If he’d known there were crabs and snails, Tong Zhanyan would never have agreed to take the mosquitoes in the first place.

But upon second thought, Tong Zhanyan swallowed his request for a return.

It wasn’t certain that crabs and snails were actually available, and even if they were, it didn’t look like they could be procured in just a day or two.

Earthworms, however, were very real. Now that they’d discovered fish were edible, their next move would likely be to head straight for the lake.

He only had fifty fish in total; two had already died, and if he waited any longer, they might all perish.

After sorting things out with the paleontologists, Tong Zhanyan switched his attention to the fish farm and ordered twenty carp.

When he finished and looked up, he met five pairs of eyes.

Tong Zhanyan briefly explained the situation.

“So it’ll still take a few days to arrive…”

The group looked out at the lake with deep concern. They could keep watch on land, but guarding the lake was useless—what were they to do for the next few days?

The aquatic plants Tong Zhanyan had previously scattered into the lake had long since fully grown; the lake bottom was a sea of green, and the reeds along the shore were nearly chest-high.

There were no fish or shrimp to be seen in the lake.

After circling the lake once more, the group returned to the small building.

The holiday was over, and the next day, the base was bustling again.

As they entered, everyone discussed the ten-day break while heading straight for the fields to check on the crops.

Ten days had passed, and the crops had changed significantly.

The corn and pumpkins—the first to be transplanted into the fields—had grown as tall as a person, while the pumpkin vines had spread out completely, with the largest leaves bigger than a basketball.

Many of them had even begun to bloom.

As for the sweet potatoes, the first batch planted from tubers had already regrown the leaves that had been trimmed, forming a thick layer visible from afar.

The cuttings planted later had already passed their initial acclimatization period; their leaves were standing upright, and it looked like they had taken root.

As for the ones transplanted later, when they left, they were just sparse seedlings barely reaching knee height. Looking at them now, many have grown to thigh height, and the fastest-growing ones have even developed flower buds.

However, the most dramatic changes were seen in the rapeseed and red clover.

The rapeseed was planted even earlier than the corn and pumpkins; it was already as tall as a person before they left. Now, it has transformed into a vast sea of yellow flowers.

This time, we planted even more rapeseed than last time—a full ten mu—giving the flower field the illusion of stretching endlessly into the distance.

Even from a great distance, they could smell the sweet, fresh fragrance of the rapeseed blossoms.

Other crops that have also transformed into seas of flowers include red clover, alfalfa, field bindweed, arrowroot, and field radish.

Since they were broadcast-sown, they grow in a more haphazard yet denser pattern. Most are prolific bloomers, so once they bloom, the flowers are thick and dense everywhere.

The most beautiful of all were the purple vetch, covering over forty mu of land, their flowers displaying a gradient of white with purplish-red tips.

Not only had Ning Langdong, Gu Yunyang, and their group never seen such a spectacle before, but even in Tong Zhanyan’s former world, it would have drawn crowds to stop and linger.

Just as the group was getting excited, Old Xu arrived to say the books had arrived at the gate.

Tong Zhanyan called over a few people and told them to go fetch the books.

Having heard the books had arrived, Gu Yunyang and his group—who had been eagerly awaiting them—immediately stopped looking at the flowers and rushed over to help.

About ten minutes later, the group gathered with eager anticipation in the open space near the small building.

In the center of the crowd, Tong Zhanyan walked up to the tricycle and pulled out a copy to take a look.

The book was A4-sized and not too thick, but perhaps because it was printed on high-quality synthetic paper, it felt quite substantial in his hands.

Inside, there were over forty sections, with a clean and neat layout, and some pages even featured color illustrations.

Those images were all taken by Old Xu and Old Wang at the base.

The cover photo was also taken by them—a bird’s-eye view of the base when Tong Zhanyan had only cleared about twenty mu of land.

The base spanned over a thousand mu; even with trees and grass planted, it looked like a barren wasteland from above. Yet his twenty mu stood in stark contrast, bursting with vibrant greenery.

The stark contrast gave a powerful sense of a promising future.

The title was simple, just four characters: *Planting Guide*

After finishing, Tong Zhanyan stepped aside to let the crowd help themselves.

The crowd immediately swarmed forward.

Meanwhile, the viewers in the livestream could only watch helplessly.

“I want one so bad.”

“Willing to pay top dollar.”

“Don’t even think about it, buddy. Who do you think would sell?”

