Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Mutated Three-Color Horned Plum Blossom

After discussing the specific details with his older sister, Zhong Di was ready to get to work.

The chicken manure still had not all been cleared away, and there were plenty of odds and ends to deal with—such as installing water and feed bowls for the various poultry. Those things had to be done properly.

They needed to make the place feel fresh at a glance, not make people exclaim, Good heavens, what a mess!

The flowers planted between the herb garden and the fish pond had been given a light watering earlier, and they looked to be recovering well. In a little while, they would bloom again with renewed vitality.

There was beauty in the disorder as a whole. Seen from afar, colors intertwined everywhere, and bees still buzzed among the remaining blossoms.

Gah, gah, gah!

In the fish pond, ducks swam about in all directions, calling out cheerfully. Ducks, by nature, love water; it is as instinctive to them as catching mice is to cats, something inherited in their very genes.

Of course, there are cats that live in cities and have never seen a mouse, their skills having degraded. In the same way, ducks that have never seen water are called land ducks.

The water level in the pond had dropped quite a bit, but the oxygen pump was still running continuously. With ducks, geese, and mandarin ducks in the pond, the water would become richer in oxygen, which was also beneficial for raising fish.

The only trouble was that the ducks liked catching fish, but Zhong Di did not think much of that. If the ducks ate some, so be it; at worst, they could simply stock more fry.

Given the current situation, it would not be long before they could release the fish. They would start with a small batch and test the waters first.

"Didn’t we agree yesterday to sleep in this morning? Why are you still not following through?"

As soon as he reached the chicken coop, Zhong Di began his complaint.

They had clearly agreed to sleep late together, yet this fellow had gotten up so early to work on his own. Wouldn’t that make people think Zhong Di was the lazy one?

"Nothing I can do about it. I’m used to it. Once the hour comes, I wake up and can’t fall back asleep no matter what. I figured I might as well get up and work."

Shao Hong put down the broom and waved a hand, showing that he was quite helpless about it too.

This was a common problem for some people: they often woke at a certain hour, and then one day, even when they were finally allowed to sleep in, they would wake right on schedule no matter how late they had gone to bed.

"This habit is bad. You need to change it. How’s the manure cleanup coming along?"

Zhong Di did not think it was a good habit at all. If a person could not even occasionally enjoy a lazy morning, how miserable would that be?

One should not always listen to those so-called success doctrines—self-discipline this, self-discipline that, if you want success you must do this and that. If success meant giving up even something as basic as sleep, then what was the point of success at all?

Of course, it still depended on the person. Some people were born to make great contributions and leave their names in history.

But for most people, wasn’t the pursuit of success really just the pursuit of a comfortable life—being able to sleep in once in a while after work, or drink afternoon tea when one had nothing better to do?

"Pretty good. Yesterday the two of us finished all the preparatory work, and the remaining cleanup is going faster and faster. At most by this afternoon, it should all be done."

"And there’s also the matter of the desert jujubes. After weighing it all up, I plan to go with a buyout strategy. That goes for the wild hemp, licorice root, wolfberries, and some other common medicinal herbs nearby as well."

"Rather than organizing people ourselves to gather them, it would be better to buy them. If we offer one and a half times the market price, then even if we only want fifty kilograms, there will definitely be people willing to do it."

"And if we go collect them ourselves, not only will the efficiency be low, it will also delay other things."

After Shao Hong finished speaking about the progress, he brought up the matter of the desert jujubes Zhong Di had mentioned. It was something he had thought over last night and only came up with again this morning while working.

Hm?

At Shao Hong’s words, Zhong Di’s eyes lit up.

"That works. Your overall thinking is open now. Fine, let’s do it exactly as you suggested."

After chatting a few more sentences, the two of them began clearing the chicken manure. The morning passed quickly, and Zhong Di felt that he could grant himself the title of chief poop-scooper.

Covered in the smell of chicken droppings from head to toe—that scent was something else.

"Wow, this flower is so beautiful."

Just as he returned to the house at the homestead, Zhong Di heard his older sister, Zhong Hui, muttering to herself.

When he walked over to take a look, wasn’t that the nearly dead bougainvillea he had brought back earlier?

This spot had been hastily set up by Zhong Di. He had only thrown up a bit of shade netting; the netting itself was low, and the place was fairly out of the way, so he had not paid it much attention for days.

Today, it just happened to be discovered by Zhong Hui.

They had watered it two days ago and it had not been blooming then—so how had it suddenly bloomed now?

And not just blooming, but blooming in three colors: yellow, pink, and blue. Pansies? No, nonsense—this was bougainvillea.

The yellow, pink, and blue interwove together to create a unique beauty, while the other flowers brought back from home were merely supporting cast.

"Zhong Di, where did you get this flower? Put it somewhere obvious and it would be absolutely eye-catching!"

Zhong Hui exclaimed in admiration. She was truly astonished by the flower, to the point that she did not even know its name.

"Bougainvillea. I bought it cheap the last time I took Little Xi to the market with me to buy candy."

Zhong Di answered honestly. There was no need to hide something like this. He truly did not know how else to explain the bougainvillea.

In general, bougainvillea certainly came in more than one color: pale red, bright red, deep purple-red, light yellow, creamy white, and of course even multicolored blooms on a single plant. But blue? That was unheard of.

Unless it had mutated, been hybridized, or been genetically modified? Right, that had to be it. It could be explained as a mutation—hadn’t there once been a craze for mutated tulips?

"We’ve struck gold! I’m going to take lots of photos and help publicize it."

Once she learned it was bougainvillea, Zhong Hui hurried to find all kinds of angles to photograph it.

Zhong Di did not bother with her. Let her publicize it; forbidding his older sister from doing so would only arouse suspicion. Besides, this sort of thing could not be kept under wraps. There were already plenty of mutated flowers on the market, so the issue was not a major one.

"How about it? Am I not beautiful?"

Suddenly, Zhong Di heard a voice in his mind—familiar yet strange. Looking closely, he realized it was the bougainvillea.

Judging by the voice alone, it leaned female, with a certain magnetic quality.

"How did you turn into this? Do you have any idea what kind of trouble this will bring me?"

Zhong Di replied to the bougainvillea.

Rather than saying he heard the bougainvillea speak, it would be more accurate to say he saw its voice. It was a strange way to put it and did not fit ordinary logic, but that was how it was.

It was as if Zhong Di could perceive certain information, and that information then transformed into a language in his mind. It could be because he chose to look for it, or because the bougainvillea was transmitting it to him by some other means.

"How would I know why I turned out like this? I just feel as if my life has been elevated."

This time, the voice leaned male.

Evolution. It was definitely evolution. For something so clearly spirited, Zhong Di understood that this was an evolutionary phenomenon. Unknowingly, he thought again of Yu Sheng’s human-like dog face.

"So are you male or female? With a voice like this and like that, from now on I’ll just call you the Three-Color Bougainvillea."

Without waiting for the bougainvillea’s consent, Zhong Di happily made the decision.

"Strictly speaking, I have no gender division. Simply put, I can be both female and male."

The bougainvillea’s male and female voices alternated in an instant.