Chương 6: Plague Attack
Biên tập viên: Atlas Studios
Don't go out when there was a morning afterglow, go when there was an evening afterglow.
The twilight afterglow dyed the clouds red like fire now, looking breathtakingly beautiful. At least, this sight fully captivated Li Siwen. Holding a bowl of wild vegetable soup in one hand and a black-colored dry food in the other, he was working hard to stuff them down. As for the other portion, he hid it. The other nine farmers were doing the same thing too. Whenever it was related to food, all of them seemed to have turned clever.
The Feudal Lord and his chief supervisor Sun Tieshi were feasting on two deer legs now, and the militia were merrily drinking meat broth. The firewood was giving off cracking sounds as it burned. It filled the whole territory with a joyous mood.
Therefore, Li Siwen immediately bunched his back and tried his best to hide himself in a corner where the last rays of sunlight couldn't reach. He was feeling joyous too, but he would not let anyone know about it.
Only when he entered his thatched house and was enveloped by darkness did he completely cheered in his heart.
"Six points of Stamina, I recovered as much as six points of Stamina in just about 10 minutes. I really feel as if I found a gold mine. Now, I don't have to worry about not having enough stamina from lacking in food now."
"Tomorrow, after the morales of the farmers have recovered, they will return to their normal weeding speed. As for me, my target is—earning two points of Vitality Point before the night ends, this isn't a problem. With these Vitality Points, I shall increase one Stamina Point and use the other to exchange it for pears to eat! Basically, I need to accumulate a base amount of capital."
"Now, it's time to relax and sleep!"
A few minutes later, Li Siwen successfully entered dreamland. At this moment, he had as much as nine points of stamina remaining.
He thought that he would sleep all the way until morning, but he was woken up by a scream during midnight. At first, he thought that wild beasts attacked them, but the person screaming was a lumberjack next door who was holding his stomach and vomiting, causing the whole place to smell.
When the Feudal Lord rushed over, his face turned very ugly. He immediately woke everyone up and ordered the cooks to boil some water. He also ordered Li Siwen and the other farmers to clean the mess. As for the lumberjack, he was carried to the edge of the territory and left alone screaming. Everyone was helpless.
After that, they forced everyone, wash their hands, brush their teeth, and so on, taking up most of the night.
When the sky lit up and everyone was yawning, only then did they realize that the lumberjack was already dead for quite a while.
"He ate wild fruit and even drank dirty water, infecting himself with an acute disease. If you don't want to die like him too, all of you better watch what you eat!"
The Feudal Lord was furious and everyone else was scared and didn't dare to speak a word.
The dead body was quickly pushed onto a stack of firewoods and burned into ashes. His thatched house was burned down too and would be rebuilt. It looked like the Feudal Lord learned his lesson and decided to build the house from wood even though it pained his heart. 10 days worth of labor from the six lumberjacks was depleted in an instance.
Farmers weren't needed in building a house, so they all rushed to eat their breakfast. They still had to go weeding in the wheat field later. Other than Li Siwen, the other nine farmers were all in a tired state. They didn't have a good rest for two nights in a row and they had physical work to do in the day. Therefore, they would at most have six points of stamina left now.
On the other hand, Li Siwen had already recovered his stamina during the early half of the night. Therefore, he was very energetic now.
However, the sense of urgency lingered. This was because he suddenly realized that although the wild beasts in this world were very terrifying, the number of people who died from illness and disease was even more terrifying.
From the experience so far from the past six days, actually, there weren't many wild beasts. Therefore, it was questionable how the last batch of 10 farmers have actually died. It was very likely that they died from diseases too.
"Therefore, I need to increase my Stamina Points and Health Points." Li Siwen decided to readjust his target again.
The afternoon quickly passed.
The progress of the other farmers were lacking behind their usual performance by at least 20%. As for Li Siwen, although his progress wasn't fast too, he really executed his plan of killing the weeds by the roots this time. He would dig at least seven to eight centimeters into the ground every time, completely destroying the roots of the weeds. Naturally, he obtained more green dots than before.
On average, he could obtain four or even five green dots from each weed.
Of course, the price of doing this was costly too. When he came here in the morning, his stamina was at his maximum of 12 points. He also restored three points of stamina during a break in the middle. By the break at mid-noon, his stamina had already reached the yellow zone, with only four points remaining.
On the bright side, he successfully obtained one Vitality Point.
Whilst the other farmers were all lying on the ground under the shades of the trees and painting, Li Siwen went to the river ditch and used this Vitality Point to accelerate the ripening of a pear and hurriedly ate it. Then, he returned back to the tree and sat down to eat his dry food. As for leveling through killing small fishes, he decided to postpone it. If not, he wouldn't be able to restore his Stamina Points without resting. Also he wouldn't be able to obtain the second Vitality Point before work ends too.
He took a nap in the shade of the tree. It was very comfortable, his stamina had fully recovered too, and he felt his body filled with energy. Even the aching in his muscles was gone too.
From this, it could be seen how important having full stamina was. If not, he would definitely get sick by sleeping on the ground when his stamina was in the yellow zone.
For example, two of the farmers were looking very bad now. They had been frightened for two nights in a row and still had to do physical work in the day. Their food wasn't good either and the sun was scorching too. If this carried on, they might catch a heatstroke.
"Why not you two take a break?"
Li Siwen hesitated for half a day and in the end, he softly advised them to rest. The lives of NPCs weren't valuable, but they were still worth saving.
"The Feudal Lord will be angry if we do so."
The two farmers softly said. They probably didn't think too much about their condition too, or it could be that they had no idea what kind of condition they were under at all too.
Li Siwen didn't advise them anymore.
After resting for another short while, the farmers who were in a better condition gradually continued their work. Li Siwen didn't move until the sickly looking two farmers, after resting for another 10 plus minutes, got up too. Only then did he finally get up and return to work. He was the last person to stand up.
This was all he could do for the other farmers.
"Swoosh"
The sound of cutting through the air could be heard as he swung his hoe. The black soil only gave a little resistance and he easily reached the root of the weed. With a soft pull, the weed was pulled out with its root, and a weed was easily killed.
This was a very simple set of actions, although Li Siwen didn't complete it to the extent of smoothness, his coordination of the movements were quite good. Maybe this was the greatest benefit of having a digitalized body. It was easy to see what movements at what frequency at what strength would obtain the optimal effect and therefore easy to find the most energy-efficient set of movements.
Before he knew it, an hour had passed. Li Siwen was sweating profusely and his stamina was depleting rapidly too. Right at this moment, he heard someone exclaim. Lifting his head, he noticed two farmers missing. Two farmers had collapsed onto the ground.
The farmers near them rushed over and carried them to the shade. Then, they could only stand there helplessly and look.
Li Siwen looked back and continued his work. He was unable to help them too. After all, he was just a farmer too.
When supervisor Sun Tieshi came here during his patrol, he asked four militiamen to carry the two unconscious farmers back. Maybe there was still hope for them?
But even if they could be saved, what then? They would be ill, their Health Points and Stamina Points greatly decreased, and then had their lives reaped by the plague again.
Thinking of this, Li Siwen couldn't help but think of something that he didn't dare to think about until now.
Which was that the Feudal Lord should be able to see the attributes of the civilians in his territory, right? If he continued to increase his attributes recklessly, would he be viewed as a monster or something?
But for now, he could only continue increasing his attributes and see how things go one step at a time.
-- Nhận quà