Chapter Seventeen: Preparing to Depart

After feeding the calf with the feed brought from Aunt Bertha, watching it regain energy and frolic in the pasture, Chisui finally felt at ease.

Before returning, Chisui had already asked Uncle Darren to help fence off a large area around the animal shed for grazing. She planned to sow all the remaining grass seeds there. This type of grass thrives in clay soil, is incredibly resilient, and requires little to no maintenance from her.

The feed formula Aunt Bertha gave was simple: a mix of corn, flour, hay, and a pinch of salt. However, since the corn on the ranch hadn’t matured yet, all the corn Chisui had was ready-made, courtesy of Aunt Bertha.

“Are you going up the mountain again today?” Mr. Stone asked at the side, seeing that Chisui was finally relaxed.

“No, today I have something more important to do,” Chisui replied, shaking her head as she rolled up her sleeves.

“What is it?”

“Today is big cleaning day!”

Since the animals had moved into their shed, Chisui hadn’t cleaned it once. When she stepped inside that morning, the stench was already overwhelming. Fortunately, there were only a few animals now; as more move in, the smell would only worsen. Staying in such an unclean environment too long would make them prone to illness. She had to clean up quickly.

Seeing Chisui taking deep breaths while holding the broom, her expression as if ready to face death, Mr. Stone couldn’t help but laugh. “You don’t have to trouble yourself so much. Where do you plan to put all that manure? Compost it in the farmland?”

Chisui gestured to indicate the distance from the farmland to her cottage, recalling the foul odor from that morning. Her face twisted in discomfort. After hesitating, she asked, “Does it have to be compost? Are there other ways to enrich the soil?”

“Of course,” he replied. “But using manure is the simplest, though the smell is unpleasant. For example, artisans on Silver Isle make special herbal fertilizers that work better and smell good, but they’re expensive. Or like the flowing flower stone I mentioned before—odorless and reasonably priced—but it only works when there are no other crops in the field.”

Chisui frowned, thinking of the 10 gold coins needed for farmland improvement. That was apparently reasonable.

After much thought, she still shook her head. Her nose was sensitive, not to mention Momo’s, who lived with her. The farmland was closest to the cottage; if a foul stench wafted over, neither of them would be able to stay.

“Better to throw it out, pile it up in the nearby thicket as fertilizer for those trees. I’ll think of other ways for the farmland,” she said, then immediately began pondering how to bring the green sprout python from the mountain to the pasture.

“Then I’ll follow your plan, just wait.” With that, Mr. Stone began flapping his wings, and a gust of wind floated into the animal shed.

Recalling the fierce wind that nearly uprooted trees when they first met, Chisui’s expression changed dramatically. “Wait, the chicks are still inside!”

“No worries, look,” Mr. Stone said, extending his forelimb toward the shed’s door.

Two chicks appeared to be gently lifted into the air, startled by the sudden suspension and chirping loudly, yet compared to the strange objects flying around, they looked quite safe.

Under Mr. Stone’s control, the sources of the foul odor were blown into the thicket and disappeared. The chicks floated down gently with the wind and were placed outside the shed to run around the pasture alongside the calf.

“Wow, that’s amazing!” Chisui was thrilled as she witnessed it all.

Pleased with the praise, Mr. Stone stopped flapping and laughed heartily.

“If there’s more cleaning to do, I’ve got it covered. You can go check the ingredients; we’ll set off tomorrow.”

Chisui nodded eagerly and dashed into the kitchen.

Great, no more cleaning from now on.

In the past few days of mountain excursions, Chisui had gathered plenty of ingredients. Except for those that could be dried and stored, everything else was placed in the freezer. Today, she took advantage of the free time to inventory them.

First were wild vegetables like shepherd’s purse and mugwort. Shepherd’s purse was indispensable for daily dumplings, and she never had enough to cook other dishes. Mugwort had more medicinal value; most of it was dried and stored for summer mosquito repellent use.

Next were mushrooms like morels, shiitake, and wood ear fungus. Since the harvest was small, only the wood ear was dried, while the rest were kept in the freezer. Shiitake, in particular, was a crucial ingredient for her competition dish tomorrow.

Besides plants, there were rivers in the mountains. With help from Momo and Mr. Stone, Chisui collected many small river shrimps, which she dried into shrimp flakes. Salt was added to extend their shelf life, and they were sealed in jars.

Chisui also tried catching fish by hand but only ended up soaking wet. Thankfully, with Momo’s swift reflexes, they caught quite a few small fish, which she fried and served over the past few days.

Recently, she bought a good amount of pork from Aunt Bertha. Besides reserving some for dumpling filling, the rest was salted and hung by the window to dry under the sun and wind for about ten days to make the cured wind-dried meat she desired.

By this calculation, the white radishes in the farmland would be ready for harvest tomorrow. The transplanted green onions, garlic, and chili in the wooden boxes were growing well. After just ten days on the Sky Isle, Chisui already had over a dozen usable ingredients in the kitchen. She could finally ponder what to eat tomorrow, instead of worrying about what she had.

The only discomfort was that despite all her mountain foraging, she had yet to find any sign of rice plants. Meals without white rice always felt less appetizing.

Chisui set aside two or three items she needed, stacking them in a corner of the freezer for easy access tomorrow.

After tallying the ingredients, she resumed making dumplings to fulfill the orders for the next couple of days.

By the time she finished, it was late at night. With Mr. Stone’s help, the animals were already back in the shed. They would have to endure staying there one more whole day before heading out early tomorrow.

After saying good night to Momo and Mr. Stone, Chisui still felt a bit excited.

It had been ten days since arriving on Sky Isle. Tomorrow would be her first time leaving the town. When she first arrived, she woke up bedridden, skin and bones. After ten days of dietary care, her face had gained some flesh and looked much healthier, though she was still far from her previous well-proportioned figure.

Everything was moving in a positive direction, except one thing: her clothes.

If given another chance, Chisui would never have cut that garment. Who would have thought that in such a large town like Fufeng, there wasn’t a single ready-made clothing store? Apart from workshops and general stores, there were no others. The fabric and yarn shop sold only raw materials, no finished clothes.

Chisui was fine with basic repairs but sewing entire clothes from scratch was challenging.

Due to the thorny branches and sharp stones in the mountains, her clothes had been patched up many times. Even with money, she couldn’t buy new ones, so she had to make do. For tomorrow’s competition, she specially chose the one with the fewest patches so she could look presentable.

Lying in bed, thinking of this made her a little sad.

Indeed, she should pluck a couple of thorns from Momo tonight. What if she didn’t have enough money to buy clothes tomorrow?

Her goal for tomorrow: buy, buy, buy!