“A photocopy would do.”

“I want one so bad, waaah…”

“A historic moment—I’ve already recorded it.”

……

Up until now, their farming had been completely haphazard and reliant on luck. This was the first time they’d ever had a book to use as a reference.

Once they’d received it, the group at the base poured over it again and again, reluctant to put it away for a long time.

Tong Zhanyan waited a while longer, until everyone had had their fill of marveling at it, before he finally got them organized to get back to work.

Ten days’ worth of work had piled up.

The manure in the chicken, duck, and goose pens was ready to be shoveled out; the pigsty needed cleaning; there were piles of crops in the fields that needed their flowers and leaves pinched off; and over a hundred acres of crops needed pollinating.

After another round of chatter, the group scattered to get to work.

Tong Zhanyan put away his copy of the manual and headed toward the field of radishes and Chinese cabbage.

The first batch of radishes and Chinese cabbage planted would be ready in about ten days, so Tong Zhanyan planned to plant the final batch to complete the cycle.

Just past nine o’clock, as Tong Zhanyan had just finished scattering the seeds into the ground, a group from the Paleontology Department contacted him.

Tong Zhanyan thought they were coming to deliver mosquitoes, but instead, they were there to discuss crabs and snails.

After discussing it, they decided to go help Tong Zhanyan look for them, though he shouldn’t get his hopes up, as the chances of finding them were slim.

All the creatures at the sanctuary had been collected bit by bit from the outside world—no easy feat, since the creatures could run away and were already scarce to begin with.

It was common for them to go out on a tip and come back empty-handed.

As for the ones they did find, their longest search—spanning nearly five years—involved combing the same area over and over.

The crabs and snails were from over a decade ago.

Back then, someone had photographed a crab in the mountains. Finding it strange and suspecting it might be some kind of mutant creature, they posted the photo online.

Upon discovering this, they immediately contacted the person, clarified the situation and location, and sent a team out right away.

At that time, they had even fewer people than they do now, and with severe funding shortages, after six months of fruitless efforts, they had no choice but to give up.

It wasn’t that their expedition yielded nothing; their only find was an empty snail shell.

Judging by the condition of the shell, the snail had likely died within the past two years.

“I understand. You’ve done your best,” Tong Zhanyan said.

Conservation work is never simple; sometimes, even after ten or twenty years, you might not see any results.

They’ve persevered this long purely out of passion, and the fact that they’ve managed to protect so many species is already remarkable.

Except for the mosquitoes.

Seeing that Tong Zhanyan understood, the person speaking with him let out a sigh of relief and ended the call.

Tong Zhanyan opened a browser, searched for their website, and donated three million.

He certainly wouldn’t need that much just to find crabs and snails, so he’d consider the remainder a contribution toward their other conservation projects.

Two hours later, the paleontology team contacted Tong Zhanyan again—this time, the mosquitoes had actually arrived.

Tong Zhanyan went personally to pick them up.

Probably knowing he could keep them alive, the other party brought two-thirds of the mosquitoes from their base this time.

They were all long-legged mosquitoes, a full three hundred or so.

There were both adults and larvae, packed into a transparent box with water at the bottom and a half-height partition on top.

When they showed them to Tong Zhanyan, he had to force himself not to slap the box.

Tong Zhanyan had the mosquitoes taken straight to the lake to be raised.

Upon hearing that he was raising mosquitoes to feed the fish, the few people who had been so moved just moments ago—their eyes red and voices choked with emotion—barely managed to keep their smiles.

Given the precedent of the parasitic flies, they didn’t completely lose their composure. After huddling together and whispering for a while, and after contacting the others, they steeled themselves and, with pained expressions, placed the box in a secluded spot on the left side of the lake, near the cliff.

As they left, they looked back every few steps, as if what they’d brought to feed the fish were their own children.

Since they were already there, they took the opportunity to check on the bees as well.

The dung beetles and scarab beetles were still missing, the ants and bees had just finished a breeding cycle and showed no significant changes, and the lacewings and parasitic flies were still ineffective, though many cabbage white butterflies had already pupated.

This instantly made them forget about those poor mosquitoes, their faces lighting up with excited smiles.

While Tong Zhanyan let them enjoy themselves, his mind was filled with the images of Old Xu and Old Wang—their faces straining to hold back their words.

They had picked only a small portion of this batch of strawberries; the rest, along with the fruit, had been fed entirely to the cabbage white butterflies.

