Ch20 - The Divine Farmer Goes Online

As summer vacation drew closer, the first canteen switched to keeping only one floor open for the students and teachers that still remained on campus. The vegetables, which usually ran out quickly, were suddenly in surplus. Luckily, there were some families still living in the CU that would take them. 

Along with the chili peppers, the surplus of fresh vegetables would be sold to family members at a staff price. There was even a group chat where they would send messages when it was time to collect the crops. Every family who wanted to buy them would go down to the canteen and look through the produce laid down on the table.

Cui QiChao had no need to improve on his recipes for the canteen, so he spent his time tending to the fruits and vegetables growing on his home’s balcony. It was unlike when he first came, with a pot of fake flowers, and was now filled with different varieties of crops, just like in the university.

The watermelons Cui QiChao planted a while ago were about to ripen. It was due to his dedicated care to turn them over every couple of days that they became round with a beautiful color and appearance, and the patch of grass underneath them added on to make the surrounding much more pleasing.

Cui QiChao split open two ripened watermelons to celebrate both himself and the canteen staff’s hard work. 

Cui QiChao made sure to pluck the melon at a specific time—the melon skin was thin and crisp, and there was a clean snap as Cui QiChao cut it open, revealing a vibrant piece of red pulp with a slight sheen of grain on the surface. It was perfect, watermelons like this tasted the sweetest. As more and more of the watermelon was pried open, the staff all exclaimed ‘wow’. It really was incomparable appearance-wise to any watermelons they had in the past.

Cui QiChao split it again and again, cutting the flesh into square pieces with a knife. He let it all fall into a bowl in front of him, hearing the plop as it soaked in its own juices. Everyone watched, holding toothpicks and forks and chopsticks, waiting for him to finish.

This was a melon Cui QiChao had put in the freezer for a while, so there was still condensation on the skin. The meat was crispy and cold, breaking apart in their mouths easily, and juice exploded on their tongues til it dripped from the corners of their lips. The inside of the meat was even sweeter than the outside, and it perfectly chased away the summer heat.

“This melon is just too sweet!” Li TingMei, also known as Chef Li, was probably the only person willing to stop eating to praise the watermelon. There were absolutely no faults, nothing even remotely bad she could find.

Beautifully round and smooth from the outside, no protrusions on the skin. Fragrant and rich, with a refreshing sweetness. And the most important part—the flesh that held that bit of grain along with a crisp crunch. She could taste the depth of the watermelon and it checked off her entire list for an ideal watermelon that she’d only ever had in her dreams.

After taking two more bites, Li Tingmei thought, right, the watermelon also has a few seeds!

Cui QiChao only took a bite of a piece before picking out the seeds and feeding them to XiaoBai.

XiaoBai couldn’t eat as fast as other humans, so as it slowly ate the seeds from Cui QiChao’s hands, the juices would seep down his palm and all over his hands. Cui QiChao silently got a paper towel to wipe it away. 

As XiaoBai ate, it gave Cui QiChao a look of guilt. It always felt like it was living life like an immortal, spoiled beyond belief. If it wasn’t for Cui QiChao still refusing to let it get on the couch, it would feel like it was currently dreaming.

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It was well worth the hype—just imagine, during the hottest days of the summer, how relaxing and cooling it would be to eat a sweet and icy cold watermelon. 

Meng Chang felt smug and mischievous, videoing himself chowing down on the watermelon and sending it to the class group chat, “Boss Cui’s melon has finally ripened…”

In an instant, the chat was pouring with replies from his classmates.

Just the mere sound and sight of Meng Chang happily eating the watermelon had them all craving for it. While they also had watermelons in their homes, they already knew it wouldn’t be as sweet and fulfilling as the watermelon Meng Chang was eating. Even the way he devoured it made it look delicious and tempting.

“I want to go back to school at once!” 

“I’m not happy. I’ve been thinking about watermelon for several months, but I haven’t had my share of it. I strongly request that the canteen adjust the time they harvest the watermelon. Plant the watermelons in autumn, and harvest in September!”

“I reject you spreading toxic content! I suggest we kick Meng Chang out of the group!”

Meng Chang teased them more by sending them an audio clip of him showing off to the students who weren’t at school: “Let me tell you guys, this watermelon is sweet and delicious. There’s only a limited supply of it too—I really am too fortunate to be able to eat it. There’s only 100 and with the way we’ve been eating it, it’ll be gone within the next few days. There’s even a video from an auntie who recorded Boss Cui slicing it up himself, the skin was thin and the flesh red and vibrant. It made me want to bury my head inside to gnaw on it—of course, eating it this way is also good. It tastes sweet, really just perfectly sweet.”

After he was done faithfully reporting the glory of the watermelon to his classmates, Meng Chang happily closed his class’s group chat. But just as he was about to continue eating, he saw his father calling him. He rushed out of the noisy canteen to pick up the call. 

“Hello? Dad, oh…okay, what’s the situation? I’ll find a paper to take down notes and after I return, I’ll post it there to ask about it.” Meng Chang turned around to look for paper and pen around the suggestion box near the door, and listened to what his dad said while jotting it down.

When he was done writing, Meng Chang looked up and found that Cui QiChao was standing next to him, bent over to watch him write.

