Base Hospital
Zhao Linong and He Yuesheng were waiting for their numbers to be called. Dan Shengchen walked halfway past them into the waiting room, then turned back.
“What happened to you?” Dan Shengchen looked them up and down. They had all their limbs intact and did not look seriously injured.
He Yuesheng pointed to the back of Zhao Linong’s right hand and said, “A wild cat scratched her.”
“Wild cat?” Dan Shengchen was surprised and glanced at the back of Zhao Linong’s hand. “She’s bleeding. She needs an injection.”
At that moment, Zhao Linong’s name was called. Dan Shengchen motioned for them to follow him in.
“You didn’t get injured by the mutant plants and animals, but by a wild cat.” Dan Shengchen took the vaccine needle and asked Zhao Linong to stretch out her hand, “The base doesn’t have many needles, you are lucky to have caught the last stock.”
“Why is there a wild cat in the base?” He Yuesheng asked curiously.
Dan Shengchen smiled. “The Ninth Agricultural Base is about the size of a pre-mutation city. Not to mention wild cats, a few years ago, we even had wild boars rush into the city and injure people.”
“Mutated wild boars?” Zhao Linong asked instinctively.
“No, just ordinary wild boars.” Dan Shengchen administered the serum injection, then tossed the syringe into the medical waste bin and removed his gloves. “Animal mutations are not that common.”
He wrote a payment slip and handed it to Zhao Linong.
Zhao Linong glanced at it and fell silent for a moment. “…”
After receiving the vaccine, she realized she’d have to work halfway through the week as a milker to earn the points back.
Dan Shengchen, noticing her displeasure, explained, “This vaccine is scarce, and it includes the serum, so it’s more expensive.”
Scarcity drives value. If the Ninth Agricultural Base didn’t have an animal husbandry program, she might’ve had to travel to the central base for the vaccine and serum.
Since her mission points hadn’t been issued yet, Zhao Linong had to transfer points from her account. After transferring them, she lost a lot of points.
When she left the hospital, Zhao Linong was still digesting the incident silently.
“You were kind enough to help, but you got injured and have to pay points,” He Yuesheng sighed. “Do you regret it?”
“…It’s done now.” Zhao Linong didn’t think about whether she would regret it later. She walked out of the base hospital, “It’s time to eat.”
He Yuesheng chased her: “Are you still going to the mission at noon?”
“Yes.” Zhao Linong replied, thinking about other ways to continue to earn points.
—
That evening, after completing all her tasks, Zhao Linong returned to the dormitory. Tong Tong was sitting at the table studying the pages about planting flowers. She didn’t disturb her. She washed her hands and sat at the table.
Zhao Linong clicked on the official website of the central base and entered the question-and-answer forum. Earlier, she had spent 200,000 points to view answers from planting officers and researchers.
On this forum, not only could agricultural students view answers, but they could also provide their own. However, not all questions were accessible for free. For complex issues, wealthy planting officers, planters, and agricultural students often posted bounty questions for solutions.
Zhao Linong originally wanted to proceed step by step and slowly build up her reputation, but if she continued like this, she wouldn’t even be able to eat, so she had to change her approach.
Besides… she also wanted to visit the central base.
In the video that night, Feng He’s physical condition didn’t seem to be very good and Zhao Linong was not very reassured.
Even if Zhao Linong was unsure whether she would expose herself, the other party was still the mother of this body, and she had the responsibility to take care of Feng He.
Traveling to the central base would be expensive, so she needed to prepare in advance.
However, answering bounty questions didn’t yield immediate rewards. Initially… she’d receive only one-fifth of the points. The full amount would be credited only after the bounty poster confirmed the correctness of her answers.
Zhao Linong raised her hand and waved it in the air. The questions on the forum were displayed on the light screen one by one, like floating pictures. Browsing through them, she cross-referenced her knowledge with the information from Feng He’s data book and narrowed down the questions she could confidently answer.
[Planting Officer No. 34]: “Every year, fuzzy yellow-brown spots appear on the backs of pear leaves. How can I resolve this? [Picture attached, bounty: 140,000 points].”
[Planting Officer No. 83]: “Small black spots cover my peaches. What’s the solution? [Picture attached, bounty: 2,800 points].
[Planter No. 491]: “I planted a carambola tree, but the leaves are yellow on the sides, with only the middle green. What’s wrong? [Picture attached, bounty: 18,888 points].”
Compared to the points for viewing answers, bounty points were significantly lower. Scanning the list, Zhao Linong noticed that the more urgent questions offered higher rewards.
She carefully selected relevant questions from the data book and answered them methodically.
[AAA Farmer Zhao answered Planter No. 491]: “The tree is iron-deficient. Supplement with iron fertilizer.”
[AAA Farmer Zhao answered Planting Officer No. 83]: “Small spots on peaches are caused by scale insects. Use thiamethoxam for prevention.”
[AAA Farmer Zhao answered Planting Officer No. 34]: “This is pear rust1
. It’s likely caused by nearby cypress trees, which cross-infect fruit trees like pears, apples, and hawthorns. Remove the cypress trees or spray them with lime sulfur in early to mid-March to prevent pathogen spread. Additionally, spray the pear leaves with 20% triadimefon (diluted 1,500 times) or 20% flusilazole (diluted 800 times) for effective control.”