Now, the two men regarded these cabbage white butterflies as if they were their fathers’ murderers.

Especially when they thought of Tong Zhanyan’s plan to release them into the base, the look in their eyes as they stared at the butterflies was filled with murderous intent.

Tong Zhanyan even worried that they might sneak in under the cover of night to kill those cabbage white butterflies while he wasn’t looking.

Fortunately, strawberries are perennials that can live for two or three years, so there’s no need to go out of their way to plant anything else to feed those cabbage white butterflies.

Around noon, the people who came to deliver the mosquitoes finally left.

After they left, Tong Zhanyan went back to continue his work.

Two days later, the carp arrived.

Since they were purchased to deal with the earthworms, Tong Zhanyan didn’t ask for fingerlings like before, but instead bought medium-sized fish nearly four fingers wide.

He had considered buying fully grown fish, but they were too large. Given the scarcity of food and the fact that creatures in this world were exceptionally aggressive, they might end up attacking the grass carp.

As usual, Tong Zhanyan first kept them in a water tank to flush out their digestive tracts.

With the fish settled, Tong Zhanyan went to check on the corn seedlings he’d been raising.

They were ready for transplanting.

Tong Zhanyan went to the warehouse to fetch some transplanting pots, brought a small stool, and began repotting them by himself.

Six hundred square meters of corn was no small task, but he didn’t ask anyone else for help. After all, everyone else was even busier than he was right now—and it was the kind of busyness he welcomed.

As the soil in the fields grew increasingly fertile from repeated applications of manure, the weeds finally erupted in full force.

Previously, you’d have to walk several steps just to spot a single weed, and even then, it would be barely sprouting.

Now, however, he could step on three weeds every four steps. Coupled with the ten-day break, many of the weeds had even grown taller than the crops.

Weeds compete with crops for nutrients.

For the next two weeks, they would be busy pinching off flowers and leaves and pollinating the plants; they simply had no time for transplanting, and given the sheer volume, transplanting was out of the question anyway.

After much internal struggle and several rounds of discussion, Old Xu and Old Wang finally made up their minds: pull them out.

Old Xu, who went first, was heartbroken.

But as they winced through the pain, they realized that, forget about transplanting them one by one—even just pulling them out, those two hundred mu of land would keep their group of over three hundred people busy for four or five days…

It took every ounce of self-control for Tong Zhanyan to resist reminding them that these plants would simply grow back once pulled.

That would have been a bit unkind.

Though he really wanted to do just that.

Three days later, judging that the time was right, Tong Zhanyan called two men and took the carp to the lakeside.

No fish had been floating belly-up in the lake these past few days, but it was still a sword hanging over their heads—they had to resolve the issue quickly.

Before releasing the fish, Tong Zhanyan, as usual, filled the tank with some lake water first to let them acclimate.

While waiting, Tong Zhanyan went to check on the mosquitoes.

The box was open; the flying adult mosquitoes were long gone, and only a few wriggling larvae remained in the water.

Half an hour later, Tong Zhanyan released the fish into the lake.

The mosquitoes couldn’t possibly multiply fast enough to feed all the carp; for the time being, they’d still have to rely on the shrimp.

But there were only two hundred shrimp.

Worried, Tong Zhanyan contacted the paleontology team to inquire about their progress.

They replied quickly, saying they had arrived at the location and were conducting a search. Finally, they sent him a bunch of photos and videos.

Forests and grasslands with no signs of human presence, a tent camp, and that small stream not far away—it looked as though they had ventured deep into some remote wilderness.

Tong Zhanyan didn’t know what else to say; after reminding them to stay safe, he didn’t reply further.

He took another close look at the small stream in the photos.

The image reminded him of something: the base was built on agricultural foundations, and few crops grow on rocks, so the base had soil but hardly any stones.

His lake was the same, but this wouldn’t work.

Rocks not only provide fish and shrimp with places to hide from danger and reduce stress, but they are also the primary sites for their reproduction.

Especially the latter point—some fish and shrimp simply won’t reproduce if they can’t find a suitable spot.

He wanted them to form an ecological chain, so reproduction was essential.

After looking at it for a while longer, Tong Zhanyan contacted the construction crew to ask about the rocks.

If placed in the lake, pebbles were the top choice, and they couldn’t all be large—there needed to be a mix of sizes.

These stones are quite common, but the problem is that for use at the base, they must have an infection rate of no more than 50%.

This poses a problem.

