Children and Grandchildren Have Their Own Blessings

"We did make an agreement. Boyang is now the commander of the Trap-Breaking Army, not a professional storyteller. If you want to hear exciting tales, have Uncle Gao tell them. His combat experience is what you'd call truly rich." Lan Tian shook his head slightly.

Gao Shun looked thoroughly embarrassed. "I'm not as eloquent as you or Boyang, sir. I don't know how to tell stories."

Lan Tian smiled. "It doesn't matter if you can't tell stories. Share your insights from war now and then—I'm sure the children would enjoy that just as much. Lu Tie and the others can tell some too. There are plenty of Instructors at Tiger Guards Martial Hall."

"That makes sense." Gao Shun nodded.

Lan Tian rose to his feet as well and called to the group, "Boyang wants to see that Champa Rice. Shall we all go together?"

"We have nothing else to do. Let's go." Gao Shun looked at Lan Ji and extended an invitation.

Lan Ji had intended to return to the Youth Camp, but faced with the blazing look in Gao Shun's eyes, he had no way to refuse his future Academy Supervisor.

The party spurred their horses and galloped straight for the experimental fields outside Guangzhou's North Gate.

Lan Yuan rode ahead, looking left and right. Yet he saw none of the lush green rice shoots he had imagined. All he saw were Agricultural Researchers dressed as farmers, driving oxen to turn the soil with Curved Shaft Plows. Others worked alongside them, burying the planted green manure beneath the mud. On the wasteland beside the experimental fields lay bundle after bundle of withered yellow rice straw.

"What? The Champa Rice has been harvested?" Lan Yuan was greatly startled at the sight. He remembered that two months earlier, at Hoi An