Zhao Linong restrained herself from answering too much, she omitted the detailed pathogen sources and disease progression, focusing only on control methods.
After answering hundreds of questions, she received one-fifth of the points for those immediately confirmed by online bounty posters. For the rest, she had to wait for acceptance.
___
At the Fourth Base, inside the master bedroom of a building, someone stirred in bed.
“Buzz—”
“A message?” the person mumbled sleepily.
“I’ll check,” Jinhai said, picking up his laptop. He found that it was a bounty answer message from the Central Base Forum. He was Planting Officer No. 34.
“You’re still getting answers at this hour?” his wife asked groggily, turning on the light.
She leaned on Jinhai’s shoulder and said sleepily, “Several people answered.”
“I’ll give the points to Ting Gao,” Jinhai said casually. He had a pear orchard in the fourth base and made a living from it. But in recent years, the pear tree leaves always had yellow-brown fuzzy things on the back, like a small flower.
When he first saw this thing, he thought he had encountered a mutated pear tree. He was so scared that he immediately spent money to cut down the pear tree and destroy it. After that, he encountered this on a few more trees and found that they were not mutated, but they were sick.
In the end, he spent a very high price to ask a researcher at the Central Agricultural Research Institute, who gave him a list of treatment drugs.
After Jin Hai did as he was told, it did work, but this thing still appeared in the pear orchard every year, resulting in reduced production and poor fruit quality.
This time, he just posted the bounty question casually, and he didn’t have any hope. He already planned to find another way out next year and grow something else.
Although he received an answer, Jin Hai chose not to accept it.
If he gave a valid reason, the points would not be deducted.
Generally, no one dared to do anything tricky on the forum. If they were exposed, the entire forum would be closed to them.
Jin Hai patiently read the answers and planned to reject them one by one.
He had invited researchers before, and the answers of ordinary planting officials were of no reference value.
“Huh?” Jin Hai paused after clicking the rejection button.
“What’s wrong?” his wife asked.
Jin Hai pointed to the light screen and said, “A researcher answered my question and the pesticides listed are different from those of the previous researcher.”
[AAA Farmer Zhao answered Planting Officer No. 34]: “This is pear rust2
. It’s likely caused by nearby cypress trees, which cross-infect fruit trees like pears, apples, and hawthorns. Remove the cypress trees or spray them with lime sulfur in early to mid-March to prevent pathogen spread. Additionally, spray the pear leaves with 20% triadimefon (diluted 1,500 times) or 20% flusilazole (diluted 800 times) for effective control.”
The other researcher also said that was pear rust, but this researcher gave me a list of other pesticides.
Jin Hai was suddenly ecstatic: “A researcher answered my question.”
Although agricultural students needed 100,000 points to see the answers of planting officials if they were divided equally among each planting official, they were not much, so 140,000 points was a considerable amount for ordinary planting officials.
But 140,000 points for a bounty question was too little for a researcher.
Because the bounty questions are targeted, the starting price for forum researchers to answer was at least 500,000, and this was just the norm. Sometimes no researcher would answer them.
After the researcher answers, if they choose to agree to let others view the answer, they can continue to benefit. The price would then be lower, but it would not be less than 100,000.
Jin Hai raised his hand to press accept, but his wife held his hand: “Wait, there is another answer, let’s take a look first, maybe another researcher will answer today.”
“How can it be so easy.” Jin Hai laughed goofily but still obeyed his wife’s words, moved his finger away, and clicked on the next answer.
When he saw the username, he couldn’t bear to read it and mocked, “Nowadays, anyone dares to answer questions.”
His wife, who was beside him, had nothing to do with agronomy and didn’t quite understand what he meant, “Why do you say that?”
Jin Hai pointed at the name at the beginning, “Look, this person is called AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao, and she doesn’t have a number, which means she is still an agricultural student. In the forum, researchers, planting officers, and planters all have their own fixed numbers. Although it is not clear who the number represents, there is a list of real identities in the background. For example, researcher number one, do you know who it is?”
“Number one?” Jin Hai’s wife hesitated for a moment and guessed, “Could it be… Yan Shengbian?”
“Yes.” Jin Hai nodded, “It is well known that researcher number one is him, and the first ten digits of the researcher are all in Chinese. Everyone can guess the researcher based on the answers of the first ten researchers, but it is not clear who the researchers behind are.”
Jin Hai’s wife looked thoughtful.
“I may have been lucky today. Researchers are willing to answer my low-priced bounty questions. I want to try this medicine.” Jin Hai said, turning around to reject the last answer.
“But…” Jin Hai’s wife suddenly held his hand again, “This agricultural student and researcher No. 40 have the same answer.”
“What?” Jin Hai was stunned and looked at the answer on the light brain again. Sure enough, he saw that AAA farmer Xiao Zhao said that Ting was pear rust.
Jin Hai then looked at the last answer, and he read it word by word, with only one thought in his mind: How did AAA farmer Xiao Zhao know that there were junipers planted nearby?
