Shen Shian and his grandparents had lived together for nearly six years. Thanks to the influence of the elderly, he developed very healthy living habits and a regular biological clock. Every morning at 6 o’clock, his eyes would open before his alarm clock rang.
Yet things seemed somewhat different today.
After falling asleep with Xiao Hei, Shen Shian didn’t dream anymore but in his daze, he always felt that he had forgotten something vital. This unknown confusion sank into his subconscious and remained elusive until dawn.
He forgot that Xiao Hei needed to pee and poop.
The thought that ‘the dog might’ve done it in a corner of the house or even beside his pillow’ caused the shocked Shen Shian to sit up in bed. He was sweating all over as he turned his head violently and stabbed at Xiao Hei beside him, eyes as sharp as a sword.
The small, furry thing had four legs in the air and his soft belly slightly moved up and down. There was a small snoring sound from his mouth and he was apparently sleeping well. There were no obvious foreign objects on the sheets or suspicious smell in the air.
Shen Shian sighed with relief. He glanced at his mobile phone and saw it was only 5:30. Then he raised a hand to poke Xiao Hei’s stomach. “Get up. I’ll take you out to poop.”
Dawn came late in winter and at this point, the sky outside the window was still dark. Thus, when Shen Shian washed and changed his clothes, he entered the living room and didn’t immediately notice the abnormality.
It wasn’t until he picked up the mug from the coffee table that he inadvertently raised his eyes in the direction of the balcony. Fortunately, his reactions were dull from just waking up or the cup in his hand might’ve fallen.
Shen Shian strode to the balcony and opened the glass door between the living room and balcony. His movements were so urgent that the metal edge of the glass door hit the door frame heavily, the pulley making a harsh rubbing sound. It was particularly loud and clear in the early winter morning that was filled with silence.
A left the size of a palm-leaf fan squeezed in after the glass door opened, brushing against Shen Shian’s cheek and ear. Shen Shian raised his head with dismay and his Adam’s apple moved up and down a few times.
For a moment, he almost thought that a primitive forest had grown on his balcony.
The wilting aloe vera yesterday was like a deep-sea monster after mutating. The triangular leaves were like the kraken’s huge and strong tentacles. Each one was the size of an adult man’s waist and they grew from the balcony floor to the ceiling. Even the jagged thorns on the edge changed from the size of sesame seems to countless hard and sharp watermelon knives.
The green radish originally placed in the corner of the balcony had several vines that wound around each other like dark green pythons. The leaves were green and drooping, growing wildly along the vines and blocking the huge balcony. If the windows of the balcony weren’t closed then Shen Shian didn’t doubt these vines would pass through the window and continue to climb along the walls of the building.
It was early in the morning and Xiao Hei was woken up from a deep sleep. He showed anger and whenever Shen Shian went, it hopping on his slippers and pants. Therefore, when Shen Shian took a few steps before stopping in front of the glass door, Xiao Hei couldn’t stop himself in time and hit Shen Shian’s calm. Thanks to the reaction force, his butt landed on the ground as he fell down. He didn’t have time to growl when he saw the same scene as Shen Shian.
Shen Shian gulped with some difficulty and bowed his head to talk to his dog. ‘Dog stay.jpg.’
Why did this happen? Shen Shian frowned and the shock was still surging like waves in his heart. It was clearly still good yesterday. How did such an amazing and unconventional change occur overnight? What factors caused the species variation? Was it human influence? He didn’t do anything but water—
Shen Shian was shocked. Watering. He poured the spring water on the aloe vera and green radish.
It was as if lightning flashed in his brain. Shen Shian suddenly remembered something and instantly disappeared, flashing into the space.
In the open space surrounded by the stream, the 31 rows and 21 columns of seeds he planted last night had grown to four metres tall, lush and green tomato ‘trees.’ The branches were like an adult’s arms and there were thousands of basketball-sized tomatoes that were red like fire, looking seductive under the light of the space.
