The Fourth Base
Jin Hai had asked his son to cut down all the cypress near the pear orchard in advance, then sprayed different pesticides based on the severity of symptoms as per the answer given by AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao Ting.
He meticulously recorded all the treatment methods and uploaded them to the forum backend for future comparison.
In agronomy, determining whether an answer is correct can take anywhere from a few days to several months or even years.
Jin Hai had initially planned to replace this batch of fruit trees in autumn. By accepting AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao Ting’s answer, he wasn’t just gambling with twice the reward points but also with the time cost of switching fruit trees entirely.
After spraying the pesticide in the pear orchard, Jin Hai stood at the edge of the field, looking at the trees he had nurtured for years. He felt complicated and it was hard to say that he had never regretted it.
But now that was done, there was no room for regret, so he could only bury his head and continue.
On the Central Official Forum, while users couldn’t see the answers themselves, the IDs of those who answered were visible under the bounty questions.
After completing all the treatment methods over the past few days, Jin Hai couldn’t resist checking the forum for more activity from AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao, hoping to learn more about the answers this user had previously provided.
What he found shocked him.
The ID AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao appeared under multiple bounty questions—all concentrated in a single night.
“What kind of agricultural student is this?” Jin Hai muttered, confused. He didn’t know whether to suspect that this person was randomly answering questions or if they had some special identity.
Unease gripped Jin Hai as he glanced back at his pear orchard. Had he placed his trust in a troublesome agricultural student?
His fingers scrolled through the light screen, scanning the forum. Suddenly, something caught his attention, and his movements froze.
The ID AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao had also answered a bounty question posted by a planting officer Jin Hai knew personally.
The bounty section for that question had turned gray, meaning the bounty holder had confirmed the answer as correct and distributed the full points.
Jin Hai immediately exited the forum and sent a private message to the planting officer, asking who they had selected to answer their bounty question.
“AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao. Why?”
Jin Hai replied, “I chose her too.”
“What a coincidence,” the planting officer said. He hadn’t noticed how frequently AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao’s ID appeared across the bounty board.
Jin Hai replied slowly, word by word: “I rejected the answer of a researcher and chose Farmer Xiao Zhao.”
The other planting officer was stunned. “Wait, a researcher answered your question?”
“I didn’t choose the researcher’s answer,” Jin Hai repeated.
The planting officer was speechless. “Ah? Are you crazy?”
“Then why did you choose AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao to answer?” Jin Hai asked.
The planting officer scratched his head. “I felt her answer seemed reliable, so I wanted to try it. Anyway, the points weren’t that high.”
“How effective was it?” Jin Hai asked, though he already knew the question was resolved.
“Immediate results!” The planting officer gave a thumbs up. “I didn’t expect agricultural students from the Ninth Agricultural Base to be this capable.”
Jin Hai fell silent. “…Go check the bounty board IDs.”
“What’s so special about that?” the planting officer replied, but he still opened the forum to browse the bounty board.
As Jin Hai watched, the planting officer’s scrolling grew faster and faster. His eyes widened, and finally, his hand slowed to a stop.
“…What is this?” The planting officer’s voice had a hint of horror. “Who is this person? Why are they answering all the questions?”
“I don’t know,” Jin Hai said mechanically. “I also chose AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao.”
“Wait, I’ll ask others,” the planting officer said. He knew several people who had also used AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao under bounty questions.
What started as a conversation between two planting officers soon grew into a group chat involving planting officers from different bases.
As they compared notes, they realized many of them had chosen AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao over other answers—even over researchers.
Jin Hai’s choice was particularly extreme—he had directly rejected the answer from Researcher No. 40.
None of the planting officers had encountered a situation like this before. The discussion in the group chat grew increasingly lively.
[Could this person be someone privately answering under a pseudonym?]
[Who?]
[Researcher No. 1.]
[Impossible.]
[…This person is an agricultural student from the Ninth Agricultural Base.]
[Judging by the unnumbered ID, it’s obvious. If it were that person, they’d have the authority to hide their number.]
[I’m sure AAA Farmer Xiao Zhao is an agricultural student because she’s in my class.]
The group fell silent.
___
In the Ninth Agricultural Base, Kang Anru closed her optical computer with a deep breath. She hadn’t expected Zhao Linong to…
She had essentially “cleared the bounty board” overnight.
Kang Anru knew that Zhao Linong had access to the Zhao family’s information book, but how had she processed it all so quickly?
As the group chat buzzed with renewed discussion, Kang Anru ignored it. She muted her optical computer, pushed open the door, and entered the classroom. Her gaze swept to the back row.
There sat Zhao Linong, no different from usual, casually browsing her light computer before class.
Kang Anru stood at the podium, watching as Zhao Linong put away her light screen. She couldn’t help but wonder if Zhao Linong had been checking the Central Official Forum just moments ago.
In reality, Zhao Linong had only been reviewing her account and saw that another batch of points had been credited.
She had answered so many questions that night, some of which were resolved quickly. As time passed, her answers were confirmed, and points were steadily credited to her account.
“The teacher was just looking at you,” He Yuesheng whispered to Zhao Linong.
Zhao Linong looked up but didn’t meet Kang Anru’s eyes.
