Chapter 208 (continued)

In the Interstellar Mall's personal center, you can find Qing Mengzhu's personal information.

He held his breath, opened his personal information, and quickly saw that he was still Junior Grower, but only had 39 percent of the experience required to become Intermediate Grower.

Qing Mengzhu and Ming Chunxi exchanged a glance, their eyes sparkling.

Qing Mengzhu pointed to the number with her slender finger and said, "I remember before harvesting Rice, I was 56 percent less experience than Intermediate Grower."

Ming Chunxi, who often browsed the Interstellar Mall with him, also noticed this. "It seems the progress bar has indeed increased significantly."

Qing Mengzhu: "Right? No wonder the Interstellar Mall reminds us that we need experience in planting staple crops to become the next level of grower. Planting staple crops really trains people."

Qing Mengzhu looked at it happily for a while, then looked at other data in her personal center.

The other data remained unchanged, and there was nothing particularly noteworthy about it, so he looked at it for a while and then put it aside.

Harvesting Rice today was too tiring, so Qing Mengzhu didn't want to move at all. She moved a deck chair to lie under the eaves, enjoying the breeze and the scenery.

Ming Chunxi went to cook, and soon the whole yard was filled with the aroma of home-cooked dishes.

The stir-fried beef with bamboo shoots smelled so good, the tiger-skin green peppers smelled so good, and the braised chicken with scallion oil smelled so good. Qing Mengzhu inhaled the aroma, her heart filled with anticipation for dinner and for life itself.

The rice sent to the factory for drying was dried quickly and brought back.

Qing Mengzhu wanted to reserve a large portion of this batch of rice for seed production, so he had specific requirements for the moisture content of the rice, requiring it to be dried at low temperature to maintain a moisture content of 12%.

Zhao Hexi is very meticulous in his work, and he dries the rice very carefully.

The rice that was transported back was golden and had a subtle rice aroma.

Qing Mengzhu no longer finds the rice prickly; she opens each bag to examine it, even picking up the rice grains with her hands to observe them closely.

When planting Rice, Qing Mengzhu carefully selected rice seeds of "Fine Grade" quality, and now the harvested rice is of "Fine Grade+" quality, with each grain being large and plump.

If he cultivates it for two more years with careful attention, perhaps the Rice can reach the "Superior Grade" quality.

Zhao Hexi stood with his arms crossed, watching Qing Mengzhu inspect the Rice. After he finished, he asked, "How is it? Was this batch of rice dried well?"

Qing Mengzhu praised generously, "Excellent! I'll take it to town later to have the rice milled, and we'll try this batch of new rice today."

Many people here farm, and many middle-aged and elderly people still prefer to grow some Rice for their own consumption. Therefore, there are rice milling shops in the town that offer services such as rice milling, flour milling, and pulping.

Qing Mengzhu often goes to town and is quite familiar with these traditional shops.

He acted immediately, carrying two bags of rice and driving to town to have it milled.

After milling the rice, he made a point of bringing the rice bran back with him.

The rice from the "Fine Grade+" variety also has valuable bran, which can be used to feed hazel grouse, geese, and ducks.

Before returning, Qing Mengzhu thought for a moment, then asked the rice mill owner to give her ten jin of rice, vacuum-packed it, and then found a deliveryman to send a portion to Ming Lexin.

After taking out his phone and sending a message to Ming Lexin, Qing Mengzhu casually called out to Zhou Yan, asking him to come over to his house for some freshly cooked rice after work.

Zhou Yan valued the new rice even more than he did, and immediately called back, "Mengzhu, how are you going to cook the rice? Are you using a rice cooker?"

Qing Mengzhu: "The main problem is that I don't know any other ways to cook rice."

Zhou Yan: "The rice cooker's heat isn't high enough, and the rice isn't fragrant enough. Why don't you wait for me, I'll come and cook it. New rice is different from old rice; it needs to be soaked, steamed, and cooked over high heat with less water to get the best-tasting rice."

Qing Mengzhu agreed without hesitation, "Then you do it. I was worried I wouldn't cook it well and would waste this rare batch of rice."

Zhou Yan: "I should be able to get off work at seven o'clock today, and I'll come over after work."

