Chapter 25: A Good Master

Whoo~ whooo~

Fatty Lei and his intelligent butler, Wangcai, had just begun resting in the basement when the sound of the planetary storm raging outside reached them. Fatty Lei walked over to the monitors in the basement. The screens were completely covered by yellow sand.

“I wonder if that plant we just planted can survive under this violent planetary storm,” Fatty Lei thought, starting to worry. The storm’s destructive power was immense.

“Master, I’ll prepare some food for you,” Wangcai said, approaching him then.

The mention of food immediately distracted Fatty Lei. “What’s for dinner?” he asked. Wangcai replied, “Well, sir, the food Mr. Andrew sold you only comes in a few varieties. I thought I’d try a new recipe tonight. You seem a bit tired of the usual these days, so I wanted to change things up a bit.”

Fatty Lei didn’t mind. As long as he wasn’t hungry, that was fine. Besides, the food Andrew sold him was actually quite tasty overall.

In Fatty Lei’s opinion, the food from that other world had its own unique flavor.

“Go ahead, do as you think fit. All I care about right now is not being hungry,” Fatty Lei said. He stopped staring at the storm-filled video feed and walked over to the sofa beside the small bar in the corner. He sat down, arms crossed.

Neither Fatty Lei nor his intelligent butler, Wangcai, knew at that moment that the “sweet potato” they had planted outside the military outpost had already begun thriving, growing robustly amid the raging storm.

…

Yellow sand blotted out the sky, making it impossible to see more than half a meter ahead.

The wind carried countless sand grains. Getting hit in the face by them would be unpleasant.

The military outpost stood solitary in the violent winds, enduring the assault of the storm and the punishing sand.

Right there, at the base of the military outpost’s metal gate, battered by the ferocious winds and swirling sand, a small patch of green vegetation stubbornly poked its head out from a corner.

This was nothing else but the ‘sweet potato’ Fatty Lei and Wangcai had planted earlier. They could never have imagined that in just two hours, during the height of the storm, this ‘sweet potato’ had sprouted.

The fragile green seedling shook violently, whipping back and forth in the gale.

Logically, such a tiny, tender sprout shouldn’t have stood a chance surviving this brutal planetary storm.

But this tough little plant, encased in a faint green glow, miraculously stood its ground in the storm. No matter how violently the wind attacked, it couldn’t be uprooted.

Even Fatty Lei couldn’t have guessed that the seemingly worthless sand, found everywhere in this barren land, possessed such a magical property. The fact that it allowed the ‘sweet potato’ to grow so toughly and so fast was incredible.

Meanwhile, beneath the storm-ravaged surface, the ‘sweet potato’ Fatty Lei had buried in the sand was now wrapped in a layer of dark green light. Long, thin tendrils were sprouting continuously from its body.

These tendrils shot rapidly downward through the sand, greedily absorbing the miraculous nutrients surrounding it.

The storm continued its fury. Yet, within just a few hours, that tiny seedling grew within the storm into a bizarre plant over five meters wide and more than a meter tall.

Had Fatty Lei seen it, he would have been astounded.

Because in Fatty Lei’s original world, the “sweet potato” never grew like this.

Whether this ‘sweet potato’ had mutated or not, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it had survived the storm stubbornly and was flourishing. And that was enough.

…

Wangcai brought Fatty Lei a bowl of soup made with cured meat and placed a slice of bread into a metal dish. He set it before his master.

“Master, please try my new dish,” Wangcai said. The intelligent butler had transformed into a chef.

The steaming soup sat before Fatty Lei. He took a deep breath.

“Hmm! It smells wonderful,” Fatty Lei said, his appetite awakened by the rich aroma. He gulped. Grabbing a piece of bread and picking up a spoon, he took a sip of the cured meat soup.

“Wow! Wow! I really didn’t think, Wangcai, that your cooking was so top-notch.”

The cured meat soup tasted genuinely great, and Fatty Lei didn’t hold back his praise.

“Hehe!” Wangcai laughed happily at Fatty Lei’s compliment. “These skills are basic functions for intelligent butlers like us. How could we be butlers otherwise?”

Slurp-slurp-thump. In no time, Fatty Lei had finished the soup and gulped down more than ten fried bread slices.

He wiped his mouth with his hand and leaned contentedly against the back of the sofa. Fatty Lei closed his eyes, savoring the lazy feeling after a satisfying meal.

“Master, how big a harvest do you think we’ll get this time?”

