The next day, Lin Feng woke up unusually early.
Not by alarm, but naturally, and he felt particularly refreshed. Usually, he woke up with aches and pains, especially in his knees and back—lingering issues from years of biking and climbing stairs. But today, he felt like he'd had a full ten hours of deep sleep. His joints were flexible, his energy high.
He sat up, his first glance falling on the jade pendant on the bedside table.
The pendant lay there quietly, glowing softly in the morning light. The water in the basin beside it was still clear.
Lin Feng stared at the pendant for a while, then got up to wash up. While washing his face, on a whim, he used a bit of water from the basin to splash his face. It felt cool and refreshing, leaving his skin exceptionally clean.
Before heading out, he carefully placed the pendant into an old velvet pouch and tucked it into an inner pocket close to his body. For some reason, he didn't want the jade to leave his side.
The morning's deliveries went surprisingly smoothly. The dreaded seven or eight-floor climbs in old residential buildings without elevators, which usually gave him trouble, felt easy today. By noon, he had completed twenty orders—a third more efficient than usual.
At lunch, he ordered an extra bowl of rice at his usual fast-food joint. The owner teased him, "Xiao Lin, you have a good appetite today."
Lin Feng smiled, but his mind was on the pendant and the water.
In the afternoon, passing by the flower and bird market on a delivery, he saw a stall selling vegetable seedlings at the entrance. Tomatoes, peppers, bok choy, packaged in small bags, two and a half yuan per bag.
An idea suddenly popped into his head.
Lin Feng stopped his bike, bought two packs of tomato seedlings, and spent five yuan on a used plastic crate—the stall owner had used it for storage, but it could be washed and reused.
Back in his room that night, he washed the plastic crate, dug up some soil from the flower bed downstairs (hoping the property management wouldn't notice), filled the crate, and planted the six tomato seedlings, watering them with tap water.
Then he took out the pendant, hesitated for a moment, and immersed it in a cup of clean water.
Like the previous night, the water surface shimmered slightly, turning clear with a faint green tint. After a minute, he removed the pendant and carefully poured that cup of water onto the roots of the tomato seedlings.
After doing this, he felt he might be going crazy.
"Consider it an experiment," he said to himself, showered, and went to bed.
The third morning, Lin Feng was stunned by the sight on his balcony.
The six tomato seedlings he planted last night had grown at least ten centimeters overnight! Their originally thin stems had thickened, leaves were glossy green, and most unbelievable of all, a few had already sprouted little yellow flowers!
This was impossible.
Lin Feng rushed over, crouched by the plastic crate, and examined it closely. It was real, not an illusion. He could even see the fine hairs on the leaves and the budding flowers.
His hands trembled slightly as he pulled out his phone to look it up—normal tomatoes take at least a month from planting to flowering.
One night. Just one night.
Lin Feng stared at the seedlings, his mind buzzing. He remembered drinking that water last night, his unusually good spirits today, the shimmer when the pendant touched the water.
Spiritual Spring. This term popped into his head from nowhere, occupying his thoughts.
He forced himself to calm down, washed up, and left. All day while delivering, he was a bit distracted, almost running a red light. When he finished work that evening, he rushed home eagerly.
The tomato seedlings on the balcony had changed again: the flowers had bloomed, some were already wilting, and tiny green fruits had begun to form.
Lin Feng stood there, watching for a full ten minutes.
On the fourth day, the small tomatoes were the size of quail eggs.
On the fifth day, they began to turn red.
On the sixth morning, Lin Feng picked the first fully ripe tomato. Fist-sized, bright red, smooth skin. He washed it, took a bite.
Juice burst forth, perfectly balanced sweetness and acidity, a rich flavor instantly filling his mouth. He had eaten tomatoes before, but never one this delicious. It wasn't an exaggeration; it was truly different. The freshness made him take another bite without thinking.
Six plants had produced over twenty tomatoes, each plump and full.
Looking at those tomatoes, a plan began to take shape in Lin Feng's mind.
The First Pot of Gold
Lin Feng used his last fifty yuan to buy ten large plastic planting crates from the wholesale market, along with various vegetable seedlings: tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, bok choy, and, gritting his teeth, strawberry seedlings—expensive, but strawberries fetched a good price.
He crammed his rented room's balcony full, labeling each crate with a number. Then he began his experiment: Crate 1 watered with plain water; Crate 2 with Spiritual Spring water diluted by half; Crate 3 with the original concentration; Crate 4 with double concentration...
He strictly controlled the variables, recording growth daily.
The results were shocking: Crate 1 (plain water) grew normally; Crate 2 grew three times faster than Crate 1; Crate 3 grew five times faster; and Crate 4, watered with double-concentration Spiritual Spring water, grew wildly overnight but began to wither the next day and died completely by the third day.
"Seems too high a concentration won't work," Lin Feng noted in his book.
Crate 3 was ideal—fast growth and healthy. He calculated: leafy vegetables could be harvested every three days, fruit-bearing vegetables every seven to ten days. Under normal planting, leafy vegetables take twenty to thirty days, fruit-bearing vegetables two to three months.
What this meant was clear to Lin Feng.
On the seventh day, his first batch of "experimental produce" matured: two crates of bok choy, lush and vibrant; one crate of strawberries, not many, but each plump and bright red.
Lin Feng tasted a strawberry—remarkably sweet, intensely