Meng Chang felt his heart almost stop from fright. “…Boss Cui.”

“What are you writing about?” Cui QiChao stared at the paper in curiosity. He initially thought Meng Chang was writing a suggestion so he came over, but the paper just had the words falling flowers and fruits, no insects, intact leaves, and so on. Then again, Cui QiChao thought to himself that it was probably strange if someone was so hardworking that they actually wrote suggestions during the holidays. 

“Ah, I’m sorry, Boss Cui. I didn’t have any pen and paper on me, so I just used the ones for the suggestion box.” Meng Chang fumbled an apology.

Cui QiChao waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m wondering what you’re writing down.” He stared at him and asked, “What kind of crop is this?”

“It’s my father’s chili pepper that he grew in the greenhouse.” Meng Chang scratched his head and continued explaining. “The fruits and flowers wilted out of nowhere, and he’s a little anxious. There seemed to be no reason, so he asked me to put it out on the internet to see if any experts could help him.”

Meng Chang’s family worked in the farming industry, and ever since he could properly use the internet, he was often sent onto agricultural websites whenever his family experienced a problem they had regarding farming. 

Cui QiChao finished reading the letter and said, “Tell your father to pull out one plant first to see how the root developed. If it’s the root, then it should be improper fertilization. Tell him to reduce nitrogen fertilizer. If it’s not the root, then that means there’s too much humidity, so the plant is having a hard time pollinating. You have to strengthen the ventilation and dehumidification.”

“…” Meng Chang stared at Cui QiChao and was suddenly reminded that all the peppers and vegetables in the school were planted under the guidance of Boss Cui. He’d never received advice from him directly before, so Meng Chang forgot how well-versed Cui QiChao was regarding farming. Somehow, this situation seemed very surreal.

How should he describe it? If he just judged Cui QiChao based on his appearance instead of listening to his words at this moment, he would fully believe that Cui QiChao was talking about finance-related topics…

Meng Chang coughed and cleared his thoughts. “Thank you, Boss Cui. I’ll tell my dad right away.” He quickly sent a text to tell his father everything Cui QiChao told him. Judging on the pleasant changes the first canteen went through and the high quality of the dishes now, he felt that Boss Cui was no worse than the seniors and experts on the website, so it would definitely be good to listen to him. 

“By the way, where were you going to ask the experts online?” Cui QIChao asked.

Meng Chang showed him an app he used often. “It’s this one. You can ask questions about crops, and experts will answer them for you. Boss Cui, is there anything you want to ask?”

“No need.” Cui QiChao rejected right away, “I am an expert.”

Meng Chang: “…” 

Regardless, Cui QiChao still downloaded the app, following Meng Chang’s instructions on making an account. He hadn’t dabbled in this virtual plane’s phone much, but now he was interested in it. Since he was restricted to this campus and couldn’t leave, he could at least satisfy his urges to look at crops from afar online!

After registering, experts needed to send in their agricultural qualification certificates to apply for verification as an expert. Obviously, Cui QiChao did not have these documents, but thankfully, normal users could still reply to other people’s questions.

Cui QiChao just used his real name. People also usually displayed their job titles in their signatures as well as their companies, in order to provide an insight to the authenticity of their solutions. Cui QiChao looked at the box for a while before filling it in: The Descendant of the Divine Farmer.

Then, with such a signature attached to him, he started answering questions on the website. The general expert would only pay attention to the types of crops they were the most knowledgeable about, but Cui QiChao wandered around answering questions about everything. 

Cui QiChao read many agricultural books, learned professional vocabulary, and had the help of his instincts from his imperial bloodline. All these things combined made his ability undisputed even without certificates of qualifications.

Cui QiChao lost track of time in that app, only emerging after three or four hours when he was interrupted by a phone call.

“Hello? Who is it?” He answered absentmindedly, still thinking about a question he had yet to finish answering.

“Hello, I’m the director of <<Travel to Nanhai for Gourmet Food>>. You are Mr. Cui, right?” 

“I am,” Cui QiChao said with a frown. “The film director of your program group already called me. I told her I’m not interested in recording these types of programs. It has nothing to do with me.”

The director almost choked, “…We sincerely wish to have you, so even though I heard you refused, I specially waited to call you again to see if we can discuss this in person. It’s summer vacation now, so there shouldn’t be much work to do in the canteen. Perhaps our film director didn’t make it clear—our program respects the culture of the food to a great extent, and we’re hoping to promote the food in Nanhai Province…”

The director seemed to have made up a misunderstanding of his own. He thought that Cui QiChao had done a lot of research on the foods in Nanhai and loved it, so he was enthusiastically prattling on to convince him.

Cui QiChao remained very indifferent: “Sorry, I’m not interested.” 

The director said, “But why not? Is it because you don’t want to show your face in the program?”

Cui QiChao was getting impatient. “It’s not that I’m not interested in being on a program—I’m just not interested in being on your program.”

The director wasn’t happy hearing that, “Then you have to know that our program’s ratings are always very high, it’s within the top ten in our country when comparing to programs that run at the same time.”

Cui QiChao: “I’m not interested in your type of program. If you were <<Nong X Tian Di>>, I would agree immediately.” 

Director: “……….”

What the hell???