Before the protective shield was established, pollution was already widespread throughout the world. In the millennia since its establishment, while pollution hasn’t continued to worsen, the contaminated areas haven’t improved either.

The situation was better than Tong Zhanyan had anticipated. While pebbles with naturally low infection rates were hard to find, the methods used to reduce soil infection rates could also be applied to them, though the results were relatively less effective.

Tong Zhanyan immediately ordered ten truckloads.

Since he was going to use them, he couldn’t just put them in the lake; Tong Zhanyan planned to cover the entire stream.

Covering the entire river would require at least two or three hundred truckloads, so Tong Zhanyan put that idea on hold for now.

After paying the deposit, Tong Zhanyan led a group of people to the trucks.

The others returned to the small mansion, while Tong Zhanyan took a walk around the back gate.

Qing Jiyue had previously told him that, if all went smoothly, he would be back in a month; it had now been a month.

He had asked Qing Suifeng, who explained that the situation was worse than they had anticipated, so the mop-up operation was proceeding rather slowly.

Qing Suifeng was Qing Jiyue’s father; if anything happened to Qing Jiyue, he wouldn’t just stand by and do nothing, but Tong Zhanyan was still a little worried.

Many of the people at the back gate had come from the front lines, so they were better informed.

After asking around and confirming that everything was indeed fine with Qing Jiyue and the others, Tong Zhanyan finally let out a sigh of relief.

That afternoon, Tong Zhanyan spent the entire time helping out with the flower-picking.

When he emerged from the rapeseed fields at dusk, his head was covered in petals.

Even as he slept that night, he could still smell the fragrance of the rapeseed flowers.

The next day, just as Tong Zhanyan was getting ready to go back, Tian Xinqing came to find him.

“The livestream?”

“So many people want that book. The chat has been flooded with requests for days. Look…”

After a moment’s hesitation, Tong Zhanyan nodded. “Then you tally up exactly how many people want it. Later, I’ll have Old Xu print another batch.”

If we’re selling this, we definitely can’t have the school foot the bill.

Printing it ourselves isn’t a big deal, but shipping is a hassle—packaging, filling out forms, verifying orders, and shipping. There’s a lot to handle.

But with so many people at the base now, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

“I’ll get right on it.” Tian Xinqing’s face lit up instantly.

That evening, Tian Xinqing came running over, overjoyed, to tell him that there were already 260,000 pre-orders.

Tong Zhanyan immediately ruled out shipping from the base, passing the buck to Old Xu and Old Wang and telling them to figure it out themselves.

Over 200,000 copies—unless they spent the next two weeks doing absolutely nothing, there was no way they could ship them all.

He didn’t have time to waste on this.

After sending Tian Xinqing on his way, Tong Zhanyan turned back to transplanting the corn.

With their seed viability already boosted, they’d grow well even without transplanting; transplanting just made them grow faster.

A greenhouse without a drainage system at the bottom is essentially a giant flowerpot with no drainage holes.

It’s highly likely that while the topsoil has already cracked from dryness, the soil below remains soggy, making root rot a major risk.

This makes planting experience and technique all the more crucial.

Tong Zhanyan wasn’t worried about the plants failing to take root; he was more concerned about whether the corn could outcompete the wheat.

For this reason, he deliberately spent some time planning his layout before he began loosening the soil and digging furrows.

After finishing the digging, Tong Zhanyan inspected the area once more before starting the transplanting.

Six hundred square meters is nearly one mu; it took him almost a full day to plant it all by himself.

After transplanting, Tong Zhanyan watered the plants as usual to help them settle in, then went back to the warehouse to gather all the fans and set them to full power, blowing air directly at the crops.

He also turned the ventilation system overhead up to maximum.

The corn adapted well; five days later, they had passed the acclimatization period and began growing in earnest.

The wheat would mature in twenty days, so it was still too early to plant it now.

After finishing up here, Tong Zhanyan went to water and fertilize the orange trees and pinch off their flowers.

Many of the earliest-blooming orange trees had already set fruit, but it takes about half a year from flowering to ripening, so even though nearly a month had passed, the fruits were still only about the size of soybeans.

The orange grove was close to the pigsty, so Tong Zhanyan took the opportunity to check on the piglets.

After about twenty days, the piglets had grown to about four or five times their original size, and their skin was no longer the bright red it had been at birth; it had turned a pale pink.

As they grew, their energy levels began to run a bit too high.

