The live stream audience was utterly disheartened, yet Tong Zhanyan felt exceptionally pleased.

Returning indoors, he set down the scissors, plugged in the cooler to chill it, then placed the small bag of tomatoes inside.

Finally, he couldn’t wait to open the live stream to check. The viewers must be thrilled right now, right?

But when he opened the livestream, all he saw was a sea of question marks.

Many viewers urged him to learn how others handled the harvest.

Tong Zhanyan was always one to take advice, so he immediately switched to the homepage and searched for the keyword “harvest.”

Just as he’d expected, after seeing countless ways crops could die, the harvest was undeniably captivating.

The edited videos he found had millions of views on the first and second pages.

Tong Zhanyan randomly clicked on one to watch.

Three minutes, five minutes… Seeing ten minutes pass while the streamer was still tearfully building drama, Tong Zhanyan shut it off.

He wasn’t planning to learn from them.

It wasn’t that he considered himself too noble for such things. Rather, for him right now, the actual planting was the core focus and purpose. Streaming was merely an extra.

Streaming also consumes time and energy. If he got his priorities backwards, was he supposed to show the school his follower count during the final assessment?

He doubted the school would be thrilled to have a million-follower influencer among its students—certainly not Devil King.

Tong Zhanyan removed the previous announcement and posted a new one, confirming the next harvest for Monday evening at the same time before turning his attention elsewhere.

He began preparing for the next batch of cherry tomato seeds.

While picking tomatoes earlier, he deliberately left two large, healthy tomatoes on each of the two best-looking plants—intended for seeds.

A large tomato plant typically yields three to four hundred seeds. Cherry tomatoes aren’t quite that prolific, but they still produce twenty to thirty seeds.

Four cherry tomatoes meant nearly a hundred seeds.

He planned to plant twenty for the next batch and save the rest.

He had considered selling the seeds. A well-grown cherry tomato might fetch only two or three thousand yuan for its fifteen to sixteen grams, while a single seed could command five or six thousand. By any calculation, selling seeds was far more profitable.

But in reality, private seeds simply won’t sell.

The reason is simple: infection rates.

To determine a crop’s infection rate, they must examine cut samples, and these samples can’t be too small.

Most crop seeds are too small to cut and test, which means infection rates are entirely at the seller’s discretion.

Once planted, any seed’s infection rate increases as it grows. This increase isn’t fixed—it can be as low as 1% or skyrocket with no upper limit. A common range is 5% to 8%.

If the infection rate is solely determined by the seller, what if the harvested crop has an exceptionally high infection rate? Who can tell if the problem lies with the seed or the cultivation method?

Even if fruits are picked and seeds collected for inspection in person, cheating remains possible—the profit margins are simply too high.

All seeds circulating in the market originate from the Planting Alliance, and only their seeds offer genuine guarantees.

Beyond the Alliance, some large corporations sell seeds backed by their corporate reputation, attracting buyers, though their sales remain significantly lower than the Alliance’s.

Many attribute poor growing results to this very issue.

Tong Zhanyan planned to plant only twenty plants next time. First, his rotten soil was limited in quantity. Second, he lacked sufficient fertilizer, and he hadn’t yet figured out a solution for this problem.

Another reason was that he had never started from scratch before. He couldn’t guarantee success, so keeping some seeds meant he’d have a chance to try again if things went wrong.

Tomato seeds can be sown immediately after harvesting, and those four seed-saving tomatoes would fully ripen within the next few days.

Sowing seeds requires seedling trays.

Tong Zhanyan searched online for seedling trays but promptly abandoned the idea.

Gardening was a hot topic, driving up prices for related items.

Take tweezers, for instance. In Tong Zhanyan’s view, they should cost just three or five yuan, or maybe a dozen yuan at most. But here, specialized gardening tweezers start at a hundred yuan with no upper limit.

The same goes for flower pots. In Tong Zhanyan’s previous world, decent ones could be bought for a dozen yuan. Here, pots of the same size start at over a hundred yuan, with the average price hovering around two hundred yuan and up.

Tong Zhanyan already owned twenty pots and planned to add about twenty more. At two hundred each, that would be four thousand.

Four thousand yuan for twenty ordinary plastic pots? Absurd.

Tong Zhanyan resolved to find cheaper alternatives.

But that would require significantly more time.

After comparing options, Tong Zhanyan only managed to order some tools and a pack of disposable cups before bedtime.

The next day, Tong Zhanyan spent the morning comparing prices again. In the afternoon, he joined Tian Xinqing and the others for extra practice on the field.

That night, while Tian Xinqing and the others weren’t looking, Tong Zhanyan sneaked behind the cafeteria and collected a pile of leaves and eggshells.

Tong Zhanyan made it a point to visit the area behind the cafeteria whenever he had free time. After over a month of persistence, he had already filled more than half a jar with eggshell powder. Since wood ash could be gathered as needed without burning it daily, he didn’t do that every day, but the rotting leaves had already filled over twenty bags.

