Chapter 42: The Real Purpose

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: The Real Purpose

Liam had originally meant to use the farming robots to sow the seeds as well, but Benjamin said he wanted footage to film, so the two robots were assigned to collecting Grass Worms instead.

Isabella stood beside the two robots to watch. Seeing them run smoothly without a single step going wrong, she felt easy enough to go back to the seedbed. On the way back, she didn’t forget to carry a few bundles of dried thorny weeds for the covering, as Liam had told her.

"Brother, for the corn seedbed we don’t need to ridge it up, but we have to mix in sandy soil so the seeds can breathe." Liam marked out the patch to be used for raising the corn seedlings. For a kilogram and a half of corn seed, sown ten centimeters apart, they needed a patch of about sixty square meters. Three kilograms sown in two separate patches needed about a hundred and twenty square meters.

With the ground marked out, Liam had Isabella water both patches through. He himself waited for the water to soak all the way in before using a knife to score the ground into squares five centimeters wide and about seven centimeters deep. That was an estimate, since in practice a human hand couldn’t measure to the millimeter like that.

Two passes of the knife and Benjamin understood, taking it from him at once: "Let me do it, go and sit over there, don’t tire yourself out."

Naturally there was no question of Liam sitting to one side. He handed the knife to Benjamin then carried out the tray of corn seed. First he planted marker stakes on each side, one reading [improved sample], the other [unimproved sample].

While Benjamin scored the ground, Liam carefully used a mini trowel to flick the soil aside in the middle of each square, setting a seed in then covering it over. This job was quickly seized from him by Isabella too. Liam helplessly picked up the smart camera to film close-ups of each of their movements.

The three kilograms of corn seed were sown quickly, so Liam had the two of them spread the dried thorny weeds out, laying a thin layer over the surface. Next came the cucumber seeds and the mandarin seeds, done the same way as the corn.

Those two done, it was the turn of the potatoes and sweet potatoes. Both of these had to be ridged up high. Sweet potatoes had to be grown for their vines before they could be propagated widely, while potatoes went straight into the main ridges. The sweet potatoes needed three hundred and forty-two square meters for both sorts, while the potatoes only came to twenty square meters.

Once he had filmed a full view of the seedbed, Liam switched the camera off. Only then did Isabella speak up to ask:

"Liam, why do we have to lay dried thorny weeds over the surface of the seedbed?"

Liam explained unhurriedly:

"There are three main reasons. The first is to hold moisture and regulate the soil’s temperature. Seeds need constant moisture to germinate. A layer of dry grass works like an insulating membrane, shielding the ground from direct sunlight during the day so the water doesn’t evaporate too fast, while keeping the soil warm at night."

He pointed toward the patch they had just covered, going on:

"The second is to prevent erosion. When we water, or if there’s a downpour, this layer will break the force of the water, so the seeds and the thin layer of humus on top don’t wash away or get scoured up to the surface."

"And the most important..." He smiled faintly: "The thorns on the weeds are hard and sharp both, so star-birds and gnawing star-beasts won’t dare come near. You could try it with other seed varieties too. Tell me, if we grew Jade greens and used thorny weeds or any thorny plant to ring the crop, by what percentage would the rate of those beasts eating the vegetables drop?"

Benjamin clapped his hands together: "At least forty percent! Some species are thick-skinned and fat enough not to fear thorns, others like to dig tunnels then drag the vegetables down under the ground; that lot are in the other sixty percent."

But cutting losses by forty percent alone would raise the profit by one and a half times. Liam nodded:

"So later on once our planet is in better shape, we can consider growing these vegetables as well."

Isabella let out an admiring sound. Then she voiced the question she had wanted to ask all along but held back because of the camera:

"Liam, what program did you install in the robots? As far as I know, farming robots can help us weed, plant, water and so on, but they can’t do delicate work the way people can. Yet those two robots can peel out Grass Worms, and they know how to prepare them too."

The smile on Liam’s face stiffened slightly. His eyes moved, a reason coming to him at once:

"It’s a new program from the Research Institute, not approved yet. I know about it because Mrs. Hall is a key research staff member..."

That said, he lowered his eyes, putting on a sorrowful air. Sure enough Isabella was instantly sick with regret, changing the subject to rescue the atmosphere. The blue cat rolled onto its back laughing:

[Host, with acting like that, not going into films really would be a waste of heaven’s gift.]

Liam scolded it: [Why didn’t you tell me ordinary farming robots can’t do fine work like this. I nearly gave myself away.]

