GRMFBS CH125

Zhan Yan did not understand. Zhan Yan was greatly shocked.

Puyang Xia’s behavior didn’t look like he had any love for Li Huodan at all. Could it be that he truly hated lychees so much that he intended to develop lychee-flavored grapes in order to completely replace lychees?

Zhan Yan’s imagination took flight, and he started searching for why Puyang Xia had thought to improve grapes in the first place.

He kept searching all the way back to when Puyang Xia participated in improving local grape varieties over a decade ago, and he could still scroll further down the gossip threads.

Hmm? Didn’t Puyang Xia start improving grape varieties back then?

He continued searching further back.

Fifty years ago:

[Puyang Xia improved a grape that produced 100,000 seeds per cluster, possessed a super strong reproductive ability, but had no flesh.]

Did he just improve an invasive species?

One hundred years ago:

[Puyang Xia improved a grape that blossomed once every thirty years, bore fruit once every thirty years, and then took thirty years for the fruit to ripen.]

Good stuff! If the time to blossom and bear fruit was multiplied a few more times, it could be boasted as an immortal fruit just like the Queen Mother of the West’s Peaches of Immortality.

Two hundred years ago:

[Puyang Xia improved a grape that could bear colorful fruits but tasted extremely sour and astringent.]

This could be used as an ornamental plant!

Zhan Yan continued to search backwards, uncovering all sorts of bizarre grapes that Puyang Xia had improved. Good heavens, had his grudges and grievances with lychees lasted this long?

After scrolling for a long time without reaching the end, Zhan Yan decided to pause. The dorm still needed to be cleaned; he couldn’t just keep eating gossip. He’d finish these chores first and then eat gossip when resting at night.

Duan Hong and Bao Qingshan popped out from who knows where again. The two exchanged a glance, seeing the identical feeling of being drowned in dog food in each other’s eyes.

Finding a free moment, Bao Qingshan seized an opportunity to be alone with Zhan Yan: “Did you buy those grapes from Senior Puyang?”.

Zhan Yan: “Yeah, I thought his grapes would probably taste pretty good, so I placed an order.”.

Bao Qingshan: “Then I’ll order two boxes to take back too. Even counting the loss rate, these grapes are worth it.”.

Zhan Yan: “But most people don’t like losing so much. I saw that there are already quite a few negative reviews under his shop.”.

“Sigh, is Mentong County really going to chop down their grapes? I’ll order two more boxes; it’d be too much of a pity if we can’t eat them in the future.” Bao Qingshan couldn’t help but start gossiping again, “Did you check the group? Those fruit demons are still arguing, and the battlefield is expanding, they’ve even dragged tomatoes into it now.”.

Zhan Yan: “Tomatoes? Aren’t they vegetables?”.

Bao Qingshan: “Isn’t everything that can be eaten raw considered a fruit?”.

Their eyes met, sparks flying cracklingly between the gazes of the Vegetable Party and the Fruit Party.

“Cucumbers can be eaten raw too.”

“Do you use cherry tomatoes for cooking?”

Zhan Yan unleashed his “I Can Cook So Obviously Listen to Me” ultimate technique: “Of course cherry tomatoes can be used for cooking.”.

Bao Qingshan unleashed his “Power of ‘I Reckon'”: “I think tomatoes are fruits!”.

Zhan Yan remembered Bao Qingshan’s ability and stared at him thoughtfully.

Bao Qingshan felt his hair stand on end from the stare: “What do you want?”.

He didn’t know why, but he always felt that the person who pressured him the most in the dorm was Zhan Yan, followed by Gu Jiancheng. But oddly enough, he didn’t feel any sense of danger from Zhan Yan himself; it just made him occasionally nervous.

“Nothing,” Zhan Yan said, “I just wanted to ask you, if someone invested in a grape juice or winery in Mentong County, do you think there would be anything wrong with that?”.

He definitely had to make use of having a big shot of the intuition-type right next to him! He could only use the Gossip System to eliminate some less favorable factors based on information and logic, but Bao Qingshan’s inspiration was based on metaphysics!

