Cultivator in a Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter One Hundred and Two - A Spiritual Type of Grain

It began in the spring, when the weather warmed enough that the nights could no longer be considered cold.  Nathan had found an opportunity to closet himself in the second bedroom of his cottage and had attempted to plant supermarket 'sold', whole grain rice.  He'd never attempted to grow rice before, not that the mechanics of such hadn't caught his attention during his teenaged years, just that he thought that it would not be possibly in the climate of his homeland.

Even at that point, he had felt some uncertainty, but Nan Li Liang had reassured him of the possibility, though his own experiments during school had required an indoor space heating lights to create a steady temperature, the boy had indeed grown a few stalks of rice paddy in a bucket.  It had only produced about half a bowl of unpolished rice grain, it was not as soft and delicate as white rice, but it hadn't been without its own charm; the knowledge that it had been grown by oneself.

So, he had soaked a quarter of a cup of rice for half a day in water produced by his own hand, not willing to waste the packet he'd purloined from their food stocks over half a year prior, then drained the water before gently pressing them between too tea towels to keep warm and damp.  Not unlike when he'd first grown a bean in amongst damp cotton wool as a child, he had mused.

Not all of the rice had sprouted, perhaps no longer viable for the length of time it had been packaged and kept or too 'damaged' to use, but about a fourth of the rice produced seedlings.  Really shouldn't be underestimated how many seedlings that still came into being, though from this small amount.  Nathan had nearing two hundred seedlings to plant into his make shift paddy.  There would not be enough space!

From Nan Li Liang's memory, the seedlings should be planted anywhere between 6inches and a foot apart in the bed.  It wasn't that he was confused, it was that this information was researched from many different websites and varied between varieties.  Also where one would say each seedling is placed every 6 inches in rows 6 inches apart, another would say 4 inches with rows nine inches apart.  Then also, he'd grown rice in a bucket with five stalks, four around the circumference and one in the middle, not in a field or bedding space.

Nathan chose the 6x6 method as determining between rows and columns, he didn't see the point and he could always move the plants if the space was insufficient.  The remaining plants were scattered amongst plastic troughs and pots and were placed in the sun rooms for Nan Li Liang to care for.

Both were careful in caring for the plants, but where Nan Li Liang had nothing unexpected or untoward occur in the four months that followed, Nathan found his plants were thirsty, greedy, nearly drying up the bedding on a daily basis, sometimes twice.  Perhaps a little of this could be blamed upon the sweltering temperatures within the green house environment, as the heat swelled outside, it would naturally be higher in a building made of glass windows, but Nathan couldn't help but feel that the rice stalks were mostly to blame.

Whenever he entered the green house to care for them, they would shake almost excitedly and he sensed they welcomed him or more specifically, the water he produced.  He did think of speaking to Ren Zexian about this, but decided against this.  Growing rice was meant to be his gift to Ren Zexian, telling him about it would lessen the achievement.

However, who was Ren Zexian, but a man who'd lived many, many more lifetimes than Nathan could imagine.  Although he was not familiar with the process of growing paddy, he'd passed by paddy fields and places which grew wild rice on many occasions.  He could tell that the grass had taken root within the green house and it would have done so by his beloved's hand.  And he could not help but noticed the rich density of spiritual energy swirling about each plant...

Naturally, he was aware before his beloved that the paddy growing here was far richer in colour and when finally Nathan came to shyly admit that he'd been growing rice for Ren Zexian to eat, the grain they harvested was not what they had expected.