Chapter Three

“Today’s university students are really something.”

An hour later, Gao Hongwei sat on the steps by the wheat field, beside him the village and town leaders waiting to see what would happen next. Thinking back on the past hour, Gao felt a bit dazed. An hour ago, Qin Yun had requested a private meeting, and seeing the tense atmosphere, County Magistrate Li Qing had forcefully changed the topic, restoring the agricultural training to normal—but Qin Yun had clearly become the center of attention.

Gao Hongwei had been a village chief for twelve years and this was the first time he’d encountered such an awkward situation. As the meeting ended, he was about to give Qin Yun a lecture when two staff members came over. They checked both men’s IDs and entry passes, then Qin Yun was taken to the farm’s lounge.

Gao felt dizzy—did this mean Zhou Yuanheng had agreed to a private meeting?

The sun blazed overhead, and a neighboring village chief nudged Gao, “What’s this about?”

“No idea.” Gao was at a loss. Not just what it was about, he hadn’t even known Qin Yun wanted a private meeting.

…

“Comrade, you’re looking for me?” While Gao was deep in thought, inside the base lounge, Zhou Yuanheng washed his hands and asked. The room was about twenty square meters with a single bed and a simple desk; the decor was very homely.

Qin Yun glanced at the staff at the door and signaled for them to clear the room.

“I’m an assistant to the agriculture team,” the staff member protested. He was Zhou Yuanheng’s assistant, having followed him from the experimental fields to the base.

“Academician Zhou, this is a very important private matter,” Qin Yun said, looking at Zhou Yuanheng.

“You!” The assistant was about to speak, but Zhou Yuanheng interrupted, “Xiao Zheng, you go outside first.”

“Yes.” The assistant was uneasy but seeing Zhou’s firm tone, he had no choice but to stay alert at the door.

“Comrade, can you speak now?”

After the assistant left, Zhou Yuanheng smiled and asked. As the country’s renowned wheat breeding expert, Zhou could have ignored Qin Yun’s request by protocol. But the Bamboo River inspection was simple, and Qin Yun’s background was clean, so he decided to listen.

“I have a Farm System that I hope to submit to the country.” Qin Yun got straight to the point right after Zhou’s question.

Zhou Yuanheng was drying his hands and froze upon hearing this.

“This system can improve soil structure, allowing wheat to mature every month, growing as tall as three meters…” Qin Yun continued. Zhou felt he was too idle—because he was idle, he listened seriously to Qin Yun’s wheat theory. Zhou had studied wheat his whole life; ears over seventy centimeters easily flop over, but Qin Yun talked about three-meter wheat ears… impossible!

“Comrade, is this the important matter you mentioned?” Zhou interrupted.

“Yes.” Qin Yun was helpless. Even he didn’t believe what he’d just said.

“Comrade, we must adhere to materialism.”

“I have the system panel.” Qin Yun opened the system panel.

Host name, current tasks, task backpack…

Qin Yun looked at Zhou Yuanheng.

Zhou looked back calmly; the atmosphere between them was peaceful.

Qin Yun: …

Obviously, Zhou Yuanheng couldn’t see the system panel.

“Anything else?” Zhou asked. He admired the thinking ability of today’s youth but wasn’t a good listener himself.

“Wait!”

Just as Zhou was about to finish, Qin Yun looked up. With his right hand, he grasped the air in front of him, and suddenly a two-meter-long wooden hoe appeared in his hand.

Qin Yun looked uncertainly at Zhou Yuanheng. “This is a system reward. Can you see it?”

Zhou Yuanheng: !!!

…

“It’s been an hour already, still not out?”

The atmosphere inside the lounge was strange. Outside the wheat field, the village chiefs watched toward the lounge. An hour had passed since Qin Yun went in for the private meeting. Only a young man in a white coat paced back and forth outside. Watching this, the chiefs grew curious.

“You really don’t know?” one chief asked.

“No.” Gao Hongwei was very upset. He was nervous, fearing Qin Yun might say something inappropriate.

While pondering, the lounge door opened. Zhou Yuanheng said a few words to his assistant, who then walked toward Gao and the others.

“Village Chief Gao, Qin comrade has some matters to discuss with Academician Zhou, it will take a couple of days,” the assistant said.

Gao and the other chiefs were completely stunned. Zhou Yuanheng was a national treasure-level expert; Qin Yun had just graduated university. These two seemed worlds apart, yet Qin Yun was to spend two days with Zhou… it made no sense.

“Comrade, what did they say inside?” Gao approached and asked.

“Not sure.” The assistant shook his head. Named Zheng Hairui, he was responsible for Zhou Yuanheng’s daily life. He had kept an eye on the room all along but only stayed briefly inside. After Zhou’s brief instructions, he continued to accompany Qin Yun for the meeting. In seven years by Zhou’s side, he had never seen Zhou so serious.

The village chiefs, unable to get any answers, left amid their confusion.

As they left, Gao worriedly looked toward the lounge. Though annoyed at Qin Yun’s lack of decorum, Gao truly worried about Qin Yun, who grew up in the Gao family village, if something went wrong…

…

“Incredible…” Inside the lounge, Zhou Yuanheng forced himself to stay calm.

