After Reincarnating as the Dragon King, I Made a Fortune with Seafood – CH11

Chapter 11: Planting Vegetables

Before going to sleep, Lu Ao opened the link Song Zhou had sent him and browsed the forum until past one in the morning, basically going through every post on it.

The posts on this forum were a mixed bag, discussing all sorts of things.

Judging from the content, most of the active users on this forum were non-human. Even if they were not non-human themselves, they were at least dealing with non-humans.

If these posts had not been deliberately put up by certain people to fool others, then they seemed fairly reliable.

However, Lu Ao was not interested. After browsing through it once and getting a general idea, he exited, bookmarked the website, and tossed it into a folder he rarely used.

If possible, he did not want to have too much contact with this strange organization.

Having finally survived, he wanted a peaceful life more than anything.

The next day, Lu Ao got up early.

Even though he had nearly drowned yesterday after being tangled up with the giant grouper, he still went fishing today.

His luck today was average. He caught two giant groupers, five black sea bream, and five spotted scat. Altogether, they weighed only around thirty jin. He sent them to the fishmonger in town and earned a little over six hundred yuan after tax.

Half of that money was used to buy groceries, while the other half was spent at Lin Dawu’s shop on two small oxygen machines.

When Lin Dawu’s wife, Gui Yandan, saw that it was him, she greeted him warmly. “Lu Ao, have you eaten breakfast? Eat at our place. We’re having potato pancakes this morning.”

“Thank you, Sister-in-law. I’ve bought groceries and need to go home early to freeze them.”

“It’s fine. Eating won’t take much time.” Gui Yandan firmly made him sit down and said with a smile, “I’ll go get the pancakes. You can try my pancake-making skills too.”

Lin Dawu had long since gotten used to his wife’s special warmth toward Lu Ao. Seeing his wife go to the kitchen, he poked his head out and said, “Don’t be polite. Being able to keep you for a meal makes her happy beyond words.”

Lu Ao stepped over with his long legs and sat down at the table outside. “Then I won’t be polite.”

A moment later, Gui Yandan came out carrying a large pot filled more than halfway with pancakes. She placed it on the table, then brought over a pot of strong tea. “Eating too many potato pancakes at once might get greasy. There’s tea here too. If it feels greasy, drink some.”

“All right. Thank you, Sister-in-law.”

“Hey, don’t keep being so polite.” Gui Yandan sat down across from him and said, “I found out about the lion-head geese you asked me to ask around for. There’s a family in neighboring Tuanbao Town raising some. If you want them, you can call him. He said if you buy more than fifty, they’re twenty-eight yuan each. If it’s fewer than fifty, they’re thirty yuan each.”

Lu Ao truly had not expected these geese to be so expensive. Adult geese were sold by weight, and one jin was only twelve yuan.

Gui Yandan said, “I heard the geese from his family are pretty good, but they’re very good at eating.”

Lu Ao said, “If I’m raising them anyway, I’m not afraid of them eating a lot.”

Gui Yandan laughed brightly. “That’s true too. Then I’ll send you his number. You can ask him yourself later.”

“All right.”

Lu Ao ate more than ten potato pancakes, took the oxygen equipment, said goodbye to Lin Dawu and his wife, and went home with the oxygen equipment he had bought.

On the way home, Lu Ao stopped by Lin Manzhang’s house to pick up the vegetable seedlings they had helped him buy.

Lin Manzhang’s wife was called Ye Zhiying. Lu Ao drove the vehicle to Lin Manzhang’s door, and Ye Zhiying saw him at once, smiling as she asked, “Lu Ao, why didn’t you come yesterday?”

“It was too late yesterday. I was afraid I’d disturb your rest.”

Ye Zhiying smiled when she heard him being polite. “What disturbance? We usually don’t sleep until after nine or ten.”

