Chapter 603: Chapter 23: Dropping the Ball at a Critical Moment
Time flits by like water; two months later in Zone B, an intermediate student of Zone B, as usual, carried the excess fruit he picked to the fruit stand in Zone B.
Just like before, while he was waiting for the Romeo to process the transfer, he glanced at the fruit on the stand.
The faces were all familiar, even though many students from Zone B wanted to improve varieties and add different kinds of fruit to earn some heaven-defying value, due to climate and soil constraints, so far, no one had been able to grow anything special.
In one corner of the fruit stand, two melons with unusual patterns caught the attention of the intermediate student.
"Romeo, are these Hami melons?" the intermediate student picked up a melon, inspecting it closely. The melons supplied at the fruit stand of Zone B had patterns resembling delicately crafted women’s eyebrows, like crescents.
The two melons, each weighing about six pounds, had eighteen clear melon lines on their surface, just like a beautiful girl of eighteen years of age.
"Yes, they are Hami melons," Romeo confirmed that these melons, which he had just received this morning, were of a high-quality Xinjiang variety.
"People in Zone B can grow Hami melons now? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this before?" The Spiritual Fruit Garden in Zone B supplies fruit for intermediate students to cultivate spiritual energy. With just a few dozen acres, who grows what is crystal clear; there’s no hiding it.
Moreover, Zone B is like spring all year round, and the soil is not suitable for growing Hami melons.
"Sorry, according to the campus trading regulations, we do not disclose customer information," Romeo No.4 upheld the fine tradition of robots. In fact, these melons were not delivered by a student of Zone B, but by a primary student who had been appearing in Zone B frequently lately.
Considering that the arrival of the Hami melon enriched the biodiversity of the garden and filled a gap in the campus’s melon fruit offerings, Romeo No.4 offered a high price of 1000 heaven-defying values for one melon.
With a purchase price of 1000, these two melons were sold to outsiders for 2000 heaven-defying values each. Such a high price deterred the inquisitive student from making a move. After all, an intermediate student only gets a few thousand heaven-defying values per month.
The Hami melons sat in Zone B for several days, with various intermediate students who had heard rumors coming over to check it out. Like the first one who saw the black-eyebrowed Hami melon, most dismissed it as impossible, and some even began to suspect these melons were cultivated by someone from the advanced students.
Such assumptions were soon refuted. A senior intermediate student pointed out, "Advanced students wouldn’t waste their time on such trivial experiments."
Huake Institute’s Reverse Genius Class is established with various objectives in mind.
If Xiao Xian and Zhang Yiyi were to advance further, they would discover that most cultivators in the basic and intermediate classes work in agriculture or even breeding. If they can’t break through the intermediate level, they will only remain at a medium level of spiritual power control. At most, they can become experts in a specific area and make contributions in their fields.
The advanced students of the North Campus have a different goal. Their training aims for one thing only: to participate in the future elections of the Cangqiong Palace. Whether or not they enter Cangqiong Palace, they will be among the country’s top figures in the future. How could such people spend their time on cultivation?
About three days later, one of the Hami melons from the store was sold. As for the remaining melon, Romeo No.4 from Zone B came up with an idea. If it couldn’t be sold whole, then sell it in pieces! The melon was peeled, deseeded, and cut into twenty portions, pricing each at 100 heaven-defying values. Indeed, this ignited enthusiasm, and they sold out the same day.
The week-old Hami melon not only tasted unchanged but was also very fresh. One serving wasn’t enough to satisfy, a pity that the seeds had been removed, or some might have tried to grow their own.
Since those two Hami melons appeared, other areas of the North Campus gradually had supplies of Hami melons too, though not often, just two or three per area each week, enough to whet the appetites of the students. At first, people secretly speculated about the origin of the melon grower; later, everyone said the melons were brought in from outside the campus.
Gradually, everyone’s curiosity waned, but their enthusiasm for eating melons remained as high as ever.
Xiao Xian and Zhang Yiyi were oblivious to these speculations; they only knew that the melons in the shed were thriving. After dinner each day, eating a few slices was refreshingly satisfying.