Chapter 128: Visit To The Botanical Garden
In April, under the artificial climate control system, the Third Fleet welcomed a vibrant spring in April. The beginning of the month was both joyful and sorrowful. The joy came from the smooth progress of Xiang Xue’s live stream room small team’s new drama live broadcast. Although the comedic atmosphere of the first two episodes made viewers who hadn’t yet emerged from the serious drama atmosphere of Empresses in the Palace completely unaccustomed, the continuous laughter and the cheerful bullet comments on the screen ultimately won My Own Swordsman a large group of loyal viewers, to the point that Ainuo and Ouyang Yating couldn’t help chasing Xiang Chuan at school to ask if she could give them a few episodes early to satisfy their craving.
Xiang Chuan: Didn’t you say it was your parents who were watching it???
Of course, she didn’t give them any in the end.
The sorrow, naturally, was Xiang Chuan’s monthly exam. Physics and math were disastrously failing, and other subjects like Chinese, history, and agriculture barely scraped by with low scores.
When Ainuo saw Xiang Chuan’s scores, his face turned dark. That afternoon in the club room, he sharply critiqued: “Your problem-solving approach is such that even if the teacher wanted to stuff you with high scores, they couldn’t fit them in.”
He had reason to say this. On the afternoon the scores came out, the four of them plus Chou Manman and Nancy gathered in the club room. The childhood friends trio held Xiang Chuan’s answer sheets and score report, falling into a long silence.
In Nancy’s words: The grading teachers must have eaten quite a few buns from the canteen or A Bite of China Club.
“In other words, their mouths were softened by food and their hands shortened by favors, right?” Xiang Chuan replied calmly.
The reason she was so calm was that when the scores came out, she had secretly asked Zhu Bingwen and learned that only failing more than half the subjects would result in being kept at school for remedial classes. Her barely passing scores just skirted the edge.
No remedial classes was better than anything. Xiang Chuan silently prayed in her heart to Confucius, far away in the Solar System.
Upholding the failing student’s happy principle that passing means liberation, Xiang Chuan decisively put the scores behind her and began planning the botanical garden trip.
The second week after scores came out, in the morning, the first-year high school students from Metea University Affiliated High School arrived at the botanical garden.
After passing through a long corridor with a very sci-fi style, guided by the navigation AI into the botanical garden, everyone felt like they had returned to a nature reserve. Towering trees reaching into the clouds, lush tree clusters, and seasonally blooming flowers filled the view, making Xiang Chuan feel a vibrant vitality as if she were on Earth.
[Beep—What is currently on display is the spring area. All plants in the museum are grown from the first batch cloned when the Twelfth Fleet left Earth, cultivated and passed down through generations, dedicated to restoring the most primitive Earth landscape.]
The spherical navigation AI introduced.
“Haha… the real primitive Earth is long gone…” Xiang Chuan muttered softly from the back.
She looked at the familiar plants around her—banyan trees, peach blossoms, pear blossoms, crabapple flowers… Flowers and trees that could be seen everywhere in the flower shop under the company building or in the park before were now all labeled as “primitive Earth plants” and placed in the museum, making her mood somewhat complex.
She wondered if dinosaurs surviving to the 21st Century would feel the same way in a museum seeing the plants from their generations.
At this moment, everyone stopped because the grade director walking at the front of the group had turned on the megaphone:
[Next is free activity time. Classes one to five visit the south hall, classes six to ten visit the north hall, switch after lunch break, and end the visit activity at 17:00 in the afternoon. Since the botanical garden is vast and there are many visitors, please have each homeroom teacher confirm that the teaching terminal positioning function is enabled for their students before dismissing the groups. Finally, a reminder: the plants in the hall are for viewing only. Please do not attempt to pick grass leaves for edible testing, nor light fires inside the hall—this is something the botanical garden director just specifically instructed me and all of you about.]
Whoa—
Nine out of the ten classes burst into laughter, with neighboring Class Seven and Class Nine staring openly at their neighbor Class Eight and laughing heartily, making the Class 8 members feel a bit embarrassed at being implicitly named.
However, this also made some people in each class silently abandon their thoughts of picking grass leaves to take back and boil into soup. After all, students who visited A Bite of China Club had obtained authorization to make vegetable soup, and some addicted students had started researching other vegetables that could be used for soup. When they heard this teaching visit was to the botanical garden, they had been thinking of picking some edible grass leaves to take home for their families to try.
“President, thanks to your ‘blessing’, our class probably has the image of being a bunch of big eaters in everyone’s eyes.” Ouyang Yating resisted the urge to facepalm, facing the teasing gazes around her, and complained softly to Xiang Chuan.
“That’s good. At least our classmates who want to go into politics in the future start off on the runway. Just ask which first-year high school student can leave such a deep impression on the government so soon after the start of school.” Xiang Chuan replied. She appeared calm on the surface, but inside she was extremely embarrassed. To use a dead language: awkward.
Fortunately, they dispersed quickly. After the five classes arrived at the north hall, Xiang Chuan grabbed Ouyang Yating with her left hand and Liang Gong with her right, sprinting straight ahead. Ainuo chased energetically behind, with Chou Manman and Nancy following closely.
