115 Something is wrong.

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The following morning.

The sky was a clear blue, the clouds pure white, and rolling hills stretched beyond the reach of sight. Green grass, a murmuring stream, and a gentle breeze rustling through several towering trees completed the scene.

Wu Qingchen drew a deep breath. Air carrying the fresh scents of earth and vegetation flowed smoothly into his nostrils. He raised his head and gazed at the sky. Brilliant sunlight shone through the layers of white clouds, while a breeze stirred the branches with a soft rustle, its cool touch brushing lightly against his arms and face.

Clearly, this was the very place where Wu Qingchen had appeared the first time he entered the medieval world.

Yet when he stood here again, Wu Qingchen was no longer drenched in sweat, his face smeared with grime, his entire body aching. He was no longer struggling to make himself understood, bewildered and stunned, his heart filled with uncertainty.

His circumstances were now incomparably better.

After being elevated to the status of an ox-keeper household, Wu Qingchen—Los—had, on the grounds of safety, physical strength, and merit, spent a considerable amount of his hard-won influence. After his repeated and forceful recommendations, Old William had finally, though reluctantly, adjusted their daily schedule. At last, Wu Qingchen no longer had to leave for work beneath the stars before dawn.

Today, for instance, he rested comfortably until a faint light appeared along the horizon before leaving his bed and making his way to the church.

Only once the sky had grown completely bright did Wu Qingchen return to the cottage. There, together with Old William, Idra, and Grace, who had finished their work in the allocated plots near their new home, he enjoyed a far more sumptuous breakfast than before.

Then the four of them led three sturdy oxen. They first briskly plowed the two small plots they passed along the way, and afterward arrived at the newly reclaimed wasteland Wu Qingchen had seen at first sight when he entered the medieval world for the first time.

The fact that the household’s principal laborers could come here meant that, during the summer labor season, most of the work in the other plots belonging to Wu Qingchen’s family had already been completed.

With ample oxen for plowing and the troublesome preparations for the summer labor season no longer necessary, the farm work that had seemed, for more than a decade, to stretch endlessly into the future had finally been brought within reach by Old William’s family.

Could such a milestone achievement be celebrated in the same way as an ordinary piece of good fortune among ordinary villagers—by asking a baker for a few pieces of black bread hard enough to chip one’s teeth, or obtaining several cups of sour-smelling ale from a brewer, then casually stuffing the food down and calling it done?

Of course not!

Such a glorious achievement, such a magnificent result, demanded an equally glorious and magnificent celebration—or act of thanksgiving—to match it.

And throughout the entire medieval world, the greatest and most glorious object was unique.

“O Sovereign...

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My merciful Father...

My God, in whom I believe...

I shall sing to you with all my heart...

And offer you my most sincere hymn...

Upon the fertile land you have bestowed...”

At that moment, in a remote patch of wasteland far from the village, Wu Qingchen led the singing while Old William, Idra, and Grace stumbled through the words after him. A heartfelt hymn of praise drifted melodiously on the summer breeze.

“Upon the fertile land you have bestowed...

I bend deeply, pulling out the weeds...

I swing my hoe with all my strength, turning over the soil...

I part the sharp-edged leaves...

I steer clear of the fragrant flowers...”

“Good! That’s enough for now. Stop, stop!” Wu Qingchen waved his hands repeatedly, and his father and brothers soon fell silent. “Good. That was much better than yesterday! But there are still plenty of places where you made mistakes...”

“First...” Wu Qingchen pointed toward Idra. “Brother, bend deeply. You got this part wrong... ‘Deeply.’ Do you understand? In the Holy Scripture, ‘deeply’ can have many meanings. Here, it means...”

As he spoke, Wu Qingchen slowly lowered himself halfway into a squat. At the same time, he bent forward, using his alternating legs as points of support. By constantly adjusting his movements, he ingeniously broke down the gravitational force pulling his upper body forward into a downward vector, making it easier to pull out weeds, and a forward vector, making it easier to move ahead.

“Yes! Let me try!” Idra was, after all, an experienced farmhand. After watching for a dozen steps, he had grasped the general idea. Comparing himself with Grace beside him, he bent over as well and began to pull at the weeds “deeply.”

After roughly ten minutes, Idra had mastered the “word” deeply—or, more accurately, he had learned another scientific labor technique from twenty-first-century Earth.

“Good. Your turn...” Wu Qingchen pointed at Grace. “Come on, sing after me: I bend ‘deeply,’ pulling out the weeds...”

Grace haltingly sang the line, while Idra beside him demonstrated the corresponding movement.

After another ten minutes or so, Grace too had reached the passing standard for the movement.

During the third ten-minute interval, the three men worked together, and Old William soon mastered deeply as it appeared in the Holy Scripture.

After deeply came “swing the hoe,” “turn over,” “part,” and “steer clear”...

One sacred expression after another, one scientific labor technique after another, was “personally instructed” to the family of the medieval world by the singing master, Mr. Wu Qingchen—Los.

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The new movements and new standards naturally clashed with the habits Old William and his sons had developed through years of labor. Combined with the intermittent pauses for explanations, the work in the newly reclaimed wasteland was, in terms of efficiency alone, not only failing to speed up but actually progressing a little more slowly than usual.

Even so, Old William, Idra, and Grace all studied with great seriousness. From beginning to end, none of them raised an objection, and not one uttered a word of complaint.

The reason was simple. Sweeping the house, washing and drying the tools, opening holes in the walls—those were merely “wastes of time” intended to make themselves a little more comfortable. Learning to sing hymns, though it likewise consumed precious extra time, brought benefits that were immediately obvious and far more far-reaching.

For Old William’s family, becoming an ox-keeper household so abruptly meant that although they had already begun to enjoy the material advantages, their psychological adjustment was nowhere near complete.

The ox-keeper’s grand house, preferential treatment from the steward, the villagers’ efforts to curry favor, piles of gifts—new and astonishing changes that appeared almost every day, together with the respectful attitude of the vast majority of villagers—had left the family, apart from Wu Qingchen, deliriously overjoyed at first, then anxious that they might be unable to live up to their new status, afraid that it might suddenly vanish, and terrified that some unforeseen change or mistake would bring disaster.

Confusion, unease, and a constant fear of losing what they had gained—these feelings perfectly reflected their true state of mind.

Thus, whether Wu Qingchen’s insistence on going to church first thing every day, his habit of keeping himself scrupulously clean so as not to offend the gentlemen with his smell, or even his decision to hang dangerous beehives in the family’s own plots, his relatives gave him every possible convenience.

And learning to sing hymns was yet another opportunity to flatter the revered priest directly. For this newly elevated ox-keeper household, which was eagerly drawing closer to the organization—no, eagerly drawing closer to the Church—it was certainly an excellent chance to display their devotion, one they absolutely could not afford to miss.

Besides, to make up for the loss of time that had been anticipated from the beginning, Old William had deliberately used three times as many oxen as usual while plowing the other two small plots on the way to this newly reclaimed wasteland. He felt that this should surely be enough to win back the time they had spent “wasting.”