Shen Shian stood by the stream in a trance for a while.
He had hoped the tomatoes would grow a bit faster but this seemed too fast.
After a long time, he raised his hand and pinched his brow. At least one thing could be determined now. The reason why this type of natural laws violation occurred with the aloe vera, green radish and tomato was because of the spring water.
Shen Shian glanced at the fog surrounding the spring and felt that he had underestimated the magic and role of this spiritual spring.
Still, now wasn’t the time to consider this. Xiao Hei hadn’t popped yet!
His heart tensed and he immediately returned to the living room. He changed clothes and shoes, grabbed a few disposable shoe covers from the cabinet at the entrance and waved to Xiao Hei. “Come.”
He didn’t have a dog collar and rope so Shen Shian directly picked up Xiao Hei by the back of the neck, coldly reprimanded him. “Behave if you want to eat meat.”
The dog growled a few times but sure enough, he didn’t move.
Shen Shian had just locked the door and pulled out the key when the door opposite him opened and the bodyguard Mo Feng came out. He was dressed neatly and had no expression on his face as he nodded to Shen Shian. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Shen Shian also nodded with some surprise in his heart. “Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
He had maintained a regular biological clock during his hospital stay and got up at 6 o’clock every morning. This habit wasn’t difficult to find but today he woke up earlier than usual. In addition, they didn’t live in the same house. How did Mr Mo discover him and come out at the same time?
Mo Feng replied concisely, “I slept.” There was no further explanation.
The other bodyguard Fan Guoping emerged from behind him and smiled while locking the door. “We must sleep. The bed is a bullet and the human is a gu*. We can only have strength if we get a good sleep. If we don’t sleep, who can endure it? We took two shifts. Mr Shen, today you woke up so early?”
He also bent down to say hello to Xiao Hei. “Oh, yesterday he looked quite dark but he is beautiful after being washed clean.”
Xiao Hei rushed to him fiercely.
Shen Shian pinched the back of his neck and motioned for the little thing to settle down. At the same time, he replied, “I’m going out to walk the dog and I’m not going too far. It is just in the community. It is still early and you can continue to rest without following me.”
“How can we do that?” Fan Guoping waved his hand. “Mr Gu hired us for 24-hour personal protection. We took people’s money and still have some professionalism. Mr Shen shouldn’t be embarrassed. We are both being paid a high salary.”
Shen Shian no longer refused and walked to the elevator first. Xiao Hei was carrying by his left hand and his forelimbs were tilted while his hind legs were stiff. He swayed back and forth like a piece of dried bacon.
The bacon was released by Shen Shian after walking out the front door and ran forward with his short legs.
The sun hadn’t come out yet and the temperature was at the lowest of the day. Cold air was inhaled into his lungs and spat out as white fog.
Shen Shian pulled out a wet wipe and carefully rubbed the palm of his left hand. His slender legs weren’t fast or slow as he followed Xiao Hei at a steady pace. A circle of white fox fur on his jacket was around his face, lining his complexion that was reddening while his eyebrows gave off an exquisite glamour.
The time was too early, the temperature was too low and today was a Saturday. Apart from Shen Shian’s group, there were almost no people in the community. Occasionally, sanitation workers could be seen in the gap between trees and buildings.
Shen Shian took out his phone to check. The temperature was just above -4 degrees but he couldn’t feel the cold. His bony hands were hanging by his legs and the skin was still warm.
The green environment of the community was excellent, with trees and high bushes everywhere. After running for a while, Xiao Hei drilled into one of the bushes.
Shen Shian stood by the bushes and his face rapidly froze as he thought about how he would have to pick up poop later. For the time time, he started to regret it. Why did he want to bring this dog back?
Perhaps he had been holding it for too long but Xiao Hei took longer to deal with his physiological problem than Shen Shian expected. After the dog finally left the bushes, Shen Shian took a deep breath and placed five layers of disposable shoe covers over his right hand. His cold face bent down, his left hand moving the branches out of the way, his upper body leaning forward into the bush.