Xiang Chuan’s goal was to quickly escape the line of sight of the crowd, but little did she know that dragging people in such a flashy sprint through the botanical garden made her even more conspicuous.
“That’s the rumored A Bite of China Club quartet.”
“Their leader is really strong. Wow, that girl is almost being dragged into flying.”
“Hey, she isn’t called leader, she’s called president.”
“Classmate Xiang Chuan—” Class President Lu Daiqing shouted with hands cupped around her mouth like in a TV series, “Remember to come back for lunch—don’t run too fast and drop your lunch box—”
Students from the other four classes were speechless: As expected of Class Eight, their minds are full of food.
“—Is this the reason you almost dragged us until our feet couldn’t touch the ground?”
“Ouyang Yating, ma’am, I was wrong, please be magnanimous.”
The much-talked-about Xiang Chuan was now apologizing to the dark-faced Ouyang Yating, offering with both hands a large pot of fruit milk with pulp that she had originally planned to slowly enjoy during lunch.
Xiang Chuan of this era was originally a shut-in who stayed in her room year-round and rarely went out. After the 21st Century old antique Xiang Chuan transmigrated over, she went back and forth between kitchen and room or teaching building, dormitory, and club activity room. During physics class, the teacher would worry she was too light to withstand gravity experiments and order her to be a spectator on the side. This time, dragging two people in a mad dash, she managed the first 500 meters with some energy, but around 600 meters, she was the one panting and being supported on the shoulders by Ouyang Yating and Liang Gong.
The four were now sitting on nearby floating chairs to rest. After catching her breath, Xiang Chuan looked up to thank them, only to see Ouyang Yating’s uncertain expression, scaring her into quickly explaining that she did it to quickly escape the other classes’ sight and avoid disturbance, leading to the opening exchange.
“One bottle of fruit milk is enough?”
Saying this, Ouyang Yating still snatched Xiang Chuan’s large water bottle, shook it, poured a quarter into her own empty bottle, another quarter into Liang Gong’s, and returned the remaining half to Xiang Chuan.
Not letting their own president die of thirst at the end without fruit milk to drink counted as her final mercy.
The six of them entering the botanical garden ahead of the main group had its benefits: no one would disturb them while viewing the plants.
Most contemporary youths were like 21st Century adolescents, preferring entertainment venues and chatting with friends over diving into museums or botanical gardens, so for first-year high school students, these plants were also a first-time seeing with their own eyes.
“So many flowers.” Nancy exclaimed.
Indeed, flowers seemed to occupy the majority of the total area at a glance, and most were unseen before, opening everyone’s eyes.
“These white flowers are so cute. Are they called pear blossoms?” Chou Manman swayed under the tree, looking up.
The tree full of white pear blossoms was eye-catching even in the riot of flowers in the botanical garden, even attracting Ouyang Yating and Nancy, who usually didn’t care much about floral decorations.
“This tree is really nice. It would be great if parks had flowers like this.” Nancy sighed.
“Better not.” Xiang Chuan sweated, “Spring pear blossoms are nice, but when the fruit ripens, the pears smashing down one by one would probably dent the ground with pear pits.”
Xiang Chuan still really liked pears, but she couldn’t forget as a child mischievously kicking a village pear tree and getting hit on the head by a ripe falling pear, smashing the pigtail sheep horns braids her mom had just tied full of pear juice in a “traumatic” memory.
Okay, however you look at it, it’s personal grudge.
“What? Have you been hit before?” Nancy laughed.
“………………No.”
The eerie silence betrayed the A Bite of China Club President who was pretending to be calm.
The six walked and stopped while looking at the surrounding plants, and now they could see students from other classes not far away, scattered excitedly around the botanical garden, curiously examining the plants.
“Didn’t we see a lot of wild plants during the class competition? Why do the other classes look like it’s their first time seeing these seasonal plants?” Xiang Chuan wondered.
As soon as she said this, everyone’s expressions varied, and students from other classes nearby who heard also fell silent.
“Xiang Chuan, Xiang Chuan, actually, normal class competitions aren’t like ours.” Chou Manman patted her shoulder with a wry smile, to prevent her friend from saying something shocking and being humanely destroyed by the wide-eyed other class students around, quickly stopping her from speaking further.
“Ah?” Xiang Chuan looked at her blankly, replayed the other classes’ performance during the class competition in her mind, and then obediently shut her mouth.
Looking back at the entire class competition, only Class Eight, after taking down two classes in the same area without injury, stubbornly turned a good “class competition” into a “spring outing camping club.” The seven classes in the other two areas fought to the death, with no time to look at the surrounding flowers, birds, grass, and trees.
Only Class Eight’s group, nominally “out on patrol” but actually digging wild vegetables and firewood, or the stalwart group strolling after meals, had the leisure to appreciate grass and trees. Even non-combat Class Two and Class Ten only had the unchanging river and grassland to see, occasionally enduring the fishy smell drifting from Class Eight people slaughtering fish, plus the blow of not achieving mastery, leaving no mood to appreciate the riverside scenery.
