Interstellar Farming: I Make Potions and Climb to the Top

"There’s nothing going on... Sss..." Ying Yaoshi hissed lightly.

"Nothing going on? The way she looks at you, and the way everyone else looks at the two of you... Something obviously happened. Spit it out," Ning Xuan demanded.

"She publicly announced that she wanted to marry me, which means giving up her right to form a Contract with anyone else. She also said she wanted to bear my children..." Ying Yaoshi was much taller than Ning Xuan, so he leaned down and whispered in her ear.

"Oh, so I ruined your fun? When you refused to make your information public, was it because you were interested in her?" Ning Xuan asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course not! No, absolutely not. Our gene compatibility isn’t even..." Ying Yaoshi trailed off, unable to continue.

"Why’d you stop talking? You actually went to get your gene compatibility tested with her?" Generally, people only did that if both parties were interested in each other.

"Once, I was injured and not fully conscious. Regular treatment wasn’t working, so Dean Wen had our compatibility tested without my knowledge. Qin Hongyu had just arrived at the time. It was an emergency measure for a special situation. But our compatibility was low, and Qin Hongyu’s Spiritual Power Level wasn’t high enough, so Dean Wen didn’t let her attempt it. I ended up waking up on my own," Ying Yaoshi explained.

The two walked quickly. The field hospital wasn’t far from the Military Department compound, and by now, they had returned to Ying Yaoshi’s residence within it.

Ying Yaoshi’s residence was a large, independent courtyard. It was fully equipped with a bedroom, living room, study, bathroom, and a fitness room. Ning Xuan had already chosen two empty rooms to be her Practice Room and Alchemy room. The orderlies were highly efficient and had already cleaned the rooms she wanted, arranging them according to her requests.

Ning Xuan sat down on the living room sofa first, then calmly beckoned to Ying Yaoshi. "Come here. Kneel."

"Should I change clothes first?" Ying Yaoshi asked tentatively. This was a dress uniform, different from his combat fatigues. The fabric was stiff and not very elastic.

Ning Xuan’s gaze turned cold.

"Fine, I understand. I won’t change." Ying Yaoshi set the courtyard’s defense system to a do-not-disturb mode and scanned the entire area with his spiritual power to ensure no one would enter.

Ying Yaoshi unfastened the silver button at his collar, removed the pistol and other small arms he wore at his waist, then walked before Ning Xuan and knelt.

"You’re not used to this, are you? If you hadn’t formed a Contract with me, you wouldn’t have to suffer this humiliation." Ning Xuan reached out, placed her hand on the crown of Ying Yaoshi’s head, and pressed down.

With Ning Xuan on the sofa and him kneeling on the floor, Ying Yaoshi yielded to the pressure of her hand, obediently bowing his head.

"I’m not humiliated." The words sounded as if they were forced through gritted teeth.

"Are you sure?" As Ning Xuan spoke, a Vine Whip appeared in her hand.

The welts on Ying Yaoshi’s body hadn’t yet healed. At the sight of the Vine Whip in Ning Xuan’s hand, a tingling ache seemed to rise from the very marrow of his bones. His heart hammered, his blood rushed, and his temperature even started to climb.

"I won’t be staying here long, and you could be called to the battlefield or have official duties at any moment. Therefore, in the limited time we have together, I will show you my truest, worst self. If you can accept it, we’ll establish our relationship. If you can’t, we can end things at any time since we haven’t established a spiritual connection yet." In the Federation, forming a Contract was equivalent to registering a marriage; establishing a spiritual connection was what truly bound two people’s spiritual power and consummated the relationship.

"No resistance. But you have the right to say stop. If you do, we’re done. We’ll dissolve the Contract, and I’ll return everything you’ve entrusted to me," Ning Xuan said gravely.

Ying Yaoshi’s arrival when they first met had been overwhelming. Dazed, Ning Xuan had simply watched as he took her Light Computer, withdrew her cancellation request, and forced the Contract to completion.

She didn’t dislike Ying Yaoshi—in fact, she’d taken a liking to him at first sight—but his actions that day had bothered her ever since.

"I won’t resist, Xuanyuan. I’ve told you before: as long as you let me save face in public, you can do whatever you want to me in private. I can take it." As he spoke, his mind was already running through a list of every torture instrument he could imagine.

Ying Yaoshi had clawed his way up through storms of blood. He would face down any power and die before he’d yield. He never imagined he would one day kneel at another’s feet—and do so with such calm, composure, and heartfelt submission.

"Then let’s start by copying the house rules. Copy them until I’m satisfied. I’ll come inspect your work later." Ning Xuan placed a small, perfectly-heighted table in front of him, set the prepared house rules, paper, and pen on it, then headed for the Cultivation Room.

Ying Yaoshi stared at the thick stack of house rules, and the composed expression on his face began to crack. ’I was prepared for torture! Whips, clubs, the tiger bench... anything would have been fine! Why do I have to use a pen? I haven’t held one in years. I’ve practically forgotten what they look like.’

Inside the base’s only tavern, Shen Shiye was drinking with a few friends. Having survived a near-death experience, his emotions were running high, and before he knew it, he’d had a bit too much to drink. "Tianci, what do you think? If I go beg the Marshal to let me form a Contract with Miss Ning, do you think he’d agree?"

Though Shen Shiye’s tongue was a little thick from the alcohol, his words were still perfectly clear.

Lü Tianci, also an Admiral-Level officer, heard this and shook his head. "Shiye, you’re drunk and talking nonsense. The woman the Marshal has his eye on? How could he let anyone else lay a finger on her? Besides, with the Marshal’s status, it’s an honor for Miss Ning to form a Contract with him—she’s the one marrying up. The fact that she was willing to travel thousands of miles to be with him says it all. It shows she’s willing to accommodate him."

"This Miss Ning is probably just as Miss Qin Hongyu described—willing to give up her right to a Contract with anyone else, even willing to have the Marshal’s children. And you want to get in on that? What were you thinking?" another officer added.

"But Miss Ning is perfect for me! I could feel it when she was cleansing the pollution in my Spiritual Sea. My Spiritual Sea didn’t reject her in the slightest. Our gene compatibility must be incredibly high! The reason my condition was so hard to control after I was injured and contaminated was that too much of the pollutant had built up. Standard spiritual therapy doesn’t work on me anymore," Shen Shiye said, getting to his feet in his excitement.

"Theoretically, only after establishing a spiritual connection can a Contractor perform the deep soothing required to cleanse the kind of pollutants that regular methods can’t touch."