He searched several places but didn’t find the dog poop.
If dog feces weren’t taken care of in a timely manner, they would dry and easily form powder, causing the bacterial virus attached to it to spread through the air. If it was in direct contact with the lawn, it wouldn’t increase the fertility of the soil but would generate lots of heat and organic acids due to fermentation and decomposition. This would burn plants or cause the ‘burning seedlings’ phenomenon.
Shen Shian interrupted his thoughts in time. It seemed that recently, he had seen too much information on agricultural planting.
Yet no matter how hard he looked, the traces of Xiao Hei were nowhere to be seen.
Shen Shian removed his upper body from the bush and gazed suspiciously at Xiao Hei. “…You didn’t eat it?”
As if reacting to his words, Xiao Hei scratched at Shen Shian’s pants. After a few times, Shen Shian grabbed the paws and saw obvious dirt marks on them.
Ah, he dug his own pit and buried it. Shen Shian inwardly sighed with relief.
He turned his head to the bushes. He might not the adverse effects of his pet’s poop directly touching the soil but he couldn’t convince himself to find the pit and dig it out.
Forget it, he would do two good deeds today to make up for it.
He bought breakfast from a store outside the community. After returning home and feeding the dog, Shen Shian started to face the most difficult problem.
The large balcony was blocked so tightly by the mutated aloe vera and green radish that he couldn’t see where the roots were. Shen Shian thought about it but couldn’t find a proper solution for a long time.
He frowned and pinched his brow again before heading into the space.
Compared to the ‘primitive forest’ with a limited volume on the balcony, the visual impact of the tomato forest growing from seeds into trees overnight was obviously stronger.
Shen Shian counted. There was a total of 2,362 tomato trees. Yesterday, he dug 31 rows and 21 columns. There were a total of 651 pits, each of which had three or four seeds placed. If each pit was calculated according to four seeds, there were a total of 2,604 seeds and this meant the survival rate was as high as 90.7%.
He might have very little involvement in agriculture but Shen Shian could guess that this was a very high number and the actual survival rate might be even higher.
Shen Shian thought for a long time and it was only after making three rounds of the tomato forest that Shen Shian realized a more shocking fact.
The impact of the tomato forest had been so great that he unexpectedly ignored the most obvious abnormality apart from the tomato trees.
The planting area had become larger.
When he sowed the seeds yesterday, the test field draw was only three by three metres for a total area of nine square metres. Now this piece of ‘forest’ accommodated more than 2,000 tomato trees. Forget nine square metres, it was more than 900 square metres.
Yet when he looked from the stream, the tomato forest felt as if it was only nine square metres. It was as if the space had been folded.
He stood in the distance and there was no change in the area of the open space in front of the bamboo building. It was only when he walked under the tomato trees that the surrounding space seemed to be enlarged by hundreds of times in an instant.
Then this open space was able to change freely depending on the plant’s needs?
If the experimental field he drew out yesterday wasn’t nine square metres and was only half the size, with the same amount of seeds, would the actual area of the test field expand to such a large extent?
Shen Shian subconsciously bit the thumb of his right hand. In any case, the open space couldn’t expand indefinitely and the multiple it could be expanded by must have a maximum value. After exceeding this maximum value, even if more things were stuffed into the open space, the space couldn’t continue to change.
This precise maximum value needed further experimental research.
Shen Shian took a deep breath and his fingers touched the Buddha’s tattoo on the wrist of his right hand, his expression a bit dignified. This portable space was much more complicated than he imagined. If he could master the method of reading the Gui Xu Exercises, it was estimated that more incredible changes would occur.
However, too many times were happening at the moment and they needed to be resolved one by one.
Shen Shian thought for a moment before bypassing the tomato forest and walking through the grass path to the corridor of the bamboo building. The cactus he brought in yesterday was placed next to the railing of the corridor.