Zhou Yan kept his word and indeed left work at seven o'clock, bringing a rice steamer with him, saying that rice cooked with it was especially fragrant.

Qing Mengzhu had only seen this kind of rice steamer when she was a child, and was quite surprised. "Brother Zhou, where did you find this rice steamer?"

Zhou Yan: "I bought this a while ago when I was collecting kitchenware to decorate the farm. I can use it to cook rice and also make some rice porridge."

Qing Mengzhu hadn't had rice porridge in a long time, and she strongly agreed, "I think it's good."

Zhou Yan went to the kitchen to cook, Qing Mengzhu and the other two waited in the courtyard.

A delicious aroma wafted from the kitchen, allowing them to determine which stage of the cooking process Zhou Yan had reached.

Zhao Hexi sniffed. "The rice water should be ready by now, it smells so good, that rice water aroma..."

Qing Mengzhu: "We should scoop the rice out and steam it in a rice steamer; it smells so good."

Cooking fresh rice makes your stomach rumble with every step of the process.

They suppressed their impatience and waited in the yard for the delicious meal to be ready.

Zhou Yan didn't make any fancy dishes today, just a table full of simple dishes: stir-fried eggplant, water spinach with garlic, shredded chicken, and steamed fish. Four dishes for four people, but each dish was quite large in portion.

Before serving the main dishes, Qing Mengzhu first fed the little ones.

They also ate white rice today, mixed with shredded chicken and various vegetables cooked in chicken broth, which looked delicious.

As soon as the signal to eat was given, the four little ones eagerly buried their heads in their food bowls and began to eat heartily.

Qing Mengzhu and Ming Chunxi washed their hands again and sat down at the dining table.

The steaming rice in the rice steamer is emitting heat, and its fragrant aroma wafts into everyone's nose.

Zhou Yan said, "Don't wait any longer, let's eat."

Qing Mengzhu sat down and eagerly picked up a mouthful of rice with her chopsticks and put it in her mouth.

The rice cooked from freshly harvested rice is fragrant, sweet, and oily, with large grains, truly as big as sunflower seeds.

The rice grains became sweeter the more you chewed them, with a natural fragrance of grains. Qing Mengzhu felt that he could eat three bowls of white rice even without any side dishes.

After finishing the rice, a sip of warm, sweet rice porridge is absolutely delicious.

The others at the table also said the food was delicious.

Zhao Hexi asked Zhou Yan, "Brother Zhou, how does this rice compare to the top-quality white rice you ate in Japan when you were young?"

Zhou Yan: "It's hard to say. The rice we ate that time was so long ago that I've forgotten what it tasted like; all that's left is the memory of how delicious it was. But today, we ate our own fresh rice, and that delicious memory has been overshadowed."

Zhao Hexi: "That's a bit of a pity, we can't have a proper competition."

Zhou Yan casually remarked, "There are quite a few rice competitions these days. We can take our rice and have a competition to see who's the best."

Qing Mengzhu in surprise, "There's a rice competition too?"

Zhou Yan: "Yes, there are many. Everyone wants to use the competition to make a name for themselves and sell their rice at a higher price. There are many competitions, both domestic and international, but some are very prestigious, while others are less so, the kind where you can win by paying money."

Zhao Hexi said excitedly, "Then I'll look for some high-level competitions when I'm at work tomorrow, and we can give it a try?"

Qing Mengzhu agreed, "Sure, this will help build our company's reputation."

Zhao Hexi has always been very proactive.

He said he wanted to take rice to participate in the competition, and the next day he actually asked his secretary to collect relevant competition information. In the evening, he brought the information over to discuss it with Qing Mengzhu and Ming Chunxi.

Zhao Hexi: "Take a look at this competition— the International Rice Competition, held in early October. They'll select the best rice of the year, awarding gold, silver, and bronze prizes based on appearance, aroma, taste, moisture content, fatty acids, protein, and amylose."

Qing Mengzhu picked up the tablet and looked at it with Ming Chunxi: "Use instruments for identification?"

Zhao Hexi: "Yes, they said that for the sake of fairness, the evaluation will directly use tests such as taste testers, moisture meters, and grain analyzers, and will also have experts and a public jury conduct blind selection to minimize the influence of human subjectivity."