Farming Together Chapter 276: [Extra 5] Food Carnival [END]

Chapter 276: [Extra 5] Food Carnival of the Ancient Blue Star traditional festivals.

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

Bai Li didn’t have any thought of adding traditional festivals to the game, but the players wanted new things. So, from the ancient books, he found out about the Ancient Blue Star period’s Lantern Festival, Qingming, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival. When he looked at those four festivals, he found that they actually had exclusive culinary delicacies for those times. WIth his DNA directly moved, Bai Li became enthused and agreed to hold a related activity for everyone.

The content of the event was chosen by the players themselves, and finally it was simply and brutally named “The Culinary Delicacy Carnival of Ancient Blue Star Traditional Festivals.” The culinary delicacy carnival was held for three days, with the villages as the main unit The first two days had two daytime and two nighttime shows for the above four festivals.

The content of the program was arranged by the players themselves. During the event, a large number of activities, items and gift bags, would be disseminated for players to search for and discover.

On the third day, it was a complete food and drink package, which was provided by the game and made by players themselves, all of which could be brought to the last day and shared with everyone.

On the first day of the event, the daytime arrangement was given to the Qingming Festival, when the earth had the image of spring and brightness, exhaling the old and breathing the new. The players first went to the Village Chief to receive a Qingming cake ¹ each, and then went out together with other food they’d prepared long ago.

The woods, the top of the mine, the lake, the beach, and even the islands that were drawn and developed in the sea, were full of players. They temporarily put aside their farm work and work tasks and devoted themselves to this trekking activity.

Some of the players who had studied all the information had brought along saplings, paper kites, balls, and roosters…

Tree planting, kite flying, cuju, cock fighting…² These were all in the ancient books they had researched, and were among the Ancient Blue Star period as designated for festival exclusive collective activities. In the process, naturally there were also players who seized the opportunity to do business, and “warriors” who took the opportunity to compete with others. At one point, there were cheers, applause, lamentations, and curses. It was just a daytime trip, but it left a deep impression on everyone.

At night, the map turned to the Lantern Festival state.

Outside the villages a cauldron was set up. The Village Chief’s Wife, along with the Flower Seller and other NPCs were cooking for the Lantern Festival, regardless of whether or not they had a Village presence. The village residents could queue up to receive a bowl of yuanxiao. ³

All the dumplings were filled with black sesame seeds. The outer layer was soft and fluffy, and the inside was rich in filling. Many players were burned on the spot, and even as they inhaled heavily, they didn’t want to spit out the dumplings in their mouths, and after swallowing one with difficulty, they shouted, “It’s so delicious and super sweet!”

After they ate the dumplings and walked into the village, the Players split up into two groups. Those who were confident in their craft ran to get a copy of the materials and made beautiful lanterns according to the pattern. Those who were confident in their own intelligence ran to guess the lantern riddles in a frenzy.

The content of the riddles was rarely available on the Starnet, so the players shyly left the trouble to Bai Li, who didn’t disappoint them, as he prepared thousands of different riddles with the temptation of items and prizes. It made the players cry out from headaches and say they were complete idiots.

“‘There was a proud bone to follow people around, still have a child’s heart only since busy.’ What is this thing, ah? Obviously I know every word, but together they are actually even more difficult to understand? Say it is a toy? But I have almost reported all the toys I know, and still did not guess right. QAQ!”

“You at least have a direction. I chose this lantern riddle. Listen, ‘total solar eclipse tomorrow,’Just hit a word, this makes me guess, ah, and the range is also too big! How can one guess?”

“I also got a word play. Brothers, help me think together. It’s called ‘someone inside.’ Tsk, what’s wrong with the Ancient Blue Star people? When they wrote lantern riddles, even an accent wasn’t allowed, it’s not the normal accent ‘someone there’? Why…?”

“Pfft!” When he heard the last sentence, Bai Li couldn’t hold back his stifled laughter.

The riddle wasn’t a mistake, but a condition. The word “inside” and then adding a “person,” was the word “meat.” ⁴

He could only say that it was too difficult for Interstellar people, who had never experienced the culture of guessing lantern riddles, to be exposed to so many lantern riddles at once. Perhaps it would be more friendly to them to start with a slightly simpler brain teaser.

Wen XingYao, who was holding a note under a paper lantern, was pondering hard. His brow was wrinkled into a “Chuan”, but he was still struggling, not wanting Bai Li to see the joke.

Bai Li was happy to see that hilariousness. From his backpack he slowly took out a string of sugar gourd, while he smilingly whispered that tonight he would kiss him a few more times. Bai Li’s face showed how eager he was to try, and Wen XingYao almost went offline on the spot. Hum, this little fox.

Then he put down the lantern to pick up the person, ran to a corner where no one was passing, buried his head, and kissed the man until he was breathless.

“…”

The players didn’t give in and transcribed the remaining lantern riddles, then said that they would take their time to guess them and that they wouldn’t be embarrassed the next time this event was held.