The cactus wasn’t watered with the spring water so there were no amazing changes like with the aloe vera and green radish. However, the volume was significantly more than three time its size before the space was filled. The pot was expanded by the roots and broke apart.
It seemed that it wasn’t just the spring water. The air in the space could also promote the growth of plants. It should be equally beneficial to the human body. Whenever he spent a lot of time in the space, he felt that the outside air was really unbearable.
Shen Shian stared at the cactus in front of him with the long needles and had a bit of a headache. Forget it, he would leave it alone for a while. If he didn’t pour spring water on it, it shouldn’t become too exaggerated in the short time. Later, he would find a shovel and come in to deal with it.
Before leaving the space, Shen Shian thought about it and went to the tomato tree to pick a basketball-sized tomato. Since it had grown, he would try the taste first.
The skin of the tomato was bright and shiny, the delicate red flesh visible underneath. He could smell the delicious fragrance before cutting it. Once Shen Shian cleaned it, placed it on the chopping board and cut it into two halves with a knife, the bright red juice overflowed. The orange inner flesh was clear and a richer and sweeter aroma came out instantly.
Shen Shian picked up one half and took a bite. The smooth and elastic flesh wrapped in ample juices. Once he chewed, it fully exploded in his mouth, the rich aroma quickly filling his nose and mouth, the acidity and sweetness reached to a perfect balance. The sour and sweetness were attractive.
This was definitely the best tomato he had ever eaten.
Xiao Hei followed him as soon as he reappeared from the space. He saw Shen Shian biting the tomato and anxiously scratched at his heel.
It was clear that this human not only had a portable field but also a fountain of life in the field. Yet this person actually used the spring water to water flowers and plants!
「 Luxury! Waste! Loser! I want to eat too!! 」
Shen Shian split the other half into two. One piece was cut into small pieces and placed in Xiao Hei’s porcelain plate. “Here.”
Xiao Hei pounced like a gust of wind and then started to scratch Shen Shian’s trousers again. Shen Shian could only give him another quarter. “How can you eat so much? Who can afford it?’
Xiao Hei buried his head in the plate and ignored this human.
He was full enough and the ‘primitive forest’ on the balcony still had to be dealt with. The building Shen Shian lived in was located on the outer edge of the community and the medical university was in the distance. There was no high-rise building opposite him. However, the aloe vera and green radish obviously couldn’t be left this way. It would be discovered sooner or later.
However, what exactly should he do with it? It was a headache.
Should he take a shovel to clean it and throw it away? The workload was too big and would take at least three days.
Alas. Shen Shian couldn’t help but sigh as he sat on the sofa. If he knew then he would’ve taken it into the space with the cactus yesterday.
Wait a minute.
Shen Shian sat up straight. Whenever he took things into the space, it was always in a ‘whole’ form. For example, a set of folded clothes, a pair of slippers placed together, a storage bag filled with toiletries…
As long as his hand touched a part of the ‘whole’, all of it would be collected.
After absorbing the spiritual spring, the aloe vera and green radish were too large. They climbed the walls and were tangled together, making them difficult to split apart. Thus, he didn’t consider the ‘bringing them into the space’ method from the beginning. If he only touched a part of the aloe vera or green radish, would the space automatically recognize it as a whole and separate it from another plant?
Shen Shian got up from the sofa and walked to the primitive forest. He took a breath before gently placing his hand on the spike of an aloe vera.
The sight in front of him seemed to flash a bit and a large gap suddenly appeared on the balcony filled with aloe vera and green radish.
The aloe vera disappeared and the green vines attached to the aloe vera lost support, falling to the ground with a snapping sound.
It worked.
The author has something to say:
An An: Say, did you eat the poop behind my back?
Author’s note: The story has the tomato plants grow tall and thick, so they look like trees. In order to be distinguished from real trees, it will be double-quoted and this will eventually be removed.
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