Unfamiliar with prices at the Flower and Bird Market, Qiao Ning wandered for a while, eavesdropping on other buyers haggling until he had a rough sense of the going rates. Only then did he stop in front of a shop selling potted plants.
“Handsome, looking to buy a potted plant?” The shop owner came forward warmly.
Qiao Ning had come with a plan and didn’t dawdle, laying out his needs: “Boss, got any potted plants that are easy to keep, fruit quickly, with edible fruit, and cheap? Ideally something already close to fruiting.”
The moment he finished speaking, the owner turned without hesitation, bent down, and hauled a pot out from a heap of plants.
The instant the man brought it over, Qiao Ning could see the little fruits hanging from it—about the size of a fingertip, greenish-white.
Qiao Ning: “…Strawberries?”
The owner complimented him on reflex: “Good eye, handsome.”
Qiao Ning: “…”
Well, he could recognize a strawberry.
The owner pitched enthusiastically: “Look, they’ve already set fruit. Buy it, take it home, just wait for the fruit to ripen—ten or twenty days and you can eat them. Easy to care for, too. Follow my instructions and I guarantee they’ll live.”
It did fit his needs. Qiao Ning asked: “How much?”
The owner said, “You look like a student, so I’ll give you a discount—thirty.”
“Ten.”
“…If you’re not buying, don’t mess around.”
He wouldn’t even go half.
Qiao Ning smiled. “I’m buying. Let me look at some others too—give me a better deal on the whole lot.”
Hearing he’d buy more than one pot, the owner immediately put his selling face back on, muttering warily, “Strawberry’s twenty-five minimum. Any less and I’m not selling.”
Qiao Ning ignored that and asked, “If I buy a lot, can you deliver? I don’t have a car—can’t haul it back.”
The owner asked for the address. Not far, so he agreed, adding, “Only delivery for ten pots or more, yeah?”
Qiao Ning nodded. “Fine.”
He was running controlled experiments. Three strawberry pots minimum, plus some other plant varieties.
On the owner’s recommendation, he also bought potted blueberries and cherry tomatoes—according to the owner, everything was easy to keep.
Neither of those was anywhere near fruiting, though. It was only March or April; blueberries and cherry tomatoes wouldn’t ripen until June or July.
Later was fine—it made a nice contrast with the strawberries.
He took three pots of each. The owner pushed harder: “Small Kumquat pots are great too! Sure, they fruit late, but look at these flowers—gorgeous, and they bloom for months. And once the fruit comes, it’s beautiful. Golden, festive!”
Qiao Ning considered. “Then I’ll take one kumquat.”
Small kumquats took far too long to fruit. He planned to head home right after graduation, and if the Spirit Spring didn’t work on plants, he couldn’t take a kumquat with him—buying more wasn’t economical.
That made ten pots, hitting the delivery minimum.
Seeing his sales pitch land, the owner got even more energetic: “Handsome, look around! Our selection’s the most complete. Anything else you want?”
As he talked, he kept pitching: “How about a cactus? Cheap—ten yuan a pot.”
Qiao Ning shook his head. It was supposedly edible, but he couldn’t bring himself to bite it.
“Pothos! Pothos, maybe? Oh, and spider plants—these are super easy. Stick ’em in soil and they live. Just water them now and then, you can hardly overwater them to death.”
Qiao Ning still shook his head. Useless to him.
“Then… aloe! This stuff’s great—it just won’t die.” The owner pitched hard. “I just sold two pots. A young lady said she grows her own aloe to make aloe vera gel. Young people love that homemade stuff—all natural!”
Qiao Ning was about to shake his head when his motion stalled.
He’d only been thinking about testing edible plants—but useful plants worked too, didn’t they?
“Then add a pot of aloe.”
“You got it.” The owner chirped happily. “Let me pick you this one—look how plump and thick these aloe leaves are.”
True enough—aloe didn’t need to fruit. If he wanted to use it, he just needed a healthy one.
Because he’d bought so much, the owner knocked the price down a bit further: strawberries at twenty-two a pot, cherry tomatoes eighteen, blueberries a bit pricier at twenty-eight, aloe cheapest at fifteen.
The small kumquats came in different sizes. The biggest one looked like a little tree, planted in a large ceramic tub, blooming profusely.
The owner said it was a nine-year sapling that fruited especially abundantly—and of course, the price was equally “beautiful.”
Thinking he might not live to see a kumquat fruit, Qiao Ning couldn’t bring himself to buy the big one. He chose a small potted kumquat, also in bloom—three-year sapling, the owner said.
