Pastoral Daily Life

Plant name: Mutated eelgrass

Plant needs: cyanide

Plant vitality: high

Lu Lingxi had been staring at this eelgrass bush for a long time. After returning from the Lingshui River, he found a clean bucket of water and kept the eelgrass in it. The panel showed that although this eelgrass had not reached the peak of its condition, it was also quite viable and not dead like the other plants in the river. But this wasn’t Lu Lingxi’s focus; his attention was on the plant’s needs.

Cyanide, which Lu Lingxi had already looked up, was specifically a chemical with cyano radical in it and was a highly toxic substance. Exposure to a certain amount of cyanide could cause a toxic reaction, and in severe cases, could lead to death. There were many sources of cyanide in our daily life. Some industrial activities produced large amounts of cyanide, such as rubber, plastic, paint production, gold mining, etc. But at the same time, there were also large amounts of cyanide in nature, especially in the living world, for example, in peaches, plums, apricots, loquats and other fruits, of which bitter almond had the highest content.

Lu Lingxi could never have imagined that the need of the mutated eelgrass would be such a highly toxic substance. He guessed that the poisonous substance in the Lingshui River should be the cyanide discharged from that plastic processing plant upstream. So did the eelgrass produce this mutation because it lived in an environment contaminated by cyanide for a long time, in order to adapt to the environment to survive? While thinking of this, another thought occurred to Lu Lingxi. The mutated eelgrass’s need for cyanide was actually a process of plant absorption, so if the mutated eelgrass evolved, couldn’t it increase its absorption of cyanide and solve the pollution problem of the Lingshui River in disguise? It would be even better if the direction of evolution of the mutated eelgrass was to absorb cyanide, it would be like killing two birds with one stone.

He was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice when Yan Yue returned. When Yan Yue entered, he saw Lu Lingxi staring at a bush of water plants, and his heart softened for some reason. “Xiao Xi, go eat.” Yan Yue warmed up the buns from yesterday and gave Lu Lingxi a glass of milk. Eighteen-year-old Lu Lingxi was still growing up, and every time Yan Yue urged him to eat, he would feel like he was “raising a son”.

Lu Lingxi agreed, washed his hands and obediently sat down opposite Yan Yue.

Yan Yue thought of the water plants in the bucket and casually asked, “Where did they come from?” After saying that, he realised something, “Xiao Xi, did you go to the river?”

Lu Lingxi nodded, and in order to prevent Yan Yue from mentioning that he had wandered off alone, he hurriedly told his thoughts. Yan Yue listened with more approval at first, but when he heard Lu Lingxi talk about his plan to find some cyanide to raise the eelgrass for experiments, he couldn’t calm down at all. What was cyanide? Yan Yue knew it much better than Lu Lingxi. This substance was highly toxic and could be absorbed through the respiratory tract in addition to being taken orally, and could even be absorbed through the skin and seep into the body at high concentrations, causing human poisoning. Where on earth did Lu Lingxi get the nerve to say that he wanted to find some cyanide to experiment with and raise the eelgrass?

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Yan Yue’s face darkened as he said categorically: “No. It’s okay to raise eelgrass, but cyanide is absolutely not allowed to be touched. Don’t you know it’s a highly toxic chemical?”

Lu Lingxi was stunned by his harshness and blinked, looking at Yan Yue and arguing in a small voice, “Big Brother Yan, you smoke, and the smoke from cigarettes also contains cyanide, which is not less toxic.”

When he said this, Yan Yue simply couldn’t help laughing. In the past, due to insomnia and other reasons, Yan Yue had developed the habit of smoking. But ever since he met Lu Lingxi, he smoked less and less frequently and tried to avoid smoking in front of the young man so as not to form a bad example. It was only last time when Ye Kang came over that Yan Yue smoked too many cigarettes and unexpectedly was seen by Lu Lingxi, who kept this in his mind. Yan Yue looked at the young man’s expression, mildly accusatory but also a bit sly. Yan Yue felt his heart overfill with warmth and gave Lu Lingxi a smirk-like glare, saying without blushing, “I’ve quit smoking.”

“……”

There was nothing Lu Lingxi could say to it, so he let out a sullen “oh”. Yan Yue looked at him and felt that he was too strict. He couldn’t help but soften and compromise, “Cyanide of high purity is definitely not to be touched, but we can go to the river later to fetch some water to bring back and raise this eelgrass.”

Lu Lingxi’s eyes lit up and he nodded quickly. In fact, even if he really wanted to find cyanide, he wouldn’t be able to; he couldn’t let Yan Yue keep smoking onto this eelgrass to generate cyanide. This image in his mind was so quirky that Lu Lingxi couldn’t help but laugh, and the way he looked at Yan Yue brought a hint of a smile to Yan Yue’s eyes. Lu Lingxi’s appearance changed from his previous well-behaved look, faintly revealing the impishness unique to his age. Yan Yue felt so moved that he couldn’t help but reach out and rub the boy’s hair, thinking that although the boy’s previous obedience was good, it was a bit too sad to think of his suppressed nature. Yan Yue preferred the boy to be a bit more lively, just like now.

The two of them unhurriedly finished their breakfast, and then endured the stench as they went to the Lingshui River to fetch a bucket of water, which they put in the trunk and brought back to Fengcheng. Lu Lingxi didn’t want to raise the eelgrass in the Tiny Garden shop, so he kept it in the backyard like the victoria. Every day he took care of the clump of eelgrass and carefully recorded the changes in its condition.

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As long as Lu Lingxi didn’t touch cyanide, Yan Yue didn’t interfere with his actions. He could understand Lu Lingxi’s thoughts, and while the young man was taking care of the eelgrass, Yan Yue approached Xue Yongtong and proposed that the two companies collaborate to set up a private plant research institute, led by Xue Yongtong. It would be used to study the genetic evolution and mutation of plants, develop new plant varieties and turn research results into tangible economic benefits. Research institutes like the one Yan Yue was talking about could be basically found in most large plant companies. To put it in perspective, they were breeding institutes that researched cross breeding of plants and screened new varieties. In the past, similar institutions were led by the state, but with the development of the economy and technology, more and more of them turned to private research.

The idea was on Yan Yue’s mind for a long time, but he had never found the right entry point to talk to Xue Yongtong. The large-scale cultivation of begonias was his original entry point, but after acquiring Qiu Tian Gardening, Yan Yue changed his mind after weighing the pros and cons. This time, the mutation of the eelgrass allowed him to find a new entry point, and he immediately approached Xue Yongtong. In Yan Yue’s view, Tiny Garden didn’t have any roots in Fengcheng’s horticultural circles and was really not suitable to be too eye-catching. He was willing to sacrifice a certain amount of financial gain in exchange for Luxuan Gardening being the forefront, which would fulfil the young man’s wish and also gain space for Tiny Garden’s development.

Xue Yongtong was very surprised by Yan Yue’s proposal. He wasn’t looking down on Tiny Garden, on the contrary, Xue Yongtong felt that Tiny Garden was fully capable of getting a research institute of its own. To put it bluntly, this kind of institution was all about one word – money. It wasn’t a problem for Yan Yue to invest in such a small research institute since he had had the money to buy Qiu Tian Gardening. However, Yan Yue offered to cooperate with him, so Xue Yongtong couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy in his heart. But after thinking about it, he couldn’t think of any harm that would be done to him by a partnership between the two companies. After a few days of serious consideration, Xue Yongtong, out of some businessman’s intuition, decisively agreed.

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