Chapter 18
Mu Feiyi could almost picture the boy’s smooth, frictionless forehead deflecting his taunts. An arrow would fly straight toward the little fellow, bounce cleanly off his skull with a dull clink, and leave him staring back with wide, dopey eyes, eagerly asking: Is it tasty? Can I eat it? Can I have some more?
No wonder Mr. Yu never brought this young master along to formal business gatherings.
The boy was simply too easy to bully—or rather, too easy to trick. Watching him, one could not help but worry that an unscrupulous stranger could lure him away with a single roasted peanut.
Shaking his head with a faint chuckle, Mu Feiyi felt an unexpected prick of conscience over the sack of nuts resting in his hands.
“Keep your eyes on the road!” he called out, raising his voice against the wind.
“Mm-hmm, got it, got it!” Yu Xiaoyuan chirped, still glancing around as he gripped the steering wheel.
“I’ll buy you nuts next time,” Mu Feiyi added before smoothly rolling up the car window.
Settling back into the plush leather seat, he found himself falling into rare self-reflection. Why on earth was he teasing a kid on the highway? Snatching that boy’s peanuts the other day had felt no different from taking candy from a toddler. Looking back, his conscience actually twinged with mild guilt.
Second Young Master Mu let out a soft scoff. Since when did I develop a conscience?
Reaching the highway interchange outside the city, Mu Feiyi noticed their paths diverging. His luxury sedan continued north along the primary expressway, while the young master steered his commercial truck down an exit ramp, heading toward the rural townships scattered across the countryside.
Watching the box truck shrink into the distance, Mu Feiyi felt a fleeting sense of emptiness.
Perhaps he really should take the boy’s advice and pay a visit to that charming little hamster. He could bring along two bags of peanuts as an apology to the pair—one bag for the hamster, and the other…
A dry smile touched his lips. Still for the hamster.
The thought of the boy’s stunned, indignant expression was thoroughly entertaining. Who knew? The youth might even end up wrestling his own pet hamster for the snacks.
“Cancel my appearance at the post-signing dinner tonight,” Mu Feiyi instructed, handing the finalized contracts to his assistant. “It’s a waste of time. We’ll head straight back this evening. Clear my schedule over the next two days as well—I plan to pay a formal courtesy call on the Yu family on Grandfather’s behalf.”
“Understood, Chairman.” The assistant opened his leather planner, subtly glancing up. “Should I notify Young Master Yu in advance?”
Mu Feiyi paused, considering the suggestion. Showing up unannounced was bound to yield a much richer reaction of shock and bewilderment from the boy. Then again, if he arrived without warning while the little fellow was off running errands like today, the entire trip would be wasted.
“Shall we prepare a selection of gifts for the visit?” the assistant asked.
“Nuts, perhaps?” Mu Feiyi arched an eyebrow, his gaze drifting to the bulky sack resting on his lap as a faint smile softened his features. “Three pounds of buttered peanuts, for instance. And what was the name of that little boy from the Yu family’s third branch—the one who just learned to walk? Squeeze in some of those chocolate-covered nuts he was constantly snacking on a while ago.”
“Ah, the chocolate-coated hazelnuts, cashews, pistachios, and almonds? Right away, sir.” The assistant remembered the toddler well. That plump little grand-nephew had a bottomless appetite; though he still wobbled on his feet and looked perpetually sleepy, his eyes turned into saucers at the sight of treats, easily polishing off two half-pound bags of chocolate nuts in a single afternoon.
“Yes, and track down those colorful chocolate-shelled sunflower seeds as well. The boy will certainly enjoy them.” Those were roasted sunflower kernels coated in rich milk chocolate and finished with vibrant, crisp candy shells.
“Consider it done. I’ll dispatch someone to secure them immediately,” the assistant replied. Since he had to remain by the chairman’s side, he quickly jotted down instructions for the support staff. “Would you like us to source some trendy gourmet snacks popular among young adults these days as well?”
“You may.” Mu Feiyi lowered his gaze, turning his attention to the next corporate briefing. A reserved, satisfied smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “Buy plenty. After all, the young master was remarkably generous the other day, gifting us three full pounds.”
“Of course, Second Young Master.”
The assistant glanced at the plain, greasy paper sack sitting beside his boss’s manicured hand, fighting a desperate urge to smile.
