Parallel World Farm

Loulan sat on the ground, put a small piece of dry steamed bun into his mouth, and chewed it slowly. This was already the last bit of food he had. He kept chewing it over and over again, reluctant to swallow it. It was only when the bun had completely disappeared under his chewing that he let out a soft sigh and picked up the kettle beside him, gulping down the water in one go. The water was taken directly from the river. Although it was river water, it was clean and cool, and tasted sweet and refreshing. Putting down the kettle, Loulan suddenly felt a sense of despair: "This small piece of bun and this pot of cold water are probably my last meal in this world. I really didn't expect that such a low-probability event would happen to me." He stood up and looked around again. In this rocky valley, except for a small river about ten meters wide in the middle, there was no sign of any animals or plants at all. The whole valley was as silent as death. Even the flowing water in the river in front of him was soundless. Loulan had been staying in this strange valley for a full seven days. During these seven days, he had tried all kinds of ways, but he just couldn't get out of this wretched place. What was even worse was that he couldn't remember at all how he had walked into here. Some of the memories in his mind seemed to have been erased... Loulan was almost an orphan. Not long after he was born, his parents went out to work and had never been heard from since. It was his grandmother who brought him up. Grandma was a typical woman in the mountainous area. She could endure hardships and knew how to farm. Naturally, she wouldn't let Loulan go hungry. However, it was just about having enough to eat. She didn't have the ability to give him anything else. From childhood to adulthood, Loulan hardly ever wore decent clothes or shoes. He could only have meat once a year during the Spring Festival. In the mountainous area, with conditions like Loulan's, he originally didn't have the opportunity to go to school. However, just when he was about to reach the school age, a news report went viral on the Internet. It was about a school in the mountainous area, and the situation was quite shocking: Leaking classrooms, students without textbooks, teachers who couldn't get their salaries, children carrying their younger siblings to school, and so on. All of these stunned the city people who had never seen such a situation... The local government lost all its face, and the higher-level leaders were even more shocked. As a result, various special approval policies were quickly put in place: building teaching buildings, improving teachers' treatment, reducing or exempting students' tuition fees. A whole package of policies was launched, and even free three meals a day were provided. Coincidentally, this school happened to be the one that Loulan couldn't afford to attend originally. In this way, Loulan unexpectedly got the opportunity to receive education and went to school. The teachers were very responsible, extremely responsible. Although they weren't famous teachers from prestigious schools, each teacher clearly made every child remember one very important thing, that is: Studying was the only way for them to change their fate. In order to stand out in the future and to prevent their children from having to live on others' charity like themselves, they had to go all out and study as hard as they could. Fortunately, Loulan was a genius! After entering the school, Loulan immediately showed extraordinary talent: he had a photographic memory. Besides his powerful talent, Loulan also studied extremely hard and crazily. With his already remarkable ability to remember everything he read, he still forced himself to study no less than ten hours a day. For a child from a farming family, this was actually very difficult because Loulan usually had to help his grandmother with farm work and housework, and his time was very tight. What if there wasn't enough time? There was no other way but to squeeze it. In order to study, Loulan only allowed himself four hours of sleep every day. God rewards the diligent! With his outstanding talent and crazy efforts, Loulan immediately became the key cultivation object of the teachers. In order to enable Loulan to enter the best middle school in North Province, the teachers went crazy too. They had even let Loulan finish all the junior high school courses when he was in the fourth grade. Living up to everyone's expectations, Loulan smoothly entered the key middle school in North Province and then advanced all the way. With the title of the national college entrance examination champion, he was admitted to the best university in the country - Hefu University, majoring in international finance. Loulan had achieved changing his fate through hard work! However, fate played a joke on Loulan again. On the day he received the admission letter, he also received a physical examination notice - he suffered from congenital cerebrovascular malformation. As he grew older, it had reached the stage where he could fall ill at any time. Once it happened, it would cause brain hemorrhage and instant death. Even worse, this disease couldn't be cured at all! Loulan's life, which had just seen the light of hope, was once again plunged into endless darkness. The teachers all felt sad for Loulan. Looking at the pitying eyes of the teachers, Loulan seemed very calm and just said softly: "Thank you, teachers. I will cherish my time even more in the future." "There's nothing to be sad about. Even if I'm going to die, I won't die like a pitiful wretch!" Loulan said to himself. Fortunately, for some reason, Hefu University didn't