Chapter 939: Seeds of Doubt

At five in the afternoon, Xia Qing took a stack of printed documents from the Ninth Planting Center and set off for Territory Seven to see Zhang San. Officially, it was to discuss the Ninth Center’s expansion of greenhouses and warm houses, but in reality, she wanted to use the opportunity to deliver some Devastationweed leaves.

The Devastationweed leaves were tiny and completely colorless, so Xia Qing casually slipped them into her pocket and passed through the security gate at Territory Seven without a hitch. After being patted down by a female member of Ji Li’s squad, she followed Ji Li straight to Zhang San’s office.

Everything went just like before, but Xia Qing still picked up on something odd about Ji Li. It wasn’t obvious on his typically stern face, but something had changed in his demeanor. Xia Qing felt a heaviness from him, as if he was walking with a weight on his heart and shoulders.

Xia Qing asked, “Ji, did Princess Cat and the others like the Green Lantern Bamboo Rats that came in this morning?”

Last year, the tabby cat in Zhang San’s territory gave birth to two kittens. Hu Zifeng took one, leaving one behind. This year, Princess Cat didn’t have kittens, so there were still just two cats.

Ji Li nodded and replied in his usual serious tone, “They’re alright.”

Even when talking about cats, Ji Li barely relaxed, which only made it clearer that something serious was going on. Xia Qing didn’t push further and followed him to the pristine two-story white building that housed Zhang San’s office area. After another check from security—these ones wearing armbands from Zheng Chen’s squad—they finally got inside.

Ji Li stopped at the door. Xia Qing followed a Zheng Chen squad member to wait outside Zhang San’s office. When she finally went in and closed the door, she handed over the documents. “Third Brother, our center’s greenhouse construction is moving fast. We’ll have fifty built by next month. I want to add ten more with brick walls…”

Zhang San kept his eyes glued to his phone, only leaning back in the plush chair once the guard left the building. He looked up and asked, “How many jin of soybeans did you pick?”

Xia Qing answered, “Two jin.”

Zhang San let out a sigh. “The weight’s the same, but all the beans are just ordinary soybeans.”

Xia Qing felt her heart sink too. “I picked those two jin from twenty soybean plants. Three of them were the problem beans. Did anyone pick the soybeans you planted in your territory?”

Of the Green Lantern Soybean Seeds that Fire Phoenix provided as compensation, Zhang San kept two jin to plant in his own territory and gave Xia Qing three jin.

Zhang San slowly shook his head. “Based on pod inspection, these soybeans came partly from your territory, partly from other places.”

Xia Qing guessed, “It’s probably Territory Fourteen. I’ll get to the bottom of whether they’ve started growing soybeans.”

Zhang San nodded. “Don’t rush, and watch out for yourself.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll use Xin Yu’s surveillance bird to check from the air. They’ll never know.”

Xia Qing continued analyzing the situation. “The soybeans in your territory are all grown in standardized greenhouses and never come into contact with high concentrations of Devastation Element, so there’s no risk of them undergoing aggressive Devastation Evolution. Unless you check the beans’ quality, you’d never notice anything wrong. As long as I pull out the problem beans from my own fields, Fire Phoenix’s research into soybean bioweapons could go undiscovered. Third Brother, how does Ji Li accurately distinguish bean quality? Does he have some tool for sorting or is he also a high-level Magnetic Sense evolver?”

For a top Speed Evolver like Ji Li, obtaining beans from other territories is no trouble at all, but how did he so quickly separate out the problem beans from Section Three and swap in perfectly ordinary Green Lantern Soybeans?

That’s what Zhang San was trying to figure out too. “It shouldn’t be related to Magnetic Sense evolution. Once the pods are picked, there’s no more transpiration or phloem flow, which means no weak electromagnetic field.”

So, it’s not Magnetic Sense…

Xia Qing took out her phone and showed her idol a video of Section Three’s worker, Little Fei Mao. “Third Brother, look—the Red Squirrel you saved can pick out quality seeds from tons of them, finding the ones best for cultivation. What kind of ability is that?”

Zhang San sat up straighter, took Xia Qing’s phone, and enlarged the video. He watched it several times before reaching a preliminary conclusion. “Its nose twitches while searching for seeds. It’s probably using its highly evolved sense of smell to distinguish subtle differences in Devastation Element content between seeds. But we’d need further tests to confirm that.”

Xia Qing’s eyes sparkled. “So Little Fei Mao is a high-level Scent Evolver! You’re amazing, Third Brother—you noticed it right away!”

Zhang San shot Xia Qing a look and couldn’t be bothered to respond.

Xia Qing quickly got back to the subject. “Third Brother, a high-level Scent Evolver squirrel probably has a sharper nose than a human, right?”

Zhang San gave Xia Qing another exasperated look—he was clearly annoyed by the question, but still answered, “Smell has two main metrics: breadth, which is the number of scents you can distinguish, and sensitivity, which is how little of a scent you need to detect it. There are huge differences between species in these two areas, so when ranking Scent Evolvers, we only compare within the same species. ‘Human’ Scent Evolvers are defined as those who surpass ordinary people in both breadth and sensitivity—among humans.”

“Since humans have such strong vision and other senses, we grew less dependent on smell over time, so more than half our olfactory receptor genes stopped working and became pseudogenes. During Blue Star’s great evolution, some of those genes switched back on and became functioning genes again…”

Superfan Xia Qing perked up and humbly asked, “Does having more reactivated genes mean a higher scent evolution level?”

Is it really that simple?!

Zhang San was starting to lose patience. “Humans have 821 olfactory receptor genes. Yan Long still has 45 pseudogenes left.”

Xia Qing pulled out a bag of original-flavor Green Lantern Bamboo Shoots, opened it, and handed some over to her idol before continuing, “If Sister Yan’s 45 pseudogenes all reactivate, does that make her a top-level Scent Evolver?”

With Green Lantern snacks, Zhang San’s mood improved and he went on explaining. “Besides the number of genes, there’s also single-allele expression in olfactory neurons—basically, how well individual receptor genes are activated. Then there are factors like spatial interactions across different chromosomes and enhancers. Based on my gene mapping, Yan Long doesn’t have much chance of becoming a top-tier evolver.”

Xia Qing, already a bit lost, dared not ask anything deeper and instead stuck to the matter at hand. “Third Brother, how many olfactory receptor genes does a Red Squirrel have?”

Zhang San answered, “That subspecies of Red Squirrel you have should have between 1,500 and 1,800.”

Xia Qing… that’s nearly an order of magnitude more!

Zhang San shot her a look again. “Gene count only determines breadth, not sensitivity!”

Right… Xia Qing gathered her courage and asked, “Third Brother, are top human Scent Evolvers more sensitive to certain smells than red squirrels?”

“There are trillions of odors out there. Humans actually surpass red squirrels in identifying complex, pleasant scents—at least, the ones our brains are tuned for. But as for your red squirrel, it’s likely far more capable when it comes to detecting scents related to Devastation Element or Evolution Element…” Zhang San trailed off, chewing his bamboo shoots in silence.