The next day was the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival. During the day, they raced dragon boats and released paper kites, and after eating the zongzi, ⁵ they had to take the colorful silk threads symbolizing the five directions and five elements and tie them on their wrists.

Players were the first time to knit this rope, inevitably some clumsy, but whoever was very confident of their own finished products, think they were the world’s best-looking, threatening to wait until the event was over, to save these small handicrafts, placed in the most prominent location in the house, for visitors to visit.

In the evening, a bright white moon hung in the night sky. The sky was deliberately darkened by Bai Li because of the festival, but the brightness of the moonlight gave people a sense of a more shocking atmosphere.

The Mid-Autumn Festival was the time for a family reunion.

When someone entered the game, it was divided into different villages, but once a person’s character level reached 30, they could travel freely around, and once they hit level 50, the game opened the “move” function. Each village has 20 extra accounts, specially prepared for players who want to move there, and once the number of applicants exceeded 20, they had to wait for other village residents to move out to make room for them.

Now, after several years of development, the Interstellar people had long reached their goals of gathering friends and family in the same villages to play games together. They enjoyed the moon, ate mooncakes, ⁶ and drank cinnamon wine together.

Families got together to laugh and joke, and occasionally reminisce about loved ones who had passed away, but more than anything else, to enjoy their current lives. Thanks to Bai Li and Carefree Farmstead, the problems of Genetic Collapse Disorder and natural food had all been solved. The war was long finished, but their peaceful life had just started a few years ago.

They should cherish the good times they had today, then do more of what they want to do and like to do. Throughout the night, the moon was high overhead. Some players who drank too much cinnamon wine, were in a slightly drunken state and learned a few poems from the ancients that became nonsensical and full of Interstellar content led the surrounding people to let out some good-natured laughter. Who knew if when they sobered up the next day, they would feel more romantic about that time, or feel the social death a little more.

On the third day, the official culinary delicacy carnival was launched in the early morning. The players who had already partied for two days were still full of energy today.

In the streets and alleys, as long as there was a place where people could stand, it was all set up with simple stalls and shacks. Whether or not they had learned culinary skills, on that day the players were happy to cosplay once as Interstellar small pawns.

Zongzi, green dumplings, rice dumplings, mooncakes, these fresh foods, led a crowd of players to follow the trend of cooking them up, and while based on the originals, theirs contained a lot more of their own understanding and collocation.

Bai Li and Wen XingYao still lived in Mushroom Village, and over the years, Wen Xiao, Zhu Shuo, Yan Siya and Zhu MoLing had moved in one after another. In theory, Mushroom Village as the first village of Carefree Farmstead, was very monumental. The village people who originally lived there shouldn’t want to move, but Bai Li was the game’s developer, and there were those players who were happy to give up their spots. The second was also because Zhu MoLing and Wen XingYao together spent money to keep spots open.

Yesterday they spent the Mid-Autumn time together, while today they had agreed to act separately.

Bai Li and Wen XingYao went out early and joined a few waves of activity.

Some players couldn’t wrap the triangular shaped dumplings they ate yesterday, so they angrily took the dumpling leaves and spilled half of the glutinous rice grains before they could barely make a “dumpling” wrapped in thick dumpling leaves. After they finished with a face of complacency, they warned the people around that later, if the dumplings were boiled, not to steal their recipes.

“Come on, who will grab it with you, ah. This is a good thing to eat half of the dumplings! Wait for it, I’m going to wrap myself a giant dumpling out!” The people around laughed and scolded and operated with great enthusiasm.

A little further down the road, the dark cuisine of the mooncake world also appeared in the village at the right time. The players who had set up a long stall shouted, “Come on, come on, open a blind box of mooncakes, for only one gold coin, you can take home a mooncake full of surprises!”

When they heard there was a blind box opening, the players’ curiosity came to the forefront and they gathered around.

The price wasn’t expensive, but because the mooncakes were just ready from the first oven, the players could only buy them one by one for the time being. Bai Li also arranged to buy some for himself, but when he was paying, he heard the seller, “Hehehe,” with laughter, and inexplicably had a bad feeling.

And sure enough…

“Ah! What’s this smell? How can you make stinky tofu into mooncakes?”

“Pfft! Cough! Strawberry and fish! This match is really too dark!”

“I feel lucky to have eaten an egg from it…”

Among the crowd, Bai Li and Wen XingYao and ate their mooncake fillings, one bean paste flavor, one seaweed flavor. As for the others, how do you say it? It should be a hidden model, right?

Well, such a creative activity could be considered good to have only once a year.

Addis note: Thank you all for sticking with me throughout this novel! I actually started translating this novel Dec 20th, 2021, so it’s been a long time that I have been working with this novel. While I am sad that it is finally finished (with quite a lackluster ending) I am happy to finally be able to focus on some of the other novels I have been working on. I hope everyone continues to read the next novels I pick!

Gaea note: I’d like to thank you as well for coming along with our farming journey. I hope you didn’t mind all the little notes I stuck in, and enjoyed Bai Li and Wen XingYao’s story!