Tong Zhanyan silently placed the terminal back on the cardboard box. He hadn’t seen anything. He knew nothing.

He was a happy ostrich.

Glancing back at the seedlings behind him, Tong Zhanyan walked away.

Passing through the small grove between the training hall and dormitory area, Tong Zhanyan was about to head toward the dormitory building when he spotted Devil King and Class 1 homeroom teacher Yuan Yuepeng approaching from afar, discussing something about an exploration team.

This time, Tong Zhanyan reacted swiftly. Before Devil King could spot him, he ducked back into the woods and dashed toward the left-hand sports field.

After sprinting a considerable distance, Tong Zhanyan glanced back.

Seeing that the Devil King hadn’t pursued, he exhaled a deep sigh of relief.

Even on a rest day, the playground remained bustling.

With daylight still lingering, Tong Zhanyan surveyed his surroundings. Deciding against rushing back, he began jogging around the field. Within his capabilities, he hoped to build some combat readiness.

Two hours later, as darkness fully settled, Tong Zhanyan was drenched in sweat.

People on the field gradually streamed toward the cafeteria. As Tong Zhanyan followed the crowd toward the dormitory building, he spotted a familiar figure ahead.

“Qing—”

Qing Jiyue was listening to someone speak, his brow furrowing deeper with each word.

After the speaker finished, they sighed, seemingly uncertain whether their actions were truly right.

The speaker was Gu Yinfeng.

Tong Zhanyan didn’t interrupt, silently passing by.

Approaching the dormitory building, Tong Zhanyan spotted Su Yanran from afar. He seemed to be heading to the cafeteria.

Tong Zhanyan hurried to catch up.

No one here used paper currency. Mondays and Fridays were manageable since they commuted together, but weekends were troublesome.

He needed to buy a terminal as soon as possible.

“Qing Jiyue?” Gu Yinfeng spoke, only to realize his friend beside him wasn’t listening at all. Instead, he was staring blankly to the left.

Gu Yinfeng followed his gaze. There was only a crowd of students surging toward the cafeteria. “Don’t argue with Uncle Qing. Just talk to him properly.”

“Mhm.” Qing Jiyue withdrew his gaze when he could no longer see Tong Zhanyan, who had been right behind him moments ago.

Gu Yinfeng wanted to say more, but thought better of it. If Qing Jiyue were so easily persuaded, Gu Yinfeng wouldn’t be so worried.

After exchanging a few more simple words, the two entered the dormitory area and headed to their respective rooms.

When Tong Zhanyan returned to the dorm, Qing Jiyue was on the balcony video chatting with someone.

Tong Zhanyan hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but the dorm was so small that he gradually caught the gist of the conversation.

Over the past three months, the Qing Family had suffered consecutive defeats. This couldn’t continue. Therefore, the Qing Family decided to dispatch an exploration team outside the protective barrier to conduct a purge, aiming to prevent those beasts from nesting nearby.

This had always been a scheduled operation.

Qing Jiefeng, the Qing Family Head, seemed set on joining the expedition, but Qing Jiyue strongly disagreed.

Seeing the two about to argue, Tong Zhanyan quickly slipped away to the opposite room occupied by Tian Xinqing and Su Yanran.

Tian Xinqing had just finished eating and was lying on his bed playing with his terminal, while Su Yanran was reading a book.

Tian Xinqing chatted with Tong Zhanyan when he arrived, already aware of the expedition plans.

Tian Xinqing always had the latest information.

When Tong Zhanyan returned later, Qing Jiyue was reading.

He didn’t mention the phone incident, and Tong Zhanyan felt awkward asking. They each went about their business and retired early.

The next day, Sunday, Tong Zhanyan stopped by the training room again.

The newly repotted plants were still in their acclimation period, so the tomatoes showed little change. However, the cherry radishes and bok choy, over a week after repotting, had finally entered their growth phase, changing noticeably day by day.

On Monday, they had a training class together with Class 1. Devil King had taken the day off.

The entire class celebrated this.

Devil King remained absent on Tuesday and Wednesday. After the initial excitement, the class began murmuring. Devil King wouldn’t abandon his students unless something major had happened.

By Friday, with still no sign of him, a bold theory emerged in the class: Devil King had joined the Qing family’s exploration team.