“About this, I don’t think there’s any problem…” Bao Qingshan had just breathed a sigh of relief when he suddenly realized, “You’re going to invest in a grape factory in Mentong County?”.

Zhan Yan smiled, acting very embarrassed: “My mom started a company and sometimes invests in some projects.”.

He wasn’t someone who liked to show off and had never told his classmates about his family’s conditions.

He hadn’t expected there to be a hidden rich second generation in their dorm!

“Uncle!” Bao Qingshan yelled out this “Uncle” with genuine emotion, “When you strike it rich in the future, definitely don’t forget your eldest nephew!”.

Zhan Yan: “Shouldn’t it normally be ‘Daddy’?”.

Bao Qingshan: “A ‘Daddy’ casually tossed out is worthless, but we genuinely establish our seniority! Isn’t my Senior Uncle Yuan your Big Sis?”.

If you counted from that directionally challenged physical cultivator Big Sis, it really was true.

Zhan Yan was amused: “Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?”.

The Fruit Party instantly yielded: “Since Uncle says so, it’s obviously a vegetable!”.

Gu Jiancheng quietly leaned over: “What are you chatting about?”.

“Chatting about whether tomatoes are fruits or vegetables,” Zhan Yan said.

Gu Jiancheng stared suspiciously at Bao Qingshan. He kept feeling that Bao Qingshan was deliberately pulling Zhan Yan away from the others to whisper in secret.

Classmate Xiao Gu was still worried about the image issue he discovered earlier, desperately wanting to know what effect his image in the eyes of others would have on his image in Zhan Yan’s eyes, and thus he was overly vigilant.

Bao Qingshan felt his hair stand on end again from being stared at, thinking to himself that these two were truly a couple. Unable to withstand the impending dog food, he quickly retreated.

By the time everything was cleaned up, it was almost time to eat. Zhan Yan opened his suitcase; Duan Hong hurried to close the door, while Bao Qingshan rushed to the cafeteria to bring back food.

They couldn’t let anyone else see Zhan Yan’s suitcase full of delicious food!

After Zhan Yan finished unpacking his luggage, he used the time waiting for dinner to continue scrolling through gossip about Puyang Xia improving grapes. After scrolling for a long time, he finally found the earliest time he started improving them: 463 years ago.

Good heavens, so early!

However, the cultivation concepts back then weren’t as advanced as they were now, and the technology wasn’t as developed either. Puyang Xia’s research on varieties naturally couldn’t be done slowly through crossbreeding like ordinary humans. He utilized demon arts, thereby birthing many strange varieties and creating many things that couldn’t exist in nature, such as successfully crossbreeding grapes with lychees.

To think these two weren’t even in the same botanical family, yet he succeeded!

Hmm… but thinking carefully, it wasn’t completely impossible. As long as demons could take on human form, different races could also combine, and they could also produce offspring after combining, like that big bro who almost went through a sex change due to atavism from having clownfish demon blood.

Zhan Yan suddenly realized a problem he hadn’t considered before: what race would this kind of offspring be considered?

You wouldn’t say they just conquered a scientific obstacle and achieved cross-species hybridization, right?

The demon race should be relatively knowledgeable about this issue. Zhan Yan went to the chaofan forum to find Luowang.

Luowang quickly provided an answer.

Cross-species genetic issues also existed within the demon race. Although demons of different races could combine after taking on human form, the probability of producing offspring was different. The further the species gap, the harder it was to produce offspring. For example, wolf demons and dog demons could produce offspring more easily, but the probability of a wolf demon and a tree demon producing offspring was almost practically zero.

However, humans were an exception. Because the demon race all took on human form, when a human combined with an enlightened demon, no matter what race the demon was, the probability of producing offspring was about the same. It would be lower than the probability of two humans producing offspring, but it wouldn’t be close to zero.

Additionally, offspring born to demons with a small species gap might inherit traits from both parents, such as a wolf-dog demon born to a wolf demon and a dog demon. Offspring born to demons with a large species gap only inherited traits from one parent; for example, if a wolf demon combined with a bird demon and produced offspring, it would either be a wolf demon or a bird demon, it wouldn’t produce a winged wolf.