And the one who created this contrast was the A Bite of China Club President who had just dashed through the botanical garden grabbing a club member in each hand. The fatal part was that she seemed completely unaware.
This often made the club members worry if their president would one day suddenly spout a Versailles remark on the road and get beaten by angry onlookers.
However, the class competition experience wasn’t useless. When other Class Eight members wandered the botanical garden in pairs and saw familiar stem and leaf plants, they blurted out “Oh, isn’t this the ××× we ate back then?” “○○○, this has a bit of bitter taste but it’s pretty good.” Then they started reminiscing about last month’s vegetable buns, drawing side-eyes from the other four classes also in the north hall, incredulously looking at the plants growing in the soil with small flowers: This thing… is edible?
Some bolder students from other classes came up to chat. Class Eight students, with strong psychological quality honed from a month of being watched, warmly welcomed them to the discussion, telling them how they picked wild vegetables during the class competition. If the team had a stalwart group, they could hear supplements on how to prepare the dishes, describing tastes as if the Class Eight students collectively turned into gourmet critics, so vivid that it made the other class students who had just eaten breakfast hungry.
And they didn’t forget to add: “The recipe copyright is in Xiang Chuan’s hands. If you want to try it yourself, you have to apply for authorization first. Ah, but don’t pick the wild vegetables in the botanical garden, you’ll get scolded by the grade director.”
Other class students: “…” But really, after hearing Class Eight students say this, the other classes’ appreciation for these green wild vegetables instantly turned into envy.
Wait, wasn’t this supposed to warn Class Eight students not to pick? Why does it sound like it’s warning us now?
Zhu Bingwen, strolling the botanical garden with other class teachers, was also asked the same question by the grade director.
“It’s impossible for kids who’ve had novel experiences not to say a few words when facing the plants that brought them those novel experiences.” Zhu Bingwen casually took a bite of a vegetable bun. “For kids who’ve tasted this novel flavor, seeing these plants just evokes their recent memories. But for most other kids who haven’t tasted it, this really piques their interest. You know, curiosity can drive people to all sorts of unusual actions, like trying to get students to pack A Bite of China Club cakes to the teachers’ office or something.”
Ahem, ahem. As soon as the last words came out, dry coughing to cover embarrassment rose and fell among the teachers.
No way around it. Having no relation to Class Eight, Teacher Zhu Bingwen still occasionally went to A Bite of China Club to mooch food and drink. If they ran into him, it would be somewhat awkward. But every morning arriving at school, seeing the serving plates carried by Little Star One or the principal’s office service robot with drool-worthy cakes and buns made them unable to resist their cravings.
Teachers with club advisor positions would run to A Bite of China Club during student rest time and ask them to pack some. Those without advisor positions simply had their own class students bring some to the office. Once other teachers in the office saw, they got envious too, so more and more asked students to help. At the beginning-of-month teacher meeting, the principal even joked about it, embarrassing a few thin-skinned new teachers.
However, this also brought first-year freshmen closer to the teachers, and even gave second- and third-year teachers and students new topics, making the school’s friendly atmosphere thicker. So although the principal complained, he didn’t stop it.
Zhu Bingwen was using this to make a joke now, then continued eating the vegetable buns he had packed early from A Bite of China Club today.
Besides seafood and ginger, the changes the class competition brought to agriculture included increased acceptance of edible fungi. Fungi cultivation methods had long been recorded in the botanical garden archives. Last month, the Agriculture Bureau swarmed in, using the information turbulence data provided by Xiang Chuan to select fungi widely eaten in ancient times, and together with ginger, put them into experimental field planting plans. If public acceptance was good, scaled production planting would be immediately arranged by the Third Fleet, which valued agricultural development most, into six production escort ships. As remuneration for temporary consultant, Xiang Chuan demanded an entire container of shiitake mushrooms. Afterward, vegetable buns at A Bite of China Club and Xiang Family Mansion added shiitake fragments, whose tender texture was extremely popular with students, with sales even trending to surpass canteen meat buns.
After Xiang Weiguo ate one, Yue Xiang Restaurant’s vegetable buns also added this filling. Fortunately, Xiang Weiguo had immediately reserved wild shiitake from the nature reserve when he saw his daughter picking shiitake, or they would have been taken by other departments by now, and there would have been another round of fierce bidding on acquisition prices. A small portion of shiitake picked from the nature reserve went to the experimental field, while the majority were taken by Yue Xiang. It wasn’t that other companies didn’t want in, but Xiang Chuan, as the contactee and discoverer, could exclusively enjoy ancient technology from the information turbulence for fifty years, and the only ones authorized to use this exclusive right were her A Bite of China Club and her father’s Yue Xiang Group. If other companies used it publicly, it would be seen as infringement, a top crime for the Twelfth Fleet. So major groups could only wait fifty years to drink the leftovers from Yue Xiang Group’s market share, which might lead to bloody storms—or perhaps, a flourishing of gourmet food?
One class competition shook up the agricultural landscape. Could this botanical garden trip bring new gains to A Bite of China Club? Zhu Bingwen watched from afar the Class Eight students excitedly explaining wild vegetable tastes to other classes, thinking with some expectation.