give up on Loulan because of this. It still provided him with a full scholarship and insisted that he come to the school to register. Loulan was on this trip to the county school to get the travel expenses - Hefu University had thought it through very carefully and had even sent the travel expenses to Loulan. Fate played tricks on Loulan once again, making him walk into this strange valley in a daze and trapping him here. Although Loulan didn't want to wait for death, just drinking the sweet river water couldn't sustain his life. This small river was also very strange. It was as clear as a mirror. The deepest part of the water was only a little over one meter, and there wasn't even a single water plant in it, let alone fish or shrimp. Relying on drinking water, Loulan managed to hold on for another seven days. In the end, Loulan was almost completely relying on his strong will to survive. Finally, at noon on the eighth day, Loulan suddenly had a strange feeling, and his spirit improved a lot. He, who had been lying on the ground on the verge of death, actually had the strength to stand up. It was a flashback before death. Loulan immediately knew that he was about to die, so he took advantage of this time to wash his body with the river water. Then he lay flat on the ground and crossed his hands on his chest - even if he couldn't choose to live, he wanted to die with dignity. It was summer at that time, and the sun was blazing in the sky, but Loulan felt chills on his body one after another. His vision also went black from time to time, and his consciousness gradually began to blur. To save his strength, Loulan simply closed his eyes. "You're about to die, do you know that?" A strange voice suddenly rang in Loulan's ear. Loulan immediately used all his strength to forcefully open his closed eyes and found that there was actually a person standing in front of him. For some reason, Loulan couldn't see this person's appearance clearly, but a smell of food wafted over. "It's the aroma of corn cakes." Loulan couldn't help swallowing. The instinct to survive suddenly gave him the strength to reach out his hand and make a grasping motion in the air. Unfortunately, Loulan didn't grab anything. "Very good. It seems that you don't want to die." The stranger's voice rang again. "Rubbish! You're the one who wants to die! Your whole family wants to die!" Loulan didn't have the strength to curse out loud and could only mutter in his heart. "But there's a price to pay for staying alive. It requires an exchange with your soul. Are you willing?" The stranger's voice became a bit lower, but it seemed even more tempting, like the whisper of a devil. "I'd even exchange my body!" Loulan was excited when he heard this: "Give me the corn cake quickly!" Using all his strength, Loulan managed to make a slight nodding motion. "Hahaha, wonderful! You agreed! Hahaha!" The stranger suddenly shouted ecstatically: "It's been three hundred years! I can finally leave this wretched place! Hahaha!" After quickly stuffing the corn cake into Loulan's hand, the stranger suddenly said: "Eat this corn cake, and you won't die. And this place will belong to you. Congratulations, you're the new owner of the Dream Farm." After saying that, the stranger couldn't wait to leave in a hurry and disappeared in the blink of an eye. In fact, Loulan didn't hear his words very clearly. All his attention was on that corn cake. As soon as he got it in his hand, he stuffed it into his mouth desperately. He didn't even have time to chew it before swallowing it. If it hadn't been for the river right beside him where he could drink water immediately, he would almost have choked to death on the corn cake. The corn cake tasted especially sweet. Although it was only the size of a palm, after Loulan ate it, he felt his body quickly start to recover. In less than a minute, he had the strength to stand up. Like an illusion, a semi-transparent piece of parchment suddenly appeared in the air in front of Loulan. It was filled with ancient and unfamiliar words. Loulan reached out his hand, wanting to touch it, and then found that somehow, he already had an ancient-looking writing brush in his hand. Like the parchment, the writing brush was also in a semi-transparent and illusory state. "Is... is this asking me to sign?" Loulan only hesitated for a moment and then signed his name on the parchment. The situation was stronger than him now. Although he had temporarily escaped the danger of death, as long as he hadn't left this wretched place, he had to be careful. Once he had said something, it was better not to go back on his word. After Loulan signed his name, the parchment suddenly lit up and slowly rose into the air. At the same time, it became brighter and brighter. When the light was so dazzling that Loulan could hardly look directly at it, the parchment suddenly burst into thousands of light spots and scattered all over the valley. After these thousands of light spots fell to the ground, they all disappeared. In the next moment, Loulan suddenly felt his vision blur for a moment, and the scenery in front of him suddenly changed: The originally barren and lifeless rocky valley had now turned into a green pasture. Although the rocks were still there, under the cover of the lush green grass and shrubs, it looked full of vitality. Looking from a distance, there seemed to be some butterflies and dragonflies flying among them. And not far in front of Loulan, a flat open space appeared. On the open space, two small thatched cottages suddenly appeared. Beside the cottages, there was also a small piece of black soil. The terrain was in a regular rectangular shape, adjacent to the previous small river.