Dawan Village was situated in a valley plain, encircled by mountains.
A great river, shaped like a half-moon, cut through the vast plain between the mountains. It divided the entire valley basin into two irregular halves.
Dawan Village was built upstream on the river, occupying the higher ground at the foot of the Back Mountain.
As for the twelve acres of Spirit Fields,
they were located on the village's Back Mountain. They sat beside a courtyard halfway up the slope, arranged like terraced fields resembling a series of steps.
The Spiritual Spring of Dawan Village, rich with Spiritual Qi, flowed down from the mountain. Over time, its water saturated the earth, imbuing the surrounding land along its path with the Spirit Charm required to grow Spirit Grain.
However, Shen Changchuan was currently in the main hall in the center of the village, at the foot of the mountain.
So, when the commotion outside reached him, he naturally heard it too.
After putting away the spirit ginseng,
Shen Changchuan went outside the village.
He saw a group of people gathered on high ground, pointing and gesturing toward the river.
"What's going on?"
When Shen Changchuan arrived, the surrounding crowd quickly made way for him.
At that moment, Shen Changchuan followed their gazes.
On the choppy, murky surface of the river not far away, a small, black-canopied boat was overturned. It was mostly submerged, with only a part of its bottom showing.
Amidst the churning, turbulent water, a faint crimson color could be seen rising from beneath the surface.
The once-lush grass by the riverbank,
was trampled and messy over a large area.
It was clear that many people had been moving about on the grassy bank. Not far away were several-foot-high piles of black silt that had been dredged from the riverbed.
About eighty or ninety feet from the riverbank, his grandfather, Han Qinhu, and other members of the Han Family were maintaining order, telling the gathered crowd to step back.
"Grandfather, what's the situation?"
Shen Changchuan walked over to Han Qinhu and asked.
"There's been an incident. There's a Demon Beast in this river!"
"Those reckless fools went to dredge silt from the river. They never expected there to be a Demon in the water! Two of them were dragged under by that creature!"
Seeing that Shen Changchuan had arrived, Han Qinhu didn't hold anything back and explained the whole story.
After hearing Han Qinhu's account,
Shen Changchuan's brow furrowed slightly.
This whole incident, he realized,
was not entirely unrelated to his experimental reforms.
Originally, when he had set up the reform plan, he wanted to motivate the members of Teams Eleven and Twelve. His goal was to encourage them to take meticulous care of the Spirit Grain and maximize the yield of the two experimental acres.
Shen Changchuan had made a promise: when the Spirit Grain was harvested, they would receive thirty percent of any yield that exceeded one hundred catties.
The subsequent developments,
unfolded just as Shen Changchuan had expected. The reward-sharing plan greatly boosted the motivation of both teams.
And so, during the process of cultivating the Spirit Grain,
nearly everyone in Teams Eleven and Twelve had pored over the two summaries on Spirit Grain cultivation that Shen Changchuan had left them.
They analyzed them word by word, sentence by sentence, carefully applying every method described.
Almost everyone gave it their all, hoping to achieve an excellent harvest of Spirit Grain this season.
Deep plowing, tilling the soil, selecting seeds, raising seedlings... they did their best to follow the summary's instructions for every step.
However, among these techniques, one was rather troublesome.
Composting.
And this wasn't fertilizer made from human waste.
Spirit Grain was, after all, a Spiritual Object containing Spiritual Qi. Shen Changchuan didn't even have to think about it to know that human waste wouldn't just fail to increase the Spirit Grain's yield; it might even "pollute" it, causing the seedlings to wither and die.
Spiritual Objects were inherently delicate.
The methods for tending to ordinary crops could not be completely replicated for them.
But since Shen Changchuan had written down the steps for composting,
he obviously wasn't just daydreaming.
He had recalled something he had read in the travelogue of a Shen Family ancestor during his two and a half years at the Shen Family Mansion.
The ancestor had once witnessed a Low Tier Immortal Cultivator near a river rich with the Power of the Water Vein. This Cultivator dredged up large quantities of silt containing "deposits" from the water and used it to create fields capable of growing Spirit Grain in an area completely devoid of spiritual energy.
Although the Spirit Grain yield from such man-made 'Spirit Fields' was far less than that of a true Spirit Field,
the sight had astonished the Shen Family ancestor at the time.
Later, driven by curiosity, he investigated further.
He discovered that when River Qi and Earth Vein Qi mingled, they produced certain fertile "deposits."
It was precisely these 'deposits' in the silt—a combination of Water Vein Essence Qi and Earth Vein Qi—that provided a suitable environment for Spirit Grain to grow.
It allowed Spirit Grain to be cultivated even in what was originally mundane farmland.
At the time, Shen Changchuan had only been mildly curious when he read this account and hadn't paid it much mind.
But not long ago, while compiling his summary of improved cultivation methods for Spirit Grain, he had remembered it.
A thought occurred to him.
What if the silt containing those 'deposits' was used as fertilizer in the Spirit Fields? Would it make the Spirit Grain grow better?
With this idea in mind,
Shen Changchuan had therefore included the matter of composting in his summary.
And the source of the silt,
was naturally the great river before them, the one that traversed the entire valley plain.
The members of Teams Eleven and Twelve, greatly encouraged by the promise of a shared reward,
naturally didn't want to skip the improved composting step in the summary.
But they had barely started working,
when disaster struck.
An unknown Demon Beast from the river had suddenly attacked, capsizing the small boat used for dredging silt. The two people on board were dragged straight into the water.
"How can there be a Demon Beast in this river? Has it always been here?"
After understanding the full story, Shen Changchuan's expression turned grim.
He had never imagined that,
his attempt at reform would lead to an accident—and cost people their lives—before it could even bear fruit.
"I'm not sure."
"I've asked the villagers, and they don't know if there's a Demon Beast in the river either."
"The river is wide, and the current in the middle is especially rapid. Even on the outskirts of Half Moon Bay, where the water is slower, it looks calm on the surface, but there are dangerous, swirling undercurrents."
"Besides, the village draws its water from the stream that flows down the mountain, so very few people have ever ventured into this river. They really don't know anything about a Demon Beast here."
As Shen Changchuan's most trusted subordinate, his grandfather Han Qinhu held a position akin to village chief in Dawan Village, managing all sorts of village affairs.
Han Qinhu had already gotten a clear grasp of the situation before Shen Changchuan even arrived.
He answered Shen Changchuan's questions almost without hesitation, providing swift replies.