Wangcai finished clearing the dishes and walked back to Fatty Lei’s side. Finding a topic to discuss, he asked this since they had some free time.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. After all, I wasn’t a farmer before. I can’t estimate our yield. I don’t really have an answer,” Fatty Lei replied, crossing his legs and giving his belly a pat.

He added, “There could even be no harvest at all. Listen to that planetary storm outside, how fierce it is.” Fatty Lei pointed upwards.

“I really don’t understand what Mr. Andrew was thinking, asking us to plant that thing here for him. But it’s not his fault. He simply didn’t know about our situation here,” Wangcai said, leaning closer to Fatty Lei.

“We certainly didn’t need to tell him. If we had, the guy might have gotten scared. If he’s scared, any thought of cooperation would be pointless,” Fatty Lei told Wangcai.

“So that’s why Master you…” Wangcai seemed to grasp his master’s reasoning.

“Yes, I never planned to tell Andrew how harsh things are here. A little selfishness, I admit. If we don’t get a harvest, we lose nothing anyway,” Fatty Lei confessed his self-serving motivation.

Wangcai, however, understood his master.

“No harvest means no loss for us. A harvest would be like a pie falling from the sky,” Wangcai voiced his understanding of Fatty Lei’s mindset.

But Wangcai still had other concerns. “Master, if there really is no harvest, won’t it be tricky explaining it to Mr. Andrew? The plant he gave us… it might have been the last one left from Andrew’s family line,” Wangcai shared his worry.

“If there’s no harvest, and the family ‘sacred artifact’ vanishes in the storm… well, that’s fate. Nothing to do with us. Would Andrew dare get revenge?” Fatty Lei sat lazily, letting out a burp.

“Retaliation? That’s unlikely. At least, not until he rises to a high-level merchant rank – and you haven’t reached high-level yourself either, Master,” Wangcai thought for a moment and told Fatty Lei. “Only high-level dimensional merchants can trigger a dimensional war, and only after paying an enormous amount of credit points.”

“So according to this, I still shouldn’t anger him, right? What if he hates me? If he becomes a high-level merchant later, won’t we be in big trouble?” Fatty Lei’s expression grew uneasy after Wangcai’s explanation. These were details he hadn’t known before.

“After all, Andrew is eighty levels higher than me right now, even if his merchant rank currently matches mine,” Fatty Lei stated.

Wangcai stayed silent, but Fatty Lei knew. If they got no harvest and managed to lose that family ‘sacred artifact,’ Andrew would undoubtedly harbor hatred against him for life.

“No! We have to find a way. We absolutely cannot let that happen.” Fatty Lei leapt to his feet. He quickly walked over to the monitors showing the storm raging outside.

“Wangcai!”

Fatty Lei called out, turning around.

“I’m here, Master,” Wangcai hurried to his master’s side, bowing as he answered.

“Think you can go out and check things in this kind of storm?” Fatty Lei stared intently at the monitor screens.

“No problem, Master. While we intelligent butlers aren’t incredibly powerful, we are built to provide the best service possible for merchants like yourself. So we have some survivability and combat power.”

Fatty Lei kept looking at the monitors, not turning back.

“Go see. If possible, guard that ‘sweet potato.’ Like you said, I don’t want to make an enemy within the dimensional trading system.”

“Understood, Master. I’ll go out immediately and check.” Wangcai gave a respectful reply and prepared to leave.

“Hold on.”

Wangcai stopped and looked back at Fatty Lei.

“Is this violent storm really safe for you? If you’re not totally sure, forget it. Worst case, I just get no harvest and offend one merchant. I don’t want to lose you as my butler,” Fatty Lei said, finally turning to look at Wangcai.

It was clear Fatty Lei genuinely cared about his safety. At that moment, warmth spread through this intelligent life form named Wangcai.

Wangcai remembered his previous master wouldn’t have spoken like that. That master only knew how to command relentlessly, always ordering him around, no matter the danger – always making him face it head-on.

That master was never like Fatty Lei, never saying anything like this.

Thus, a single expression of concern from Fatty Lei moved Wangcai deeply. He could feel Fatty Lei’s care was sincere.

This new master didn’t treat him like a mere tool.

Wangcai held back his emotional surge. He repeatedly assured Fatty Lei he could handle the storm without any problem.

Only then did Fatty Lei allow Wangcai to go out.

“Serving a master like this… how lucky am I,” Wangcai thought as he stepped out of the underground tunnel.

Fatty Lei never could have imagined that a simple, ordinary expression of concern could touch Wangcai so deeply.