Gifted to you? Sir, didn’t you blatantly seize them with your own two hands?
At nine-thirty in the morning, the navigation system guided the box truck to a halt right at the stone archway of Senior Qian Mingtian’s village.
The digital map had proven unreliable, steering the vehicle down a narrow country lane currently blanketed in golden grain laid out by local farmers to dry in the sun. Looking ahead, the sea of drying rice stretched endlessly along the asphalt with nowhere to turn around.
Sigh… The little hamster let out a weary breath. When he returned to the city, he would have to amass a massive collection of detailed topographical paper maps. Once the power grid and satellite networks failed during the cataclysm, navigating without analog charts would be impossible.
Yu Xiaoyuan dialed Senior Qian’s number. The line connected, but the background was filled with noisy clamor and shouting.
The little hamster twitched his velvety ears, catching the faint, unmistakable tones of several voices he thoroughly despised. What’s going on?
Senior Qian had always been honest, sensible, and completely loyal; he certainly wasn’t the sort to conspire with bad actors.
Yu Xiaoyuan glanced down at his screen, choosing to give his senior the benefit of the doubt.
“Sit tight, Xiaoyuan! I’m coming out to meet you now,” Qian Mingtian said over the line, sounding thoroughly exhausted.
Excusing himself from the crowd, Qian Mingtian jogged down a detour trail to meet the truck at the village gate.
“Holy smokes! I assumed you’d roll up in an SUV, so I had already arranged for a local flatbed to deliver your cargo. I never dreamed a young master like you would drive a heavy-duty commercial truck out here yourself!”
It was no light pickup, either; Qian Mingtian estimated its payload capacity at roughly ten tons. It was a blessing the boy hadn’t tried to force his way down the grain-covered lane. Driving a ten-ton hauler onto a soft dirt verge was a recipe for flipping into a ditch, especially with an inexperienced city driver at the wheel.
“My uncle’s logistics department had an extra unit sitting in the yard, so I borrowed it,” Yu Xiaoyuan explained smoothly.
Qian Mingtian ushered the boy into the passenger seat and climbed behind the wheel himself. Having spent years hauling agricultural freight for his family’s enterprise, Qian held a professional Class A2 commercial license—a credential notoriously difficult to obtain.
Suddenly, a thought struck Qian Mingtian, and he spun around in sheer disbelief. “Wait… do you hold a Class A2 license?!”
If he did, Qian Mingtian’s worldview would shatter. What kind of pampered corporate heir spent his eighteenth summer getting certified to drive articulated semi-trailers instead of cruising in exotic sports cars?
And if he didn’t… Qian Mingtian felt a pang of moral conflict. Should he uphold traffic safety and report him?
“Yes, yes, I really have one!” Sensing his senior’s suspicion, Yu Xiaoyuan quickly fished out his leather wallet, holding the valid commercial license up to Qian’s face. “Look, see for yourself! Perfectly legal.”
He offered a bright, entirely earnest explanation: “The Yu family started out in freight and regional transport decades ago, so every direct heir is required to earn a Class A2 license upon turning eighteen. It’s a mandatory family tradition.”
Qian Mingtian studied the boy’s crystal-clear eyes, finding the logic surprisingly sound. “I respect that. A family should never forget its roots.”
Keeping heirs grounded in the foundational trade was an admirable philosophy, and the practical skill would certainly prove useful in a pinch. Even so, he shook his head in fond exasperation. “Still, you could have just hired a professional driver. Next time, leave the heavy rigs to someone else and stick to light pickups for fun.”
“Oh, okay.”
The little hamster’s frictionless brain booted up. Biu~ The unsolicited advice bounced cleanly off his skull!
Any lecture the little hamster had no desire to hear was instantly deflected into the ether!
Once Qian Mingtian confirmed the paperwork was in order, he maneuvered the truck onto a bypass road, venting his frustration regarding the morning’s commotion.
“Those classmates originally insisted on a wilderness trekking trip, but I had to bow out because I took your sourcing order. With the tension brewing in the class group chat over the last couple of days, half the group seized the excuse to back out.
