In the weeks following Lin Feng's silent withdrawal from Hangzhou, the undercurrents across rural business networks began to shift. On the surface, life in Chen Valley rolled along as usual—fresh greens loaded onto low-profile trucks, village elders attending tea meetings, Xu Yuhan preparing another low-key promotional clip about rural revival.
But Lin Feng wasn't simply maintaining operations anymore.
He was digging deeper.
Literally and figuratively.
Inside the hidden basement beneath the repurposed fertilizer plant—now known innocuously as "Guanshi Storage Depot No. 3"—Lin Feng stood beside a low-humming refrigeration unit. The silver-leaf-stamped crates stored inside no longer held just greens. They now included experimental nutrient-dense root vegetables and medicinal herbs grown in a hybrid of his Inner Realm soil and naturally enriched loam from nearby hills.
The purpose? A test run for the gray market—the hidden corridor of high-demand urban health markets where boutique buyers paid cash and asked no questions.
Liu Qiang entered, holding a sealed envelope.
"New buyer from Suzhou. Payment already received in full. Wants 12 crates delivered through our Haizhou proxy."
Lin Feng opened the envelope and removed a plain white business card.
On the back was a simple message written in calligraphy:
"Truth is the only proof of origin."
He nodded. "Send half the shipment. Tell them the other half is ripening."
Liu Qiang grinned. "Playing the supply game again?"
"No," Lin Feng said. "I'm training their patience."
Later that day, Xu Yuhan met him under the grove of camphorwood saplings behind the aquaponics pond. The trees were just starting to bud—tiny signs of life that hinted at the years they would take to mature.
She handed him her tablet.
"Guess who's launching a line of 'Silverleaf' branded spinach next week?" she asked dryly.
Lin Feng raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess—ZhenHua Holdings?"
She nodded. "They've partnered with a biotech firm to create a similar strain. They're calling it Verdant Shimmer."
He glanced at the photo—identical leaf shape, nearly identical packaging style, and a silver-embossed logo.
"Looks similar," he admitted. "But the taste?"
"I had a chef friend test it. Bland. Looks the part, lacks the soul."
Lin Feng nodded. "That's what happens when you copy form without essence."
She hesitated. "You want to sue?"
"No," Lin Feng replied. "We're not playing in their courtroom. We're playing in the mouths of the people."
That evening, Lin Feng quietly activated Project Dust Vein—a limited rollout of his root vegetables into five hidden organic grocers across south China, each under a different co-op name, with no link to Chen Valley.
His flagship root? Red-Gold Tuber—a deep crimson tuber with marbled golden veins, crisp when raw, creamy when cooked, rich in antioxidants, and with a natural umami sweetness. Unknown outside Inner Realm soil conditions.
But now, it was real—and delicious.
The packaging bore only a single line under the leaf logo:
"Grown where the mountain breathes and the soil listens."
The market reaction was immediate.
Social media threads under foodie hashtags began speculating.
"Is this from the mystery Silverleaf guy?"
"Got it