Since Qin Yun had conjured the hoe out of thin air, Zhou felt his brain wasn’t enough.

High-level cultivators, Harma Storm, food crises…

In the past hour, besides rebirth, Qin Yun had laid out the food crisis and the high-level system in detail. Zhou felt it was unbelievable, but seeing the hoe appear out of nowhere, the unbelievable carried a certain logic.

Compared to Zhou’s astonishment, Qin Yun was like the model student in class patiently waiting for a reply.

Before entering the lounge, he had hesitated whether to reveal the rebirth. In his previous life, he had focused only on missions and hadn’t paid attention to national affairs. Even if there were national issues, they were related to Harma Storm. Rather than explain in detail, he decided to gloss over them. As for Harma Storm and the food crisis… he blamed everything on the scene when the system was bound.

Zhou Yuanheng picked up the hoe. It was two meters long, with a white pine handle and a twenty-centimeter black iron blade at the end. The blade’s top was sharp. If not for it appearing from thin air, it looked like an ordinary hoe. According to Qin Yun, the hoe had an automatic harvesting function that could only be used in farm environments.

“Is the current System Task binding farmland, activating Heart of the Farm?” Zhou Yuanheng asked thoughtfully.

“Yes.” Qin Yun nodded seriously. Heart of the Farm was an S-rank tool. In his previous life, he didn’t understand Heart of the Farm and had only bound fifteen acres. He now deeply regretted it.

“Mr. Qin, please stay at the base for a few days,” Zhou Yuanheng said after some consideration.

This was a serious matter, clearly not something he could decide alone.

“Okay.” Qin Yun straightened up. Ever since he had laid everything out, he had already thought about the current situation.

After chatting casually for a while, Qin Yun left with the assistant.

Zhou Yuanheng pondered seriously, then called the Longxia Special Military District: “Old Liu, this is Zhou Yuanheng. There’s a special situation that needs to be reported…”

…

Half an hour later, at the Jinghe Special Military District, Liu Wensheng stared blankly at his phone.

They were the 223rd Military District, mainly responsible for national food reserves and defense strategy, playing a crucial role in national security. Liu Wensheng was the head of the district, directly connected to Longxia’s top leadership. Due to the nature of his position, only a few people had access to the General Office’s phone.

The call just now was from Zhou Yuanheng.

Zhou Yuanheng was Longxia’s outstanding wheat breeding expert and an academician of the Longxia Engineering Institute, with immense contributions to Longxia. Liu had expected Zhou to report something related to wheat, but instead he was reporting a special individual who could conjure objects from thin air and was bound to a Farm System!

This was a materialistic society—this sounded ridiculous. If it weren’t for Zhou’s call, he would have hung up long ago!

“Commander Liu?” Liu’s thoughts were a mess, and the adjutant beside him looked puzzled.

“Open the computer. Academician Zhou wants to send a classified file,” Liu instructed. Although he doubted Zhou’s story, every matter had to be taken seriously.

The adjutant opened the computer.

Half a minute later, a classified file was transmitted to the district’s computer by special means. It was a ten-minute surveillance video. The footage was black and white, showing a single bed, desk, chair, and a simple clothes rack—like an ordinary lounge. Zhou Yuanheng sat on the edge of the bed, facing a young man in a checked shirt.

The young man was speaking seriously. Midway through, he stood, stretched out his right hand, and a two-meter-long hoe slowly appeared. The young man spun the hoe around and handed it to Zhou Yuanheng…

“Commander Liu?” The adjutant was shocked by the video.

“Send it to the technical analysis team,” Liu realized the seriousness of the footage.

The Special Military District was a top-level Longxia department with personnel of high political and ideological awareness. The adjutant handed the video to the tech department. After analysis, it was confirmed the surveillance was recorded between 2:00 and 2:30 PM, using Haixin D662X equipment. The video was clear, unedited… in short, the footage was authentic and real.

“Is it magic?” The adjutant watched the conjuring scene three times but couldn’t find any trick.

“No.” Liu shook his head. According to Zhou Yuanheng’s phone report, the young man was empty-handed both from the Planting Greenhouse to the lounge. The lounge was cleaned by professionals, so there was no way the hoe appeared in advance…

Liu reported to the top leaders and decisively stood up: “Prepare a helicopter. We’re going to Zhuhe.”

From the moment it was reported, the whole situation was unbelievable. If the Farm System truly existed, this would be a discovery that transcended materialism! Whether it was truly a ‘discovery’ or just a joke, everything pointed to one thing: the young man in the surveillance.

“Are you from the Jinghe Architecture Department?” Meanwhile, secretly arriving at Zhuhe Hotel, Zheng Hairui was peeling an orange and chatting casually with Qin Yun.

He had witnessed Qin Yun’s progression from questioning the food crisis to entering the lounge. To him, Qin Yun seemed like a fan of Academician Zhou, trying to attract attention by doing something out of the ordinary. Who knew things would get out of control… Although they were in the hotel, there were special supervisory personnel around.

Before leaving, Academician Zhou had instructed him to ask and say as little as possible. Qin Yun sat on the bed watching TV, and from his expression, it seemed he was well aware of his situation. The whole matter appeared ordinary yet carried a hint of the unusual.