Chapter 18: Thankfully, There’s a Heartbeat

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So the so-called kitten turned out to be a panda cub. At that moment, she felt as if a pie had fallen from the sky—her long-awaited fortune had finally arrived. She had to take good care of it. After all, it was just picking vegetables; she could handle that.

When Fan Zhenzhen went out again that afternoon to pick vegetables, the vegetable garden somehow seemed larger. The vegetables, having been soaked in rain for most of the day, had grown significantly taller.

Goodness, the bitter wheat greens were waist-high, and one stalk had even grown up to her shoulder. In disbelief, she took out her phone and snapped a photo of that stalk.

After seeing the photo, Da Xia stood stunned for a long while. Seizing the moment when no one was paying attention, he dug out a piece of black sugarcane less than five centimeters long, placed it under the sunflower not far from the garden, and pressed it down with his foot to prevent it from being washed away by the rain.

“How long until I can eat sugarcane? One day? Two? Three days should do.” The thought of sweet sugarcane brought a big smile to Da Xia’s face.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he returned to the doorstep, two cousins ambushed him from left and right, dragging him into the living room.

The living room was packed. Everyone stared at him intently—not because they paid that much attention to him, but because the sound of rain hitting the pot lid he was carrying was so clear and unusual that those watching outside couldn’t help but notice.

They all wondered what mischief the troublemaker had been up to.

“N-nothing, I just buried a piece of sugarcane this long,” Da Xia said, shrinking his neck and gesturing with his hand.

Despite his explanation, Qin Baisong still worried and went to check under the pot lid. Only when he confirmed it was just a small piece of sugarcane did he relax.

Qin Ran’s eyes flicked around. “Plants grow taller after rain; maybe people can too. Da Xia, you’re so short—why not try standing in the rain? You might grow taller.”

Gu Suyun twitched the corner of her mouth and gave her youngest son a light pat.

“Nonsense.”

She quickly turned to Da Xia. “Don’t listen to your second brother; he’s teasing you.”

To be honest, Da Xia was uncertain, but Fan Zhenzhen was somewhat tempted. Looking at the pouring rain outside, she felt eager to try. “How about standing in the rain for an hour first?”

“Stop dreaming. You won’t grow taller from rain. It won’t just fail to help; it’ll make you sick, give you a headache, and might even cause brain damage.”

Just as she was about to act, a voice in her mind sounded promptly, mercilessly shattering her fantasy.

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Fan Zhenzhen: …

Pft!

Qin Xiaoyu couldn’t help but burst out laughing, hastily covering her mouth. This system was quite amusing.

She moved a little under the eaves and reached out to catch the rainwater. The raindrops hit her hand forcefully—not enough to hurt, but long exposure made her head feel dizzy. Perhaps her brain was literally soaking wet.

Though she hadn’t seen it firsthand, Qin Xiaoyu was now certain the Earth had been transported, and this place, as Fan Zhenzhen’s system had said, was a world of plants.

How to describe it?

This Earth was filled with an energy called Star Force, which plants absorbed without resistance. Humans lived here like mortals without spiritual roots in a cultivation world—Star Force was intangible and invisible to them.

It wasn’t entirely impossible to use it; one could eat more and train harder, similar to body tempering in cultivation stories.

However, alien plants contained some degree of what could be called Sha Qi—malignant energy. If too much accumulated inside, rationality would gradually fade, and in severe cases, one would become a monster controlled by Sha Qi.

Therefore, purging Sha Qi was crucial.

Looking toward Grandpa, Qin Xiaoyu realized that at this moment, the old Chinese medicine practitioner was far more valuable than Western medicine. Some of the prescriptions she knew might be passed down from Grandpa’s hands.

After all, she was still a child; many things were inconvenient.

Just as she was about to withdraw her hand, she suddenly sensed something and involuntarily murmured “hmm” in her heart.

She actually felt an energy fluctuation within the rainwater, as if she could absorb this power. Just as she was about to focus more, she abruptly recalled something and quickly pulled her hand back.

Delicate roots extended from her body, barely visible before retracting swiftly, as if they had never appeared.

Qin Xiaoyu touched her chest; her heartbeat was abnormally rapid, and a strange thought flashed through her mind.

Fortunately, she still had a heartbeat.

Uh, why would she think that?

The heavy rain had lasted seven days in a row, but strangely, no floods occurred. The ground was like a giant sponge, absorbing all the excess water.

[Notification: Mission accomplished. Reward: One pet beast egg. Please locate it according to the map.]

Fan Zhenzhen looked utterly bewildered.

After seven days of picking vegetables in the pouring rain, she had managed to feed Huihui enough to grow stronger. The panda cub was lively and even climbed around to play.

And this was the reward?

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Pft!

Qin Xiaoyu couldn’t hold back her laughter again. Meeting Fan Zhenzhen’s puzzled gaze, she pointed toward the vegetable garden.

At that moment, Da Xia was being pulled away by a dog, the dog tugging at his pants so hard that they fell halfway down, revealing half of his blue underwear.

“Huskies are always so lively,” Fan Zhenzhen remarked casually, though she was also amused inside.

“My goodness!”

A shout came from the direction of the vegetable garden.

The courtyard wall mysteriously grew larger and wider after the rain. The vegetable patch expanded from a tiny plot to a full acre. Not only the already tall bitter wheat greens, but even the lettuce had grown half a person’s height, each leaf looking fresh, green, and tender—simply delicious.

She glanced back at the self-built house carefully. It hadn’t changed.

The chicken coop, however, looked several times bigger, though the roof was damaged.

Wait, why was that?

Even the chickens’ shelter had expanded, yet their house remained the same. It wasn’t just their home; the neighbors’ homes were unchanged as well.

“Oh my gosh, what happened to these chili peppers?”

The neighbor’s yard was bare, paved with cement, except for a patch of land about one and a half meters wide and five meters long outside the courtyard wall.

Now that the rain had stopped, she went out to check.

She immediately spotted chili pepper plants that had grown from half a person’s height to over two meters. The peppers themselves appeared unchanged but were far more numerous, densely populating the entire tree.

Looking at other vegetables, she was so shocked she gasped.

Hearing the noise, Qin Xiaoyu climbed a ladder to peek over the wall and shouted to the neighbor:

“Aunt Jiang, what’s special about the chili peppers growing bigger? In half a month, they’ll start throwing chili bombs at you—guaranteed to make you cry!”

Aunt Jiang raised her eyes. “Little Fat Fish, you’re talking nonsense.”

Qin Xiaoyu grinned. “Is it nonsense? Aunt Jiang, why not try? Just snap a branch and see if it shakes.”

Since chili trees had many branches, and Aunt Jiang wasn’t precious about them, she casually picked one to break off.