Seeds

Zhang Xuezhou's grades at Yucai Middle School were utterly average. Normally, someone like him should have been invisible.

But contrary to what one might expect, he was somewhat well-known at Yucai Middle School.

His fame extended beyond his classmates to the teachers responsible for their education, as well as some people in the neighborhood around the school.

That was thanks to his older sister, Zhang Manqian, a little cow doing a handstand in the sky.

Zhang Manqian was one of three students from the previous class at Yucai Middle School to be admitted to Imperial Capital Ascending Academy, and she had ranked among the top hundred in the province.

If good grades were all she had, Zhang Manqian would merely have been a good student in her teachers' eyes.

But in fact, Zhang Xuezhou's sister was very violent. She was exceptionally skilled at sanda and street fighting, and she had done her share of daring things.

For instance, Zhang Manqian had once beaten up all the local thugs near Yucai Middle School and given them an education that had them "washing their hearts clean and turning over a new leaf."

With a sister like Zhang Manqian, Zhang Xuezhou couldn't keep a low profile even if he wanted to.

But he and Zhang Manqian were polar opposites.

Zhang Manqian had good grades, was physically strong, and excelled at fighting. Zhang Xuezhou was the opposite in every respect.

He could neither follow Zhang Manqian's forceful example and enter an academy in the imperial capital, nor could he suppress the petty crooks in the neighborhood and make those scumbags spit out the dirty money they had swallowed in the past.

When Zhang Xuezhou was short of money, his first thought was to find odd jobs.

Zhang Xuezhou simply couldn't carry on the reputation his sister had carved out. He could only live beneath the glow of "that's Zhang Manqian's younger brother."

He walked slowly down the street.

Zhang Xuezhou didn't walk fast, but he would set out a little early to make sure he could get to his first class on time.

He kept to his schedule with such precision that he would arrive neither a minute early nor a minute late.

"You're Zhang Xuezhou, Zhang Weimeng and Song Fengying's son?"

As Zhang Xuezhou neared the school, he saw a middle-aged man approach him at the gate.

The man's face was utterly unfamiliar. Zhang Xuezhou couldn't recall ever having seen him.

He hesitated before speaking.

"And you are?"

"I'm your father's friend, Zhao Keqing!"

The man smiled, and after confirming Zhang Xuezhou's identity, he extended his right hand.

Zhang Xuezhou didn't like this formality, but for Zhang Weimeng's sake, he held out his hand as well.

In the blink of an eye, a large hand had gripped his tightly.

Pain shot through his hand, and Zhang Xuezhou hissed softly.

That was precisely why he disliked the custom. Weak people generally didn't like shaking hands with strong ones, as it led to awkwardness that was hard to avoid.

"Young man, you need to exercise more. You're so weak a gust of wind could knock you over!"

The middle-aged man smiled apologetically, then patted Zhang Xuezhou on the shoulder.

Seeing Zhang Xuezhou sway from the pat, the man spread his hands sheepishly.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, the middle-aged man mentioned that he had things to do and shouldn't keep Zhang Xuezhou from school. He then turned and left.

"Where did Dad find a friend like that? Did he come to school just to have a look at me? What's so interesting about me?"

Zhang Xuezhou looked at the business card in his palm, which read "Instant Seed Technology Co., Ltd., Zhao Keqing." He couldn't see how Zhang Weimeng and Song Fengying could have any connection to someone in that line of work.

One wrote books, one livestreamed, and one researched genetic seeds, in a field related to genetic agriculture. No matter how he looked at it, none of them had anything in common.

But Zhang Xuezhou soon put the man who called himself "Uncle Zhao" out of his mind.

The adults' social circles had little to do with him, and he rarely had much contact with them.

For him, studying was the only thing that mattered at the moment.

His conversation with Zhao Keqing had evidently delayed him a little.

He turned and entered the school, quickening his pace a little so he wouldn't be late.

Several hundred meters away, Zhao Keqing opened his palm to reveal a seed he had been holding in his hand.

The seed looked much like a grain of wheat. Besides its plump kernel and husk, it had a long needle at the tip, as fine and sharp as a wheat awn.

A tiny bit of blood stained the needle.

The blood was bright red and carried a faint bloody smell. It had evidently only just been drawn.

"The seed showed no reaction indicating it detected a mutated gene. It seems they didn't place the hidden object on their younger son, but as for the others..."

There were four people in the Zhang family: Zhang Weimeng, Song Fengying, Zhang Manqian, and Zhang Xuezhou.

Zhang Xuezhou was the last person he had approached, and also the least likely candidate for his investigation.

Sure enough, the investigation left him deeply disappointed.

He had found nothing unusual in Zhang Xuezhou's blood.

It had no connection whatsoever to the relevant comparison cases.

"What a shame. The information I paid a fortune for on the black market turned out to be so unreliable, and I even wasted a gene sequencing seed!"

Zhao Keqing looked at the bloodstained, spent genetic seed, then tossed it into the grass by the roadside.

His steps were brisk, and after he boarded a tram, Zhao Keqing's figure disappeared into the city.

Time passed no differently in Sudong City than it did in the surrounding areas, but as the sun set and the moon rose, the discarded seed seemed to absorb some kind of essence. Its husk quickly split open, and it began to sprout.

Its two tender leaf buds looked as though a little sunlight would be enough to kill them, yet the long needle resembling a wheat awn had anchored them in the soil.

Despite the wind buffeting them, the buds remained unbelievably steady, steadily drawing nutrients and growing.

The quiet night seemed to be its period of frenzied growth.

From seed to sprout, then to green leaves, it grew like a bamboo shoot in the space of a single night, becoming a green plant nearly half a meter tall.

But when the first rays of sunlight fell on Sudong City, the madly growing plant wilted in an instant, as though someone had seized it by the throat.

Just as it had grown rapidly from a seed, the plant now entered a phase of rapid death, as though its growth had been no more than the fleeting bloom of an epiphyllum.

It appeared to have taken root in the soil, but the soil seemed to provide it with no nourishment at all.

Under the sunlight, the leaves of the rapidly grown plant quickly turned yellow, then dried out.

By sunset, the plant had completely withered. It lay dry among the grass, reduced to a patch of dead blades no different from the rest, no longer conspicuous in the slightest.

As the wind blew, the dry grass lay flat.

Only when the sun set and the moon rose and night fell once more did the withered plant manage to coax a trace of green from its stem.

But its tenacious life did not last.

Night seemed to be its growing period, but its renewed growth on the brink of death was no longer frantic. It was like a struggle to cling to the last breath of life.

With the next sunrise, the parts that had turned green quickly withered, while the previously dried parts broke into fragments and fell onto the soil. Eventually, they decayed and became part of the city's earth.