Chapter 29

Dawn came early in summer, and it was already broad daylight outside.

After washing up, he took a watering can and went to water the Luring Grass and the Dragon Rosy Cloud Fruit.

The two puppies woke with a start and trailed sleepily at his heels on their short little legs.

When he approached the Dragon Rosy Cloud Fruit, he found a tender green shoot poking out of its flowerpot.

The shoot was less than half as thick as a fingernail. It might have emerged the night before.

Qing Mengzhu jumped in surprise. "Ah!"

Guard, the more timid of the two puppies, was startled too. He leaped away with a whoosh. "Woof!"

Dharma Protector, on the other hand, happily bit Qing Mengzhu's pant leg. "Woof, woof!"

Qing Mengzhu quickly picked up the flowerpot and stood, carefully probing around the base of the shoot with his finger. He soon found that it wasn't a weed: the Dragon Rosy Cloud Fruit had sprouted.

He hadn't expected the Dragon Rosy Cloud Fruit to actually sprout. He hadn't held out much hope before.

Wonderful!

Qing Mengzhu wanted nothing more than to hug the flowerpot and spin around. After taking two steps on the spot, he quickly came to his senses, pulled out his phone, and opened the Interstellar Mall app.

In his personal center, he found the task to germinate the Dragon Rosy Cloud Fruit, clicked submit, and scanned the sprouted seed.

A light flashed, and the Dragon Rosy Cloud Fruit seedling quickly disappeared. The task changed from "pending completion" to "under review."

He didn't know when the review would be approved, but he was delighted. As long as the Interstellar Mall wasn't scamming him, he felt there shouldn't be much trouble getting it approved.

After putting down the flowerpot, Qing Mengzhu looked at the two puppies still circling on the spot and couldn't resist picking them up and rubbing them all over. They grew excited too, sticking their bottoms in the air and barking at the top of their little puppy voices. "Woof, woof, woof!"

Even after playing with the puppies, he still couldn't calm down, so he grabbed his phone, opened WeChat, and sent Ming Chunxi a message: [Good morning, Brother!]

After sending it, he watched the silent chat screen, smiling for quite a while.

Quite some time later, Ming Chunxi's reply came: [Good morning. In a good mood today?]

Qing Mengzhu: [A fantastic mood!]

He was already in a great mood, and after their chat, he felt even better.

Qing Mengzhu usually didn't check his phone much while working, but today was different. Every few minutes, he pulled it out for a look.

Tan Wenlei, who was working nearby, and Di Caiyong, who had come to collect vegetables, both noticed. They asked him what happy news he had, saying even the tips of his hair looked ready to burst with joy.

He wouldn't tell them, only smiling and saying it was a secret.

The Interstellar Mall's review was quick. By noon, Qing Mengzhu had received a notice that it had been approved.

Standing in the sun, he checked the task reward.

The Interstellar Mall had indeed granted his wish: the reward had been changed from Dragon Rosy Cloud Fruit seeds to 100 grams of marsh shrimp eggs of equal value.

To his surprise, the Interstellar Mall hadn't given him Savage Marsh Shrimp. It said it had detected that there were no Savage Marsh Shrimp in the seller's plane, so to ensure biological safety, it had substituted Oriental river shrimp, which belonged to the same genus and family.

Qing Mengzhu didn't mind what kind of marsh shrimp they were. As long as the quality was good, he was happy.

He carefully checked the description of the Oriental river shrimp he had received in his personal center.

He soon noticed the quality rating: "Superior Grade-." The Oriental river shrimp eggs he had received this time were "Superior Grade-"!

He had been dealing with the Interstellar Mall for over two months, but this was the first time he had received something rated "Superior Grade."

He couldn't help getting excited.

They were Superior Grade! Even "Superior Grade-" was still Superior Grade!

His guess had been right: Good Grade, Fine Grade, Superior Grade. He just didn't know whether there were items of even higher grades above those.

Qing Mengzhu quickly retrieved the Oriental river shrimp eggs.

This time, the Interstellar Mall seemed to have packed the eggs in a glass test tube. A hundred grams wasn't much; the eggs filled a little over half the tube.

Qing Mengzhu held the test tube carefully, a little worried that the warmth of his palm might affect the eggs.