They didn’t know much about his background, but from snippets overheard from other teachers and upperclassmen, they vaguely understood he’d likely seen frontline combat, with verifiable battle records.

This news had the whole group buzzing with excitement.

Tong Zhanyan felt a flicker of excitement, too, though not because of Devil King, but because of those cherry radishes and baby bok choy.

When Tong Zhanyan returned to the training room on Saturday, they had completely transformed.

The healthiest Chinese cabbage stood over ten centimeters tall, its largest leaves nearly three fingers wide.

The cherry radishes were now clearly visible—the smallest pea-sized, the largest nearly thumb-sized.

At this rate, harvest should be possible within ten days at most.

It had been about twenty days since sowing. In the old world, they would have been ripe by now. But considering the limited resources—just some plant ash and eggshell powder—Tong Zhanyan was reasonably satisfied.

After the training room in the morning, Tong Zhanyan headed to the main city in the afternoon. He stopped by the store to inquire about the prices for these two crops and took a look at the terminals.

Prices remained largely unchanged, still ranging from 150 to 350 credits. However, the terminals gave Tong Zhanyan pause.

Even a basic terminal brand costs around 10,000 credits. Anything cheaper meant buying secondhand, as the market for used terminals was quite large due to the high cost of new ones. Yet, a brand-new, more intelligent camera that didn’t require a terminal also cost around 10,000 credits.

Compared to that, swapping out the camera seemed like the smarter deal.

Those napa cabbages should fetch around 100,000 yuan. Buying both wasn’t impossible, but fertilizer was still an unresolved issue, and the outcome of this tomato crop remained uncertain. Where possible, he needed to save.

By Monday, the Devil King still hadn’t shown up, solidifying the class’s suspicions and fueling their excitement.

The expedition team would be gone for at least two months.

The thought of not having to see the Devil King’s face for the next two months made everyone want to run hundreds of laps around the track.

After visiting the training room again on Wednesday night, Tong Zhanyan’s spirits soared once more. The baby bok choy and cherry radishes had grown significantly.

The largest leaf on the healthiest baby bok choy was now four fingers wide, while the best-growing cherry radish was nearly the size of a walnut—a truly heartening sight.

But perhaps joy turned to sorrow. When Tong Zhanyan returned to the training room on Saturday, the expected growth spurt hadn’t materialized. The cherry radishes and bok choy remained exactly as he’d seen them on Wednesday.

Tong Zhanyan almost instantly understood what had happened. The slight fertilizing effect of the plant ash and eggshell powder had been completely exhausted.

Tong Zhanyan wasn’t surprised—he’d even prepared for this—but facing it head-on still drew an involuntary sigh.

Amidst his sigh, Tong Zhanyan turned his gaze to the tomatoes on the other side.

Two weeks had passed, and the seedling vigor had faded from them. The five or six healthiest plants had grown several branches nearly as long as his fingers.

They were almost ready for leaf pinching and branch pruning.

This was good news, yet it also gave Tong Zhanyan a headache. After pinching and pruning, whether the plants could keep up with their nutritional needs would directly determine flower bud differentiation.

Flowers precede fruit; if the flowers were poor, the fruit would be even worse.

These tomato seedlings were only about ten days behind the bok choy in being repotted. With the bok choy now having exhausted its nutrients, these tomatoes could barely last another ten days at most.

Adding insult to injury, on his way back, Tong Zhanyan spotted the Devil King, who should have been with the exploration team.

Not daring to approach, Tong Zhanyan took a detour away.

Finally, he didn’t forget to share this “good news” with Tian Xinqing. Better to share joy than keep it to oneself; he wouldn’t be the only one tossing and turning that night.

Sure enough, Tian Xinqing didn’t sleep well that night.

Not just Tian Xinqing—the next day, many classmates from their class, both upstairs and downstairs, came running to ask if he had really seen it.

Upon confirming the sighting and learning that the Devil King hadn’t joined the expedition team, the group left in a daze.

This put Tong Zhanyan in an excellent mood.

Qing Jiyue, who had witnessed the entire unfolding of events from the same room, offered the assessment: “Childish.”

With his mood lifted, Tong Zhanyan made a decision.

He emptied his backpack, headed to the training room, and pulled up all the cherry radishes and bok choy except for the seed-saving plants.