“Did they honestly think I was blind?” Qian scoffed bitterly. “Without you footing the bill, who was going to pay for their luxury camping gear? High-end expedition gear isn’t cheap. They turned their noses up at sturdy two-hundred-yuan tents, insisting on models costing well over a thousand on your manifest. Once you pulled out, the trip fell apart immediately.
“If they pushed forward, they’d have to split the costs for those multi-thousand-yuan dome tents and expensive sleeping mats out of their own pockets. Buying them would drain their allowances, while canceling saved face and hid the fact that they were freeloading off your money from the start.”
Taking a wide turn, Qian explained the current situation. “My second aunt operates a rural agritourism farmstay here in the valley.”
He had casually mentioned the facility in the campus chat weeks ago, welcoming classmates to visit for a weekend getaway. Coming from humble rural roots, Qian Mingtian never spent money recklessly, a fact well known within the student council. Visiting his family’s resort meant paying out of pocket, though he generously offered a student discount.
Business was business. Annoying as those classmates were, their money was perfectly good, and he saw no reason to turn paying customers away. Besides, he only needed to make a brief introductory appearance before leaving the hosting duties entirely to his aunt’s staff.
Yu Xiaoyuan grasped the situation instantly. “Let’s make sure we don’t cross paths with them,” he said, a cold, detached glimmer passing through his dark eyes. “My patience has been wearing a bit thin lately.”
“Your patience wearing thin?” Qian Mingtian laughed aloud. “Little junior, when you announced you were the heir to the Yu Corporation, you nearly gave me a heart attack! A corporate scion with a temperament as soft as fresh dough—how could you possibly have a temper?”
He brought the truck to a halt before a cavernous concrete agricultural depot. “I’ve assembled everything you requested inside. Come take a look and sort through what you want to keep. The livestock—cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, and fingerlings—will be loaded onto dedicated transport crates and driven to your city address in a separate fleet later today.
“As for the crop seeds and nursery seedlings,” Qian patted a reinforced cardboard box, lifting the flaps to reveal the interior, “I’ve sorted them into pairs. Consider these on the house; I talked an agricultural sales representative into parting with two sample packets of every high-yield seed in his catalog.”
Getting such a wide variety from a single supplier was impossible, but Qian Mingtian’s stubborn persistence had paid off. He had spent the previous evening making the rounds through the village, knocking on neighbors’ doors to collect rare heirloom cuttings.
“These bundled flats are fresh vegetable seedlings gathered from across the township. If I spotted a variety our farm wasn’t growing, I dug up a pair of starts for you. No charge for these either.”
Yu Xiaoyuan stared down at the sea of green shoots covering the depot floor, completely overwhelmed. “So many? Senior, this is far too generous. Please let me pay for them; my family has plenty of funds.”
A quick count revealed well over two hundred healthy starts. His initial order had been modest, making this complementary collection astonishingly abundant.
I had no idea the world even had this many kinds of vegetables!
[little hamster thoroughly shocked.jpg]
“A good portion are resilient wild edibles, like these wild shepherd’s purse greens and water celery,” Qian explained, waving a hand dismissively. “Some folks can’t stand the earthy bite, but my mother loves them and keeps a private plot by the irrigation ditch. If you plan to plant these out at your estate, make sure to bed them along a running stream.”
“Mm-hmm, got it!” Yu Xiaoyuan nodded emphatically, already planning to order his bound artifact spirit to plant them by the spatial spring the moment he returned home.
“You ordered plenty of staples, so throwing in a few wild greens is nothing. Besides, my third uncle’s nursery supplied the fruit stock, so my cousins lent a hand digging up starts whenever they spotted a healthy specimen.” Qian gave the boy’s head a fond ruffle. “Come on inside and inspect the fruit trees and ornamental flowering saplings. Pick whatever suits your fancy.
“My third uncle figured that while wealthy families enjoy home orchards, you folks usually appreciate graceful aesthetics, so he gathered a few flowering cultivars as well.”
Cupping his hands around his mouth, Qian shouted into the bustling warehouse: “Third Uncle! My classmate is here!”
“Well now! This young fellow looks even younger than your brother in high school,” Third Uncle said, dusting off his work gloves as he emerged with a broad, welcoming grin. “What a handsome, fine-looking lad!”