When Tong Zhanyan arrived, the sow was so annoyed she was pacing back and forth across the pen, grunting all the while, looking as if she’d have beaten the piglets herself if she hadn’t given birth to them.

Tong Zhanyan was at a loss for words, pondering the tasks of weaning, separating the piglets, and castrating them.

Newborn piglets rely solely on their mother’s milk to survive, with a nursing period lasting over twenty days. Once the nursing period ends, the piglets are separated from the sow.

Time-wise, it was already sufficient; judging by the sow’s demeanor, her patience was nearly exhausted.

Weaning and separation weren’t difficult; the real hassle was castration.

In his previous life, piglets were castrated five to seven days after birth. At this stage, the piglets are small, the incisions are minor, and they’re still protected by maternal antibodies, so they recover faster.

But given the sow’s condition right after giving birth, let alone harming the piglets—she wouldn’t even let anyone get close—so he had no choice but to give up.

This time, the weaning and separation were conveniently carried out together.

After inspecting the piglets, Tong Zhanyan went outside and walked around the pig pens.

There were five pens in a row, and the farm currently had four rows—exactly twenty pens in total.

To separate the piglets, they would need to build more pens.

There was plenty of open space nearby, but the question was how many more to build.

After giving it some thought, Tong Zhanyan contacted the construction crew.

The next day, a group of workers arrived.

When they came, they brought along the river stones Tong Zhanyan had ordered earlier.

Tong Zhanyan had the stones dumped directly on the open ground by the entrance, not inside the farm.

The stones were clearly handpicked—varying in size—but every truckload was clean and free of any debris.

Tong Zhanyan had a water pump set up and hoses run to the open area outside the gate. He then called over several dozen people to wash all the stones before hauling them inside.

While the others were busy, Tong Zhanyan led the construction crew over to the pig pens.

This was the third time the pig pens had been renovated. After hearing Tong Zhanyan’s instructions, the group got to work with great efficiency.

There were nine piglets in total.

Currently, there is only one breeding pair left, making further breeding impossible, so Tong Zhanyan planned to take this opportunity to raise another pair.

This brought the total to eleven pigsties, arranged in rows of five—three rows in all.

The purple vetch and field radishes had already bloomed and would be ready for harvest soon. Once the seeds were collected, Tong Zhanyan planned to start clearing new land immediately.

The seed-setting capacity of the red clover and the soil-enriching radishes is quite good; a single plant can yield two to three hundred seeds at a time.

With the red clover and soil-enriching radishes from one hundred mu of land, if all the seeds are used, the next batch will be enough to cultivate three hundred mu.

If he does that, he’ll have a full five hundred mu of land.

Going from 200 acres to 500 acres isn’t simply a matter of doubling the size—especially when it comes to fertilizer.

Even if this batch of rapeseed is planted extensively, and even if there are 200 acres of crop seedlings to compost, that still won’t be nearly enough.

He planned to increase the number of chickens, pigs, ducks, and geese before those fields were ready for planting. He also intended to buy some sheep and rabbits—animals he’d wanted to raise before but hadn’t gotten around to.

So this time, he had six rows of pigsties built—a full thirty pens.

After giving his instructions, Tong Zhanyan asked Su Yanran to keep an eye on things and headed to the front gate.

Some of the river stones had already been washed.

Tong Zhanyan loaded them onto a cart, preparing to personally lead the team to place them.

The lake and streams already contained aquatic plants, fish, and shrimp, so they had to be extra careful during the placement. Moreover, they had to spread the stones out as evenly as possible—they couldn’t be piled together.

Once they reached the lakeshore, Tong Zhanyan demonstrated the process, and the group gradually got the hang of it.

The stones were heavy, and to lay them as flat as possible, they had to wade into the water. Tong Zhanyan had expected this to be hard work, but it turned out the group was having a great time.

Mutant plants and creatures lurked everywhere outside the protective shield, and the frenzy within the shield weighed heavily on everyone’s minds. They rarely had the chance to play in the water, let alone with so many people together.

If it weren’t for the fish and shrimp in the water, they would have started a full-blown water fight.

The group was having a blast, and Tong Zhanyan was even happier. He turned around, went back to the entrance, and dragged more stones over for them to play with.

From the lake to the streams up and down the mountain, Tong Zhanyan had initially thought ten cartloads of stones might be too much, but in reality, if they hadn’t reined it in later, they might have fallen short.