None of this he understood, but somehow, ever since gaining the Golden Finger, Qiao Ning could faintly sense the condition of plants.
Not clearly—just whether they were doing well or poorly.
All the plants in this shop were in good shape, which was why he’d picked it.
He scanned over two hundred yuan to the owner, who began packing up his selections—these had to survive transport without getting knocked around.
Qiao Ning strolled a couple steps and stopped in front of the ornamental fish shop next door.
“Handsome, want to look at some fish?” That shop’s owner darted over to greet the customer.
He’d seen it—the young man next door had just bought a whole pile of pots.
Qiao Ning stared at the little goldfish in the glass tanks for a while, then looked up and asked, “Boss, are these fish edible?”
The owner looked down at his little fish—the smallest not yet as long as Qiao Ning’s pinky—swimming carefree in the water. So pretty. For money’s sake, he said with difficulty, “If you really want to eat them… I suppose it’s not impossible. They’re not poisonous, anyway.”
Qiao Ning couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Just kidding. Your fish are quite pretty.”
He’d just remembered—it wasn’t only plants; animals could be tested too.
But the Flower and Bird Market wasn’t the place. The wet market, then.
The owner wasn’t offended, laughing along: “That’s right, my fish are all well kept.”
Patting his big belly, gazing at Qiao Ning’s strikingly handsome smiling face, he couldn’t help saying, “Young man, you’re a looker. Must be popular with the girls at school, huh? Back in my day, I was just like you.”
Qiao Ning: “…”
If he hadn’t died last life, by this man’s age, his face and figure would never have gone to seed like that.
Absolutely not.
After the owner had bragged a while about his dashing youth, Qiao Ning’s plants were packed next door. The plant shop owner had a small Pickup Truck, and the pots were already loaded in the bed.
Plant shop owner: “All right, quit bragging. Everyone knows what a scruffy thing you looked like back then.”
The two owners bickered a bit, and in the end, the fish shop owner insisted on gifting Qiao Ning two little goldfish.
Said they’d been equally handsome in their youth—it was fate.
Qiao Ning didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and climbed into the Pickup’s passenger seat holding the plastic bag of fish.
Hitching a ride home. His rental was in an old Residential Community—fifth floor, no elevator.
Qiao Ning had planned to carry everything up himself, but the driver, seeing him with a bag of fish in one hand and luggage in the other, kindly helped out.
The pots came in wooden crates, each crate holding several pots. The driver helped carry one trip; after Qiao Ning went up and set things down, one more trip himself would finish it.
Then he’d need to return the crates, and he grabbed a bottle of water for the driver as thanks.
Crates returned, Qiao Ning didn’t hurry back upstairs—he went straight to the wet market.
He bought a fish and specifically asked for it live, not butchered.
He’d considered also buying a rabbit and a chicken—then he’d have the complete set: things that flew in the sky, ran on the ground, and swam in the water.
But he worried a live chicken would crow, and the old building had poor soundproofing. He had housemates too—not convenient. In the end, he only bought a fish.
Picking through the seafood stall, he also bought a few shrimp and a bit over half a jin of Clams.
Since he was at the market anyway, he bought some vegetables to take back.
Qiao Ning’s rental was a two-bedroom. He occupied the secondary bedroom; the Master Bedroom belonged to a young couple, with shared living room and kitchen, plus a separate bathroom.
Old community, old everything—the layout was mediocre at best. The upside was minimal shared space, so the rooms were large.
Qiao Ning’s secondary bedroom was nearly twenty square meters, with a small balcony and good light.
The living room had a big balcony too, which belonged to his housemates.
Two trips back and forth with fish, shrimp, and clams, and it was almost noon when Qiao Ning got home.
Opening the door, he ran right into his male housemate. The two nodded at each other by way of greeting.
Before or after rebirth, Qiao Ning hadn’t interacted with them much—out all day, back at night only to shower and sleep. In his previous life, by this point he was already negotiating lease termination with the landlady.
Carrying the seafood into the kitchen, Qiao Ning dug out basins and bowls, tipped the fish, shrimp, and clams into separate containers, filled them with water, and left them soaking.
Seeing him carry the seafood in, the male housemate drifted over to chat: “Grocery shopping and cooking, huh?”
Qiao Ning had been too busy at work to cook—instant meals at most.
Qiao Ning gave a vague hum, not about to explain his real reasons for buying all this.
The male housemate was about to say more when his phone rang. He took the call and hurried off.
With him gone, Qiao Ning had the place to himself. Seeing the fish, shrimp, and clams all still lively, he returned to his bedroom reassured and locked the door behind him.