Yu Xiaoyuan offered a polite, somewhat bashful smile. When it came to inspecting the nursery stock, he didn’t bother filtering through the rows; he accepted every single tree Qian Mingtian had assembled.
“We’ll take the entire lot,” the boy decided, crouching down to inspect the robust root balls. “I’ll let my uncle choose where to plant them on our estate. We can map out the plots as we dig.”
Each sapling was remarkably sturdy, with thick trunks indicating mature seven-to-eight-year-old stock possessing immense vitality. Even an amateur could tell these were premium, disease-resistant trees offered at exceptionally fair wholesale rates.
“If you’re sure,” Qian Mingtian said, scratching the back of his neck, feeling slightly embarrassed that his client had accepted the inventory without a single complaint. “I’ll have the crew begin loading the flatbed. If your truck runs out of cargo space, my fifth uncle’s heavy hauler is parked out back and can ferry the remainder into town for you.”
Glancing toward the southern valley, Qian added, “The hands can manage the loading. Would you like to stay and look around the village for the afternoon?”
From that direction came the faint, lively sounds of splashing and laughter. Yu Xiaoyuan’s sharp hearing picked up the unmistakable voices of his university peers playing in the shallows, chasing river fish.
He shook his head without hesitation. Leaning closer, he dropped his voice to a serious murmur: “Senior Qian, things might become unstable within the next two weeks. You and your family should stockpile as much dry grain as possible. My uncle mentioned that a major food crisis might be brewing.”
“A crisis? No matter how bad things get, our township won’t go hungry,” Qian replied with a troubled sigh. “You noticed the grain drying along the roads on your way in, didn’t you? This season’s harvest was exceptional, but private wholesale syndicates are exploiting the surplus to drive prices into the ground.
“For prime-grade paddy, they’re offering an insulting eighty-five cents per catty. The national grain reserves are still buying at two yuan forty, but each household is restricted by strict delivery quotas; they won’t accept a single surplus bushel.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Qian looked deeply disheartened. “When grain yields break records, you’d think farmers would celebrate, but bumper crops have turned into a curse.
“The neighbors leaving their harvest spread along the road are either reluctantly preparing to sell at a loss, or simply abandoning the grain out of sheer spite.”
“A commercial distillery sent procurement agents yesterday offering ninety cents a catty—currently the highest private bid on the table,” Qian continued, gesturing toward the golden fields in the distance. “Look at that grain. The kernels are heavy, the ears are dense, and empty husks are practically nonexistent. Yet the buyers are grading it as third-rate salvage just to squeeze the margin. It turns my stomach to watch honest work get devalued like that.”
Having grown up with his hands in the rich black soil, Qian Mingtian held a profound reverence for the land. Even after earning admission to a premier university, his dream had always been to return and modernize his rural home. Standing tall, sun-bronzed, and carrying an open, earnest smile, he spoke passionately about planting rice paddies with his family during his youth.
Yu Xiaoyuan deeply respected that unvarnished authenticity; in a world on the brink of collapse, it was among humanity’s rarest virtues.
“I’ll buy the grain,” Yu Xiaoyuan offered quietly. If sold off to the commercial distillery, the food would simply be fermented into industrial alcohol and lost forever.
He knew trying to convince the villagers of an impending apocalypse was futile, especially with their second crop already in the ground and their spring harvest languishing unsold. The farmers were desperate for liquidity, and offering a fair, elevated price would bring them immediate relief.
Yet Yu Xiaoyuan had no intention of hauling every last grain out of the valley.
“Senior Qian, would you be willing to lease this warehouse to me?” A brilliant plan crystallized in the little hamster’s mind. “I’ll purchase the surplus harvest. I’ll load half of it onto my trucks to take back, but I’d like to lease this facility to store the other half for the next two weeks.
“In fact, I’m willing to buy the excess yield from neighboring townships as well, pooling it right here under your management. I’ll pay a generous half-month storage fee, and my logistics team will arrange transport down the road.”
When the apocalypse struck in two weeks, the immense reserves of grain housed safely inside this village warehouse could naturally revert to the local residents, granting them the vital sustenance needed to endure the wasteland.
Meanwhile, he would take a substantial portion to secure inside his spatial dimensions.
Either way, keeping the grain right here in the hands of honest farmers was infinitely better than letting ruthless corporate syndicates strip the village bare.