Without fertilizer, relying only on water and light, they wouldn’t grow much, even given another half-month. Better to cut them off decisively—sell them for cash and figure out how to get some fertilizer.

He couldn’t count on them anymore, but he still wasn’t ready to give up on the tomatoes.

Tong Zhanyan arrived around two or three in the afternoon. The streets were quiet, but the shop was bustling.

Fang Yiguang and his group were huddled together, whispering about something, their eyes frequently darting toward the reception room inside.

A customer was in the reception room, sounding quite angry and speaking in a very rude tone.

Entering, Tong Zhanyan also glanced toward the inner room.

The shop owner was generally a mild-mannered person, and Tong Zhanyan found it hard to imagine him arguing with anyone.

Inside, the owner sat on the sofa, looking troubled.

Across from him, a man in his fifties or sixties had a flushed face. “…Do you even understand? This item is different from others. Isn’t it perfectly normal for the price to be different…”

Tong Zhanyan looked toward the coffee table between them.

On the table sat two perfectly square brocade boxes. They were open, but the lids rested on top, blocking his view.

Fang Yiguang and the staff jumped at Tong Zhanyan’s sudden appearance. None had noticed him enter.

Fang Yiguang hurried forward. “You’re here. What brings you today?”

Tong Zhanyan took off his backpack and pulled out a plastic bag. “Selling stuff.”

This wasn’t the first time Fang Yiguang had seen Tong Zhanyan use a plastic bag to carry produce, but seeing it again still made the corner of his mouth twitch.

Crops were precious—others would at least use a cardboard box. Tong Zhanyan, however, used a plastic bag. And not just any bag—a recycled one, sourced from who knows where.

“Huh?” Fang Yiguang opened the bag and saw bok choy and cherry radishes. He couldn’t help but ask, “Did these grow from the seeds you bought from our store?”

“Yeah.”

“But you only bought the seeds a month ago?” Fang Yiguang was astonished.

“What’s wrong?” Tong Zhanyan asked, puzzled.

Fang Yiguang froze at the question.

What’s wrong?

What could possibly be wrong?

Cherry radishes and bok choy have shorter growth cycles than most crops, but from sowing to harvest still takes over fifty days. These seeds were only bought a month ago—had Tong Zhanyan already harvested them?

Fang Yiguang frowned. Was Tong Zhanyan pulling his leg?

Tong Zhanyan looked utterly bewildered.

Fang Yiguang opened the bag and counted ten plants in total.

Tong Zhanyan had bought eighteen seeds, twelve of which were cherry radish and bok choy. Most people would save one seed for replanting, so the ten plants matched up.

Could Tong Zhanyan really have grown them?

In just thirty days?

“Hold on a moment.” Fang Yiguang’s expression shifted repeatedly as he carried the bag to the nearby cash register, fetched tools, and began processing them.

When the contents were laid out—cherry radishes and bok choy—Fang Yiguang, already skeptical, couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows again.

Tong Zhanyan’s produce wasn’t entirely without flaws, but most of it was of decent quality.

Particularly one of the bok choy heads—weighing at least thirty-five grams. In his five years working here, he’d rarely seen heads of such quality.

Less time than others, yet better produce…

Fang Yiguang couldn’t help but glance at Tong Zhanyan again.

Unlike others who hovered, fearing mishandling or theft, Tong Zhanyan strolled leisurely near the refrigerated storage where they kept produce.

He’d acted the same way during his first visit to sell goods.

For someone from the outer city, his demeanor was…

In mere moments, Fang Yiguang had already imagined a whole drama of a true young master fallen on hard times.

His thoughts racing, Fang Yiguang’s hands never stopped moving. After having someone nearby assist with the appraisal, he quickly calculated the price. “…These three are of excellent quality. I’ll give you three hundred and two for them. These two… together, that’s twelve thousand three hundred.”

Nodding, Tong Zhanyan was about to inquire about the fertilizer solution when the previously quiet reception room erupted with a roar: “…Impossible! Don’t even think about it. Fifteen thousand is the absolute minimum.”

Caught off guard, Tong Zhanyan startled.

He glanced in that direction.

The moment he recognized the figure, he froze, then immediately strode toward it.

Entering the room, he saw two oranges in a brocade box. His heart skipped a beat, and the words slipped out, “Are these for sale? I’ll buy them.”