As Ye Zhiying spoke, she used a manure basket to carry out the vegetable seedlings she had bought for Lu Ao. “You told me to just buy whatever looked good, so I bought some at random. There are five winter melon seedlings, five pumpkin seedlings, five loofah seedlings, five bird’s-eye chili seedlings, ten tomato seedlings, fifteen line pepper seedlings, fifteen eggplant seedlings, and fifteen yardlong bean seedlings. I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to plant them all in one day, so I didn’t buy too many.”

Lu Ao took a look and nodded. “Sorry to trouble you, Sister-in-law. I’ll transfer you the money.”

“No trouble. It was just along the way.” Ye Zhiying instructed him, “Seedlings are usually planted in the morning or at dusk. If you’re not planting them now, put them somewhere cool and shaded. Don’t let them die in the sun.”

Lu Ao agreed.

Ye Zhiying continued, “After you plant the seedlings, remember to water them right away and soak the soil thoroughly. For base fertilizer, just put in a handful of ash. If you don’t have ash, a little chemical fertilizer is fine too, but put it a bit farther away. Don’t burn the seedlings.”

Lu Ao really did not look like someone who knew how to farm.

Ye Zhiying was not very reassured and explained almost every detail to him.

Lu Ao memorized all the points to pay attention to. After thanking Ye Zhiying, he placed the seedlings in the tricycle bed and carried them home.

He had to prepare the land in the morning and afternoon first, so he would not be transplanting them that quickly for now.

His household registration had never been moved out, so his family still had land in the village.

There was not much land, only three mu and eight fen, all good paddy fields.

If it were used to grow grain to feed a family, this amount of land might not be enough. But for growing vegetables, it was more than enough.

A few days ago, someone in the village had been plowing fields, and he had directly hired them to plow his land with a machine at a price of one hundred yuan per mu. Now, it was much easier to prepare the fields.

Three mu and eight fen converted into square meters was 2,533 square meters. This area was actually quite large.

Lu Ao worked under the sun for the entire day and finally finished preparing half the land.

Taking advantage of the sun about to set, he went home, carried the vegetable seedlings over, and planted them pit by pit.

When planting line peppers and bird’s-eye chilies, he deliberately planted the two kinds of chilies in two separate ridges, keeping them far apart. Otherwise, when the flowers bloomed and pollinated later, the two kinds of chilies would affect each other, causing the line peppers to become too spicy and the bird’s-eye chilies not spicy enough, affecting their quality.

Planting vegetables was not easy. By the time the sky was almost dark, he still had a few tomato seedlings left unplanted.

Just as he was concentrating on planting vegetables, someone called him from far away. “Lu Ao—”

Lu Ao straightened up. His excellent eyesight allowed him to see Lin Gongshang waiting by the roadside on a motorcycle without any effort.

Seeing him stand up, Lin Gongshang knew he had heard the shout and asked, “Why didn’t you bring your phone?”

“It’s too heavy in my clothes. What’s up?”

“We’re going squid fishing tonight. We wanted to ask if you’re coming.”

Only then did Lu Ao remember that it was squid fishing season again.

He said, “Do you have all the tools?”

“Of course. Red lights, octopus hooks—we have everything.” Lin Gongshang’s face lit up. “We even specially borrowed a bigger boat. Brother Zhang has a fishing qualification certificate. If you come with us, we can fish and eat at the same time. How about having a late-night snack out at sea?”

“Sure. What time?”

“We originally planned to set off at nine. If you still have things to do, ten is fine too.”

Lu Ao looked at the dozen or so vegetable seedlings he had not yet planted and said, “Ten, then. I should be done before ten.”

Only then did Lin Gongshang belatedly realize it. “Hey, you’re planting vegetables?”

Lu Ao gave a hum.

Lin Gongshang immediately parked his motorcycle and rolled up his sleeves. “Why are you still planting now? You’re not very skilled at farm work, are you?”

Lu Ao was silent.

Lin Gongshang continued chattering, “Planting like this is too inefficient. You should dig the holes directly, dig all the holes first, then plant and cover them with soil one by one.”

As he spoke, he had already walked up to Lu Ao and took the small hoe from his hand. “Watch me.”