She didn’t care.
It wasn’t until after class that Kang Anru called her out again.
“It’s me, Planting Officer 174,” Kang Anru said.
Zhao Linong didn’t react.
“I asked a question about rice damage,” Kang Anru reminded her and repeated the question.
At this moment, Zhao Linong remembered answering that question on the Central Official Forum and that she had already received the points.
“Did you solve the rice damage problem?” Zhao Linong asked hesitantly.
“It’s been resolved,” Kang Anru replied. “But there are a few parts I don’t understand. Can you explain them again?”
“You can ask,” Zhao Linong said. “If I know the answer.”
Kang Anru asked about the rice damage issue again, staying within the original question’s scope. Zhao Linong quickly organized her thoughts, confirmed there were no mistakes in her initial response, and explained it clearly.
While Zhao Linong spoke, Kang Anru watched her closely.
—Calm and orderly.
This wasn’t someone simply flipping through a document and repeating answers verbatim.
Kang Anru became certain: Zhao Linong had fully digested all the knowledge from the information book.
“You’ve answered too many questions on the Central Official Forum. Almost all the planting officers across the various bases have heard your name by now,” Kang Anru said. “It won’t be long before they figure out you’re a freshman from the Ninth Agricultural Base.”
She didn’t even need to mention this in the group chat.
How many children of planting officers were there at the Ninth Agricultural Base? A few inquiries and anyone would know who AAA Farming Xiao Zhao was.
Zhao Linong was momentarily stunned but not surprised. When she had answered so many questions, she had already prepared herself for this outcome.
“You…” Kang Anru hesitated, as though she wanted to say something but stopped several times. Finally, she patted Zhao Linong’s shoulder and said, “You’ll leave the Ninth Agricultural Base and enter the Central Agricultural Research Institute.”
After saying this, Kang Anru withdrew her hand and turned to leave. Her back appeared lonely and frail.
Who wouldn’t want an information book that contained solutions to so many problems? Kang Anru couldn’t help but envy Zhao Linong’s good fortune—a document with all the answers suddenly appeared at home.
But on the other hand, she asked herself: If she had gotten the same book, could she have fully understood and applied it in such a short time?
The answer was no.
Agronomy wasn’t simple. Crop diseases were numerous, the proportions of various treatments were complex, and ordinary people couldn’t sort through all that information quickly.
But Zhao Linong had that talent.
As an ordinary planting officer and teacher, Kang Anru felt a complicated sense of inadequacy. Still, in the end, she genuinely wished for Zhao Linong to go further.
“Teacher Kang,” Zhao Linong suddenly called out.
Kang Anru turned back to look at her.
“The Ninth Agricultural Base has never been an obstacle,” Zhao Linong said.
As a training ground for agricultural students, the Ninth Agricultural Base was meant to be a cradle, not something to escape from.
Zhao Linong had never thought about leaving it in a hurry.
Kang Anru met her gaze and remembered how Zhao Linong had freely shared files within the base. She was stunned for a moment, then finally spoke, her voice slightly hoarse: “…I believe in you.”
___
“It’s been lively lately,” Shan Yun said, leaning back in her chair in the conference room. She scrolled through her light computer and raised an eyebrow. “The bounty section on the Central Official Forum was practically wiped out by an agricultural student from the Ninth Agricultural Base.”
Instantly, everyone in the room turned to look at her.
Noticing their gazes, Shan Yun looked up in surprise. “Why are you all staring at me? I didn’t wipe the section clean.”
Li Zhenzhang, sitting across from her, was silent.
The team had just returned from a dangerous mission outside the base and was preparing to summarize their findings and discuss the Central Base’s next steps. Shan Yun, however, seemed unbothered, openly slacking off.
Yet, Yan Shengbian didn’t seem to mind her lack of focus. Instead, he asked, “What happened?”
“An agricultural student answered most of the questions on the bounty board overnight,” Shan Yun explained, finding it amusing. She spread her fingers and swiped her screen, projecting it onto the conference table. “In the past few months, nearly all the answers have been verified—and they’re all correct.”
“Our base?” Zhou Qianli asked in surprise. He had lost weight and gotten noticeably darker during their time away.
“They said it’s a student from the Ninth Agricultural Base. The ID is AAA Farming Xiao Zhao,” Shan Yun replied with a shrug.
The room, filled with researchers from the Central Agricultural Research Institute, was a mix of doubt and disbelief.
Only Luo Fanxue, sitting quietly to the side, raised her eyes.
She had only known that the student answered Planting Officer 34’s question. She hadn’t realized they had also swept the entire bounty board.
“Impossible,” Li Zhenzhang said bluntly. “Unless this student is Team Leader Yan’s daughter. Who else could dominate the bounty board?”
Shan Yun checked her chat logs. “The student’s name is… Zhao Linong, a freshman in Class C of Agricultural Sciences.”
“Class C of Agricultural Sciences?” Li Zhenzhang sneered. “This student must have gotten their hands on something they shouldn’t have and doesn’t know how to hide it.”
Ye Changming, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke. “What she has, she earned herself.”
His words drew everyone’s attention, including Yan Shengbian, who glanced at him a few times.
—Did Ye Changming know this Zhao Linong?