Human bloodlines could dilute demon bloodlines, but the diluted demon blood could exhibit atavism in certain traits, like the clownfish demon.

After listening to Luowang’s explanation, Zhan Yan couldn’t help but come up with an idea.

Although grapes and lychees were both plants, they definitely crossed families and genera, and crossbreeding them was almost impossible. How did Puyang Xia successfully crossbreed grapes and lychees?

Although both Puyang Xia and Li Huodan showed male appearances after taking human form, their true plant bodies had no gender. Could they be…

Zhan Yan fiercely scrolled through the Gossip System.

Oh, oh, Puyang Xia wasn’t that crazy; the hybrid seeds of grapes and lychees were forced together using spells. Although the resulting seeds could be planted and grown, they didn’t bear fruit, so it was also considered a failed improvement.

Zhan Yan was just about to continue searching when he suddenly received several messages tagging him in the Cultivator’s Conference group chat.

The Cultivator’s Conference group chat name had changed again, now becoming “Harmonious and Friendly, Improving Every Day”. It seemed the group admin had ultimately gained the upper hand.

Clicking into the group, the battle between the several great fruit demons had finally come to an end.

He scrolled up through the chat history.

Blue Bird: [How about we host a fruit-tasting conference? You all bear some fruit, and I’ll go taste them when the time comes.]

The several great fruit demons instantly fell silent.

Blue Bird. Zhan Yan remembered this name. When idiots on the forum were dragging his dad down previously, several divine birds and strange birds had been mentioned, and the Blue Bird was one of them.

He did a quick search on the Gossip System. This big shot had a good relationship with many demons in the Wan Yao Alliance, but preferred freedom by nature, so she hadn’t joined the Wan Yao Alliance.

[The Blue Bird had a sudden whimsical idea, thinking that since osmanthus flowers were so fragrant and sweet, the fruits they bore must be delicious. So she found an osmanthus tree demon and demanded that the other party bear fruit for her to taste. The osmanthus tree demon said he was a four-season osmanthus, a variety that only blooms and doesn’t bear fruit. The Blue Bird didn’t believe him.]

[The Blue Bird became obsessed with different varieties of apricots and found an apricot tree demon, demanding that the other party bear apricot fruits in different flavors. The apricot tree demon stated that this was forcing a tree to do what it couldn’t. The Blue Bird said, “Don’t humans have grafting methods? Why don’t you give it a try?”]

[Hearing that the Blue Bird recently grew fond of cherries, the cherry tree demon uprooted itself and ran away overnight.]

Zhan Yan: Pfft! This big shot truly had a long track record with plant demons, no wonder her deterrence was so great.

The great fruit demons in the group treated this like facing a formidable enemy, immediately creating a private group chat.

Bird demons are the most annoying! It’s these bird demons who love eating fruit the most! These enlightened or naturally born strange species were even more excessive, unwilling to eat ordinary fruits.

We expend our energy bearing fruit to feed birds, on what grounds?!

As for the Blue Bird, it was actually okay. Being a naturally born divine bird, she wouldn’t covet the tiny bit of spiritual essence from plant demons. She always compensated them for making them bear fruit, so calculating it all out, they actually made a profit.

But the problem was, this great demon really loved to mess around with new things!

Take that old osmanthus tree, for instance. It was a protected plant among humans, complete with fences, regular inspections, soil loosening, and fertilization. Even people who wanted to see it had to buy tickets to enter. Its life was incredibly comfortable, and for over a thousand years, it had only bloomed without bearing fruit.

Later, the Blue Bird came along, and the old osmanthus tree was forcefully pressured into bearing a few fruits after holding it in for five years. This incident even made local news, with various experts doing all sorts of analysis. In the end, after tasting one, the Blue Bird simply said “Not sweet,” and told the old osmanthus tree to keep improving.

The old osmanthus tree was streaming with tears, desperately wanting to pull up its roots and run away.