Everyone’s clothes were completely soaked. After they finished dropping the stones, Tong Zhanyan sent them straight back to school.

It wasn’t until the third day that the water cleared completely.

Tong Zhanyan went by every morning and evening for three days to check if any fish or shrimp had been scared to death.

For them, this was a truly earth-shattering upheaval.

After finishing up with the fish and seeing that the newly built pigsty was almost dry, Tong Zhanyan contacted the farm and made an appointment to have the pigs castrated.

A little later, Tong Zhanyan mentioned this to Su Yanran.

Upon hearing that the piglets would be weaned and separated into different pens, Su Yanran breathed a sigh of relief; the sow had been attacking the piglets every day recently, and it had even scared him.

It was a good thing they could be separated.

Upon hearing about the pig castration, Su Yanran’s expression instantly became a picture of sheer horror.

Just like with pig births, he had never witnessed a pig castration before, and the very idea of it was enough to send shivers down his spine.

Ning Langdong and his group shared the same horrified expressions; they had never seen it either.

Early the next morning, the four men from the farm arrived.

Gu Yunyang and his group immediately dropped what they were doing and gathered around to watch the spectacle.

When they were catching the pigs, the sow was a bit restless, but her reaction wasn’t too violent.

The castration took place outside the pigpen.

Since the pigs were already grown and not as easy to control as when they were young, the four men administered anesthetics to them.

Up to this point, everything was still relatively normal—until the lead butcher began to wield his knife.

Though drugged and unresponsive, the pig’s movements made the blade seem as if it were slashing at the crowd around them, causing a collective gasp of horror.

Su Yanran, who was in charge of raising poultry and livestock, saw the scene. He froze for a moment, then felt as if his own heart had been sliced open, the pain overwhelming him instantly.

“…Does it have to be this way?” Su Yanran looked at Tong Zhanyan with the pleading eyes of an elderly father. “Why don’t we just call it off? The pigs we buy from outside aren’t aggressive after a while; they’re definitely gentler.”

Hearing this, the others also looked at Tong Zhanyan with pleading expressions.

They had watched those little piglets grow up; they couldn’t bear to see this scene at all.

Tong Zhanyan’s lips twitched. “We have to castrate them.”

This wasn’t a matter of temperament, nor was it about meat quality—he had no intention of eating them. The issue was that if they weren’t castrated, they would go into heat.

Of the pigs he currently raised, aside from the two breeding sows, all the others had been castrated, so Su Yanran and the others had never seen this before.

Uncastrated pigs, once they reach maturity, go into heat on average once a month, and each episode lasts two to four days.

Put simply, that means they’ll be causing a ruckus all year round.

These piglets are the second batch, so their temperaments might be a bit better—but that’s only when they’re not in heat. Who knows what they’ll be like when they actually start acting up?

In his previous world, even pigs with no infection rate issues could get quite aggressive when they were in heat.

Seeing Tong Zhanyan’s resolute stance, Su Yanran immediately wanted to say a few more words, but Ning Langdong and Tian Xinqing, standing nearby, quickly stepped forward to lead him away.

They couldn’t bear to watch the scene either, but Tong Zhanyan surely had his reasons.

Su Yanran wasn’t the only one who couldn’t bear to watch; the students and the people from the back gate felt the same way. Before long, the open area that had been packed with people was left with only twenty or thirty people remaining.

Tong Zhanyan was at a loss for words.

More than two hours later, all the piglets had been castrated.

Tong Zhanyan placed them separately into a new pigpen.

“They might squeal for a while,” the farmhand warned.

Tong Zhanyan nodded; he’d never raised pigs before, but he had a general idea.

He saw a few people off.

When he returned later, Su Yanran and his group had already gathered around again, eager to check on the piglets.

They were still asleep.

After taking a look himself, Tong Zhanyan turned away to attend to other tasks.

By evening, the piglets began waking up one by one, followed immediately by a chorus of squeals.

Su Yanran and the others were already feeling distressed; seeing the piglets in that state, their hearts felt as if they were being stabbed with a knife, slice by slice, until they were reduced to a sieve.

The new pigpen was right next to the old one, and the sow, hearing her piglets’ pitiful cries, grew extremely agitated.

She kept ramming the walls and the door, trying to get out.

Hearing her, the piglets squealed even more frantically.

Seeing this scene, Su Yanran and the others felt even worse.

They stayed by the pigpen, unwilling to move a step away.

