Yun Shu’s fingertips curled slightly as a ripple of pale gold light quietly spread deep within her eyes.
This was the sign that the Eyes of Good and Evil had been activated.
Once these eyes opened, layered phantoms floated above the heads of the crowd below like a revolving lantern, revealing their good deeds, evils, merits, and faults in minute detail.
She saw a grain shop owner who loved petty advantages and usually cheated customers with short weights, yet during the famine, he changed his stingy ways and didn’t withhold a single grain. She saw a long-tongued gossip who was always meddling in others' business, yet secretly tucked half a coarse flour cake into a roadside beggar’s hand. She saw an honest farmer, driven by the state of the world to raise a hoe and harm another...
All living beings were a tapestry of black and white, where good and evil coexisted.
There was no pure good and no pure evil; they were all just struggling in the mud, trying to survive.
Yun Shu withdrew her gaze, the red light in her eyes fading.
In the past, she always felt her luck was poor.
Thinking about it now, being born in twenty-first-century China was actually like winning the grand prize.
Because outside of that place, for many people, simply staying alive was an unattainable luxury.
“Today, I encountered the God of Farming in the Ninth Heaven. The God of Farming pitied the hardships of mortal cultivation and specially entrusted me to bring an item to the lower realm.”
Yun Shu flipped her sleeve.
A round, fist-sized object with purplish-red skin lay steadily in her ivory-white palm.
A sweet potato.
To be precise, it was a sweet potato of exceptional quality, its skin smooth as if it had just been dug from the earth.
The refugees present did not recognize the sweet potato.
They only saw a strange thing they had never seen before appear out of thin air in the Divine Lady’s palm.
It was shaped like a strange stone and colored like congealed blood.
“This is a Divine Seed, named sweet potato.” The Divine Lady held her palm slightly higher so everyone could see it.
Her gaze swept over the crowd. “The God of Farming said that this Divine Seed is not picky about poor soil and does not fear drought. Whether it be mountain ridges, thin soil, gravel, or barren slopes, it can take root anywhere.”
“A single plant can yield several tubers, and each tuber can weigh over a jin. Planted in spring and harvested in autumn, the yield per mu can exceed two thousand jin.”
A deathly silence fell.
What did two thousand jin mean?
Currently, even the best irrigated land in the Central Plains planting millet would only yield about two hundred jin per mu in a year of perfect weather.
Two thousand jin—that was ten times the yield!
If there truly was such a thing from the Heavenly Palace in the mortal world...
If it truly could be grown in the mortal world...
Some people’s lips began to tremble, some stared so hard their eyes bulged, and some stood with their mouths wide open.
【Shen Yu Shock Value +100】
【Cui Erlang Shock Value +100】
【Zhang San Shock Value +100】
【...】
The numbers for the current Shock Value on the system panel began to jump frantically, soaring from 3,550 to 23,500 in just a few breaths, and they were still climbing.
A subtle curve touched the corner of Yun Shu’s lips.
Good.
This was exactly the effect she wanted.
Even though she was overjoyed inside, she remained outwardly impassive, maintaining the composure a Divine Lady should have.
“If anyone in the mortal world can cultivate this Divine Seed to maturity, I shall bestow a stroke of providence.”
“I will ensure this land has favorable weather and bountiful harvests, protecting the people of this region from hunger for three years.”
As soon as these words were spoken, the eyes of the crowd instantly reddened.
Three years without hunger!
This meant children would no longer be too hungry to cry, the elderly would no longer save their rations for the younger generation and then quietly climb the mountain to end their lives, and women would no longer sell themselves for half a piece of mixed flour cake!
This was a chance at life!
Did they want to plant it? They were practically going mad with desire!
Did they dare to take it? They did not.
What if they took it but couldn't keep it alive? If the God of Farming brought punishment or the Divine Lady grew angry, who could bear the responsibility?
A moment of silence followed.
From among the crowd, a voice rang out unhurriedly, as clear as a babbling spring hitting stones.
“Divine Lady, may Yu be allowed to try?”
Shen Yu stepped forward slowly, his robes fluttering slightly.
In his life, he had knelt to Heaven and Earth, to his sovereign and father, and to the cold memorial tablets in the ancestral hall.
Other than that, he had never lowered his head in the slightest.
But at this moment, his movement of lifting his robe to kneel was as fluid as if he had practiced it a thousand times.
The Divine Lady on the steps looked down at him, her gaze as calm as autumn water.
“You are not destined for this.”
