Once the thought appeared in his mind, it took root uncontrollably and grew ever clearer.
Schiller had been Chinese in his previous life, after all. His love for the land was innate. He actually did know how to grow vegetables; Gotham and New York simply had never given him the chance to show off that skill.
Schiller recalled his childhood at the institute. The rooftop door had always been locked, and the cleaning lady had warned him not to go up there. Back then, he had wondered what exactly was on the roof.
Naturally, he had come up with plenty of terrifying possibilities, such as some strange laboratory up there, or an alien spaceship.
Then one day, he followed the director. The little old man carried a hoe and opened the rooftop door, and Schiller saw all sorts of plastic greenhouses set up there. Row after row of ridges were planted with vegetables. The reason they had not let Schiller up was actually because they were afraid he would pull up the seedlings.
Later, the director discovered that Schiller was very interested in the mysterious vegetable patch. Occasionally, he brought him up and taught him how to make furrows, put up greenhouses, sow seeds, fertilize, and water.
At the time, Schiller still could not do much of anything, but he remembered all of it. Later, when he became a university professor, he had even gone to the agricultural college for hands-on practice.
His vegetable-growing skills were actually quite average by Chinese standards, barely enough to keep the plants from dying. But over here, that made him half a professional farmer. Besides, mechanized agriculture had become widespread in the United States too early, to the point that even many professional farmers no longer knew how to plant vegetables by hand.
It