Later, after the students left, Su Yanran and the others continued to stand guard with the people at the back door.

The next day, when Su Yanran and the others looked at Tong Zhanyan with dark circles under their eyes, their gazes were filled with accusation and resentment.

Tong Zhanyan had no heart.

He wasn’t just cruel to the crops; he was just as cruel to the piglets.

Tong Zhanyan found it amusing.

Not wanting to upset them further, Tong Zhanyan went alone to the purple vetch plants while everyone else worked.

The purple vetch needed pollination, too, but there were simply too many to pollinate individually. So, after a few rounds, he resorted to shaking them with a stick to pollinate them.

This method was simple, and Tong Zhanyan was actually glad for the break.

During lunch, Tian Xinqing and Old Xu came to see him together.

The book was so unique—it was practically a historical artifact—that even if they didn’t grow any plants at all and just bought it to keep, the group was still thrilled.

As a result, pre-orders for the book surged to over 600,000 in just a few days, and the numbers kept climbing.

That was far too many copies to ship via courier, so Old Xu had already arranged with the printing plant to have them distributed directly to bookstores.

Tong Zhanyan had no objections.

After confirming the details, the two went back to work.

Tong Zhanyan was about to go fertilize the corn in the greenhouse when he noticed an unread message on his device.

The message was from Qing Jiyue.

The moment he saw the name, Tong Zhanyan’s heart skipped a beat. Had Qing Jiyue returned?

He immediately opened the message to read it.

Qing Jiyue had indeed returned from his trip.

He had checked in with Tong Zhanyan as soon as he entered the safe zone; now he was handling follow-up handoffs with others and wouldn’t be able to reply until later.

Tong Zhanyan couldn’t help but let a smile curve his lips as he quickly replied, “Are you hurt? Contact me as soon as you’re free.”

Qing Jiyue didn’t reply.

Tong Zhanyan was in a surprisingly good mood, and even his steps felt light and brisk.

Some time passed; the corn had grown to thigh height, and it wouldn’t be long before the wheat could be planted.

After applying the fertilizer, Tong Zhanyan checked his terminal—Qing Jiyue still hadn’t replied. He decided to head over to the pigsty to take a look.

The sow was weaning her piglets and seemed a bit restless, though she wasn’t causing a major commotion.

The piglets had gotten over the initial pain and had stopped crying.

Tong Zhanyan’s mood instantly improved.

On the way back, Tong Zhanyan glanced at his phone again; Qing Jiyue still hadn’t finished his work.

After thinking it over, Tong Zhanyan decided to contact the farm and tell them he wanted to buy some more livestock.

He currently had fifty individual pens in the pigsty, but including those nine piglets, he only had twenty-nine pigs in total, so he planned to buy twenty-one more.

Nineteen castrated pigs and a new pair of breeding pigs.

As for sheep and rabbits, he planned to get ten of each.

Rabbits reproduce quickly; it won’t be long before they’re everywhere.

Sheep manure makes excellent fertilizer, and Tong Zhanyan would actually like to raise a hundred or so, but since they’re large and eat a lot, he’ll start with just ten for now.

The other party replied quickly, saying they would arrange it as soon as possible.

Tong Zhanyan glanced over at Qing Jiyue’s end.

Qing Jiyue had already replied that he was done with his work.

Tong Zhanyan immediately sent a communication request.

The screen switched almost instantly, and Qing Jiyue’s face appeared on the display.

The moment he saw him, the smile on Tong Zhanyan’s face gradually faded.

A month of high-intensity operations had taken a greater toll on Qing Jiyue than he had anticipated. Qing Jiyue had lost a significant amount of weight, and his complexion was pale—whether due to the sun or a flare-up of his wounds, he couldn’t tell.

Qing Jiyue knew his current appearance was a bit unsettling, so he took the initiative to change the subject. “I brought you a gift.”

“What?”

“It’s exactly what you wanted most.”

Tong Zhanyan guessed almost immediately, and the look in his eyes as he gazed at Qing Jiyue grew even more intense. “You?”

Qing Jiyue held up the bag in his hand. “It’s rice. There wasn’t any around here before—someone must have discarded it after a failed experiment…”

After sharing the surprise, Qing Jiyue was about to say a few more words when he suddenly snapped back to reality.

Blood rushed to his head, and his previously pale face flushed with color; for a moment, he forgot what he was going to say.

“Come back early,” Tong Zhanyan said.