without replying, because he didn’t yet know what the corn would grow into after being soaked in restoration fluid, and it was still better not to speak too soon. Once he had dried his hair he browsed a few entertainment videos, and his eye stopped on a news item with a good many comments.

#Former Crown Prince suspected of appearing in the Imperial Capital# #Is the former Crown Prince really dead or not?# #Expert speculation on the royal family’s movements#

The post was dated a month ago.

Liam opened it, and before he had even read the content a wall of comments jumped out and hit him in the face. The people in these comments were cursing each other in all directions, all of it in words the censors had blocked. No wonder a post from a month ago still held its heat to this day, it turned out to be the miasma rising off the comments.

Liam switched the comment section off outright, and skimmed through the post.

There wasn’t anything remarkable about it, mostly that some "anonymous person" had caught sight of someone very like the former Crown Prince coming out of the back alley of the Royal City Hotel. After that came every kind of speculation without a shred of basis to it.

Liam looked at the blurry photograph in the article, and felt the whole thing was meaningless. He clicked his tongue, switched the article off, and then buried his head in the blanket.

Mention of that hotel was enough to annoy him. It called itself a royal hotel, and yet it let a pack of riffraff walk in and harm somebody’s Omega. The people in that hotel lounge were nothing good, and that Alpha was no decent man either.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left an Omega like him behind to face the consequences, and dusted off his own backside and run.

And that one might even have been somebody Elijah arranged as well. His condition had probably been drugged too, so why would a drugged Alpha not shut his door tightly instead of deliberately leaving it open for an Omega to walk in?

Say there was no intent behind it and who would believe you?

Liam had forgotten that the man had locked the bathroom door at the time, and might have been in too much of a hurry to close the main one. But he was uncomfortable, and wanted to find a reason to lay blame.

The more he thought about it the angrier Liam got, and he kicked at the blanket in irritation. His movement was too forceful and his lower abdomen gave a small twinge. Liam put a hand on his stomach in alarm, and patted it gently:

"Even though you’ve got half your genes from that bastard, Papa won’t hold it against you. There now, don’t be upset."

The twinge in his lower abdomen gradually faded under Liam’s gentle patting. He let out a breath, and told himself he mustn’t move so violently from now on.

He was pregnant now, and couldn’t just do as he pleased.