It wasn't that she didn't approve of Shen Yu. The many good deeds recorded above his head were enough to prove he was someone who cared for the world. However, he came from a noble family. If all resources were tilted toward him, it would not be a good thing for the common people.
Furthermore, it would be detrimental to her plans.
From the beginning, by playing the role of the Divine Lady, what she wanted was more than just ending the smoke of war, stopping the fighting, and concluding the chaotic era.
What she wanted was a world of Great Harmony, where the poor have clothes, the hungry have food, the elderly have support, and the young have care.
More importantly, she wanted the word 'ignorant' to vanish from the common people.
From then on, everyone would have books to read, and every household would know etiquette and righteousness.
Let the cultural lineage never break, let justice endure forever, and let those ordinary commoners live with dignity!
This might be overly idealistic, but in her view, it wasn't necessarily impossible to achieve.
The set skills from the Mary Sue System were entirely sufficient to change the ecological environment of this world, and she possessed advanced knowledge far beyond this era.
If she didn't try, how could she be satisfied?
She always believed in one thing.
A path is made by people walking it step by step!
Shen Yu’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.
Seeing this, a sigh of disappointment rippled through the crowd.
If even Shen Yu couldn't do it, then who could?
For a moment, the atmosphere became even more stagnant than before.
In a spot slightly toward the back of the crowd, Cui San Ya tugged at her second brother’s sleeve and whispered, “Second Brother, you’re so good at farming. Why don't you go try?”
Cui Erlang waved his hands frantically in embarrassment. “Little Sister, that is the God of Farming’s Divine Seed. Even Young Master Shen is not destined for it. How could a simple farmer like me dare to dream of it?”
Cui San Ya grumbled, “When Father was alive, he said our family’s two mu of land had the best harvest in the whole village because of you...”
“That’s different.” Cui Erlang’s forehead broke out in a sweat from anxiety as he reached out to cover his sister’s mouth.
“Don't talk nonsense. People will laugh if they hear you.”
Cui San Ya made muffled noises as he covered her mouth. She struggled hard twice but couldn't break free, so she simply stopped.
She quieted down for a while, and as soon as Cui Erlang let go of her, she suddenly grabbed his wrist and used all her strength to thrust it upward.
“Divine Lady, my second brother knows how to farm! He was the best at farming in our village!” she shouted loudly.
The surrounding gazes all snapped toward them.
Cui Erlang wished he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into, using his other hand to try and pry his sister’s fingers off.
But that little girl seemed to have found strength from nowhere; her fingers were like iron pincers, and no matter how he pried, he couldn't open them.
Perhaps it was the courage of a newborn calf that does not fear the tiger, but Cui San Ya had no idea what accepting the Divine Seed entailed. She only knew that her second brother was good at farming and should help the Divine Lady with her troubles.
“Divine Lady, please let my second brother try. He can definitely do it!”
Yun Shu looked at Cui San Ya’s sparkling eyes. She remembered these eyes; they belonged to the little girl she had seen eating the fish.
Perhaps because she had been eating her fill these past few days, her complexion had become much ruddier, and her previously sunken face had gained a bit of flesh.
Then.
She looked at the terrified man beside the girl, her gaze shifting slightly to land on his rough, large hands.
The knuckles were thick, with heavy calluses worn into the webs of his thumbs. There were several old cracks in his palms, and his nails were trimmed very short, with dirt embedded in the crevices that could never be washed away.
These were the hands of a true, salt-of-the-earth farmer.
“You two, step forward.”
Cui Erlang’s heart was filled with panic.
But the Divine Lady had spoken; who would dare to refuse?
Unlike Cui Erlang’s restraint, Cui San Ya, a girl of eight or nine, showed no stage fright at all.
She knelt happily at the foot of the steps, looking up at the deity who gazed down upon all living beings from above.
The Divine Lady was truly beautiful.
Young as she was, she didn't know how to describe that kind of beauty. She only felt that all the sunlight in the sky had fallen upon Her, and even the fluttering arc of Her robes seemed like clouds that only existed in heaven.
She remembered this scene for the rest of her life.
Even later, when she held a high position and her name was recorded for eternity—when everyone said that for a mere farm girl to step into the imperial court, which had always only accepted the scholar-bureaucrats, was a sign of being uniquely blessed by heaven and destined by fate.
But she didn't think so. She was simply someone who didn't know the height of the heavens or the depth of the earth; she just had a bit more reckless courage than others, which allowed her to win that sliver of pity from the Divine Lady.
Rate on N.U.