He went to his personal center to check the hatching instructions.

After calming down, he immediately went online and bought a batch of Oriental river shrimp eggs, paying extra for the fastest delivery.

The eggs arrived the next day. He poured the local Oriental river shrimp eggs he had bought online into the river, then washed the plastic container they had come in and put the eggs from the Interstellar Mall inside.

He had examined them: apart from being larger and darker in color, the eggs from the Interstellar Mall looked no different from local Oriental river shrimp eggs.

After switching them, Qing Mengzhu contacted Chen Yi, Tan Wenlei's friend who raised shrimp, and asked him to come help hatch the eggs.

After they agreed on a price, Qing Mengzhu asked, "Brother Chen, do you know any testing institutions? I'd like to have the first batch of eggs or shrimp tested and keep a record. I might be raising shrimp for many years to come."

Chen Yi said, "Sure. I'll send you the details in a bit."

Then Chen Yi couldn't help asking, "Is your generation always this meticulous about farming?"

Qing Mengzhu said, "If I'm more thorough now, it'll make traceability easier later."

Author's note:

See you tomorrow!

Chapter 29

The Oriental river shrimp hatching tank was set up in the living room.

Chen Yi had helped set up the shrimp tank. Because hatching Oriental river shrimp required a great deal of oxygen, he had specifically fitted it with the best oxygenation equipment.

When the people and dogs quieted down, the hum of the equipment could be heard, bringing a little life to the house.

Qing Mengzhu stood in front of the shrimp tank, bending over to look at the eggs inside, his heart full of accomplishment.

As long as nothing went wrong, he would be able to see Oriental river shrimp zoea larvae in half a month.

Around next month, this batch of Oriental river shrimp could be released into the pond, laying the first brick in his grand farming enterprise.

That was assuming the test results for the eggs came back clear.

He had sent more than ten Oriental river shrimp eggs to an authoritative institution for testing.

Now all he had to do was wait for the results.

Although the results weren't out yet, he had a feeling there wouldn't be any problems this time either.

With high hopes for the Oriental river shrimp, Qing Mengzhu threw himself back into his busy daily routine.

Summer vegetables were incredibly productive. He had less than two mu of vegetables, yet he could harvest three to four hundred jin every day. Di Caiyong couldn't even take that much.

He now had to sell some of his vegetables to the Interstellar Mall.

The Interstellar Mall only extracted some substances from the vegetables sold to it, so after the sale, he still had to deal with what was left of them.

For that reason, he was considering digging a dedicated compost pit. The compost bins alone could no longer hold so many vegetables.

As for the pit, he would have to make it bigger, or it certainly wouldn't hold everything in the future either.

Fortunately, he grew a lot of vegetables and needed a lot of fertilizer, so for now, he didn't have too much fertilizer piling up with no way to use it all.

Otherwise, finding a way to sell the fertilizer would be another headache.

He had considered selling fertilizer to the Interstellar Mall before, but unfortunately, it only accepted fertilizer he had fermented with compost starter powder. Other fertilizer was too low-grade to meet its purchasing standards.

That morning, Qing Mengzhu once again came to the fields early to pick vegetables.

Dawn came early in summer, and the sun was already up by the time Di Caiyong arrived to collect the vegetables.

Orange-yellow sunlight spread across the land, drying the dew and leaving the vegetables dry without letting them wilt. They looked to be in excellent condition.

When Di Caiyong reached Qing Mengzhu's vegetable plot, he called out, "Mengzhu, are all the vegetables here?"

Qing Mengzhu looked up from the pepper patch. "Yes, I've picked them all and put them in the vegetable baskets. You can just weigh them. Leave whatever you don't want there, and I'll deal with it later."

Di Caiyong said, "I'll weigh them myself, then?"

Qing Mengzhu said, "Go ahead. Just send me the totals."

With that, Qing Mengzhu went back to squatting in the pepper patch, busy with his work.

Di Caiyong picked out the vegetables he wanted and weighed them one by one, taking photos to keep a record as he went and calculating how much he owed Qing Mengzhu.

After more than half an hour, Di Caiyong finally finished weighing all the vegetables he wanted to buy and loaded them onto his small truck.