The eggshell powder was easy to store, but the rotting leaves, still in their plastic bags, piled up in a corner of the balcony, now forming a small mountain.

This made Tong Zhanyan marvel at Qing Jiyue’s remarkable patience—she hadn’t uttered a single complaint about the situation.

On Monday, Devil King’s class was in the morning, leaving Tong Zhanyan exhausted. He collapsed onto his bed in the dormitory at noon and fell straight asleep.

Fortunately, the afternoon was filled with cultural studies, and by the end of class, he had regained his energy.

Armed with the experience from before, Tong Zhanyan remained calm, only beginning preparations at 6:50.

At 55 minutes past, the same plastic bag and scissors reappeared in the livestream viewers’ view.

“Again?”

“Is the streamer serious?”

“What’s going on?”

“Does this streamer even read the chat?”

“I think so. I’ve followed him for a week now, and I’ve never once heard him speak or interact with the chat.”

“What kind of ‘harvest’ is this…”

“Is it starting?”

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

The moment Tong Zhanyan appeared, the previously quiet livestream instantly erupted with activity.

Last time Tong Zhanyan picked fruit, the online count hit thirty-two, but many weren’t actually watching. They knew these streamers well—they never got to the point in under half an hour.

By the time they finished their tasks and checked back, well, it was already over.

Checking the comments, they realized Tong Zhanyan had wrapped it up in a mere two minutes without a single word of fluff.

Figuring out what happened, everyone felt utterly frustrated.

Amidst their frustration, they were also intrigued—such a swift streamer was a rare sight.

Compared to these newcomers’ curiosity, those who had caught the last session were now seething with discontent.

Tong Zhanyan was just winging it. And not only that—despite their kind advice on how to proceed, he’d also completely ignored them.

It left them feeling like their goodwill had been taken for granted.

At seven o’clock sharp, the familiar snip of scissors echoed. Everyone dropped what they were doing and watched in rapt attention.

Those hands moved with lightning speed—snip, snip, snip—and in an instant, half the bountiful branches were bare.

This time, it took less than two minutes.

But this time, the hands added an extra step. After picking all the ripe tomatoes, they pinched the four exceptionally large tomatoes left on the two healthiest plants out of the five.

As long-time viewers, they had long recognized these were likely the seeds the streamer was saving—nothing surprising there. But pinching them? What was that about?

Before the audience could process it, the owner of those hands in the livestream had already packed up and left.

“That’s it?”

“…It’s over?”

“I didn’t even get a good look…”

“Ah, well…”

“The fastest harvest in history.”

Viewers who had missed the previous session and those who had joined recently felt utterly bewildered. The crowd that had been angry last time suddenly found itself unable to muster any resentment now.

Their initial anger stemmed from the perception that Tong Zhanyan was acting recklessly, that his harvesting lacked any sense of ceremony.

Yet, upon revisiting the same footage, they experienced a completely different sensation.

Tong Zhanyan wasn’t being reckless or lacking ceremony—he simply didn’t regard it as significant at all.

What they saw as a ritual-less act of picking was, to him, nothing more than an ordinary task.

The frenzy outbreak had persisted for over two hundred years. Initially, its manifestations were mild, so most people dismissed it.

Yet in less than thirty years, the frenzy had escalated dramatically. Those who lost all control rampaged without reason, attacking indiscriminately. Only a few could restrain themselves; the rest had to be killed…

With monstrous beasts already ravaging the land outside the protective shield, compounded by the Rage-stricken, it was an exceptionally dark period for them.

Later, they began to understand the nature of the frenzy, leading them to restrict the use of spirit beasts and seek cures.

About fifty years ago, they discovered that certain crops could alleviate the frenzy. They reactivated the seed bank and launched a series of studies.

Yet, even now, after over fifty years, they still haven’t conquered the major hurdle of cultivation.

Despite their best efforts to contain it, the number of afflicted individuals continues to rise, and the onset occurs at increasingly younger ages.

Amidst these circumstances, cultivation has long been regarded as a sacred endeavor, and ritualistic elements have naturally become indispensable.

They wish they could simply harvest when ripe without excessive concern, but is that something they can afford to desire?

Facing Tong Zhanyan’s now-empty livestream, many viewers drifted off in thought.

Behind the livestream, Gu Yunyang, sharing the same feelings, gave a bitter smile.

He had chosen this path precisely because he’d had enough of all this.

His father had been killed in the street after falling into a violent state from which he could not recover.

His mother covered his eyes, but forgot his ears. Those anguished screams, filled with rage, remained etched in his memory to this day.

Gu Yunyang rubbed his face hard, took a deep breath, then rose and headed toward his greenhouse. He would keep searching for ways to save his tomatoes. He wasn’t ready to give up yet.

In the dormitory.

Tong Zhanyan returned the plastic bag to the refrigerator without even glancing at the livestream before getting back to his own tasks.