The blue cat answered lazily: [You never asked, I assumed you knew.]

[Knew my foot!]

The matter of the two robots was fudged past just like that. Isabella and Benjamin still had Sawtooth greens to plant, so Liam was chased home to rest. Benjamin also told him they wouldn’t be eating fresh food tonight, so if Liam wanted some he only needed to cook a portion for himself.

He’d had fresh food morning and noon, so in the evening Liam simply drank nutrient fluid too. The moment he got home he ducked into his room, editing the video he’d shot at midday.

A video didn’t need any talking. Liam found a few gentle pieces of music, added text introducing the dishes and the ingredients at each stage, then posted it to the new channel.

The video went up right at dinner time, when everyone was waiting for him to livestream, so seeing him post a video to the channel linked to his broadcasting room they came pouring in to watch. The engagement climbed so fast that the staff member in charge had to request two more support systems be brought online.

[White Narcissus has given you Starry Sky Battleship x10]

[Drowned Sea Monster has given you Starry Sky Battleship x3]

[Have You Dropped Dead Today has given you Voyager Starship x1]

[CEO Who Doesn’t Want To Go To Work has given you Starry Sky Battleship x1]

...

Gift after gift came flying in, until Liam’s eyes swam. It seemed that ever since Daniel slammed ten Starry Sky Battleships into Benjamin’s vlog channel to show his discernment, most of the big spenders on the ranking had taken the Starry Sky Battleship as the standard gift for content they loved.

In under twenty minutes from posting, the gifts Liam had taken in from this video reached seventy million silver stars. Liam was startled by the figure, hurriedly contacting the staff member, telling him to lock the gift function on his channel.

The staff member: "..." He had never seen a channel owner turn down money like this one!

The comments detonated as well:

[Bloody hell, I was about to pour out my entire fortune to give brother Sunflower a hovercar, who’d have thought he’d block gifting altogether!]

[A dirt-poor thing like me could only give one Sawtooth green, feeling sad all along that I couldn’t match those rich people throwing money around like rubbish. Well now it’s fine, rich and poor are all the same.]

[I’m dying of laughter. Other channel owners only resent viewers for not giving big enough gifts, this brother just locks the damn gift function outright.]

The big spenders following Liam’s channel were stunned as well, because they had barely finished sending gifts when the owner locked the function outright, the owner moreover using a special permission to send back seventy percent of the value of their gifts. What sort of deity was this?

Daniel, sent back seventy percent of his gift’s value, hurriedly messaged Liam:

[Why did you suddenly lock the high-grade gifts, then give me the money back on top of it? Are you looking down on us?]

Liam smiled, messaging back: "Wait a moment, once I post a status on my personal page you’ll understand straight away."

Then he opened his personal page at once, posting a status:

[I livestream and film videos not to make money but to share a personal interest. If you all like me then in the coming days please go to the shopping cart and buy my family’s prepared fresh food! I’ll attach the cart in about three days.]

Liam had it all worked out already. In his previous life he had built a farming and food vlog channel purely to draw potential customers to his own company. Besides pushing his home region’s agricultural and forestry products hard, he had also been aiming at tourism services.

The Oakstone resort his family opened had one very interesting service. Customers could rent a garden house inside the resort, growing vegetables with their own hands, stocking fish, keeping chickens, cooking meals. After they left the resort staff would look after it for them, then every week when they had time off they would come again. Even though sometimes the vegetables they grew died, the chickens never grew, the fish floated belly-up the moment they were released, or the cooking nearly burned the house down; they still came back as though addicted.

A good many people in creative work rented long term outright, using it as both a home and a workplace. By their own account, their output at those times multiplied.

Foreign visitors travelling to his country were also very fond of trying the work of local farmers, ploughing, transplanting rice, harvesting rice, picking corn, and so on... Dirty and tiring it truly was, but the release of stress was real too. Some guests went and came back so many times that the locals knew their faces by heart.

In this world people were every bit as busy and pressured as in his previous life. Nothing would be more convenient than, after school or after work, craving some dish and being able to order it online, with hot, delicious food arriving half an hour later.

Nothing would be more relaxing either than, after a long stretch of busy work, being able to reward yourself with a trip to a place full of the breath of nature.

Tourism here was developed at present, but whichever way you turned it was only sea tours or wilderness survival. The former grew dull with repetition, the latter one slip and you ascended to heaven.

So what if there were a place both peaceful and able to show off one’s survival skills to set foot in?