Lin Gongshang quickly dug the holes, placed the seedlings into them one by one, then began covering them with soil in order.

As he planted, he looked at the vegetables Lu Ao had planted earlier and could not help saying, “Your plant spacing is way too wide.”

Lu Ao carried a bucket to fetch water and came back to water the vegetables. “It’s fine. There’s plenty of land and not many vegetables.”

“That’s true.” Lin Gongshang said, “If you have a lot of land, you can also plant some okra, sunflower, hyacinth beans, scallions, garlic… Then when you want to eat vegetables, you can just pick them directly from the field.”

“I didn’t have time today. I’ll plant them in a couple of days.”

“In a couple of days? Hey, perfect timing. My family is transplanting sweet potatoes these two days. Do you want to plant sweet potatoes? If you do, I’ll bring you some. My family’s sweet potatoes are pretty tasty, and you can eat a wave of sweet potato leaves too.”

“I’ll plant them.”

“Okay. I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”

While the two of them talked, Lu Ao finished watering all the vegetables.

He was strong, and carrying water took no effort at all, making him extremely efficient.

Lin Gongshang finished planting the last tomato seedling, stood up, and pounded his lower back. “Done.”

“All right. Come check them tomorrow. These next two days, you’d better come water them every day and observe them while you’re at it. If any seedlings die, replace them in time. If not, find some time to build frames for these tomatoes. Tomato seedlings can’t stand steadily on their own. If there’s no frame, they’ll easily fall over.”

Lu Ao memorized this and nodded.

Lin Gongshang then pointed to the small river in the distance. “For the frames, just go cut bamboo by the river. The bamboo on both sides of the river in your village is basically wild. Using bamboo to build frames is more convenient than using wood.”

“Mm. Anything else?”

“As for anything else, you’ll need to top-dress them in time. I don’t think you’re used to using farmyard manure, so buying some chemical fertilizer is fine too.”

After Lu Ao memorized this, he raised his head and asked, “Would goose manure work?”

“Where would you get goose manure?”

“I’m buying geese tomorrow.”

Lin Gongshang looked at him and felt this was not very reliable. “Raising geese? Geese are much harder to raise than ducks. Goslings get sick very easily.”

“It’s fine. I’ll try first.”

Lu Ao had taken a liking to lion-head geese because they were relatively large. The biggest ones could grow to over ten kilograms. When the time came, he could eat meat to his heart’s content.

Lu Ao had always had his own ideas, so Lin Gongshang could not really keep persuading him. He only said, “If you want to raise them, you might as well do it in batches. Don’t buy too many at once.”

Lu Ao nodded. He had not planned to buy too many at once anyway. Thirty to fifty would be enough.

If he bought too many, he would not be able to look after them.

After Lin Gongshang finished speaking, he said, “All right, then I’ll go home for dinner first. We’ll contact each other by phone later.”

“Okay.”

Lin Gongshang got on his motorcycle and quickly went home.

Lu Ao washed his hands and feet clean, put the bucket, hoe, and other things into the tricycle bed, and also drove home.

After returning home, he ate first. After filling his stomach, he took a shower. By then, it was almost nine-thirty.

He directly drove the tricycle to the agreed seaside spot near Linwu Village.

From far away, he could already hear Lin Manzhang and the others’ voices. When he got closer, he saw that they were carrying the boat into the sea together.

Lu Ao parked the vehicle steadily and went over to help. As soon as he saw them, he noticed a delicate-looking young man among the group.

Even while helping carry the boat, that person did not forget to hold up a selfie stick and record a video.

Lu Ao walked over and helped lift the boat together.

Lin Manzhang and the others instantly felt the pressure on their shoulders lighten. Turning around and discovering it was him, they warmly said, “Lu Ao, you’re here?”

The delicate-looking young man immediately turned his head. His eyes lit up as he shouted, “Lu God?!”

The moment Lu Ao heard this, he immediately knew who this was.

This should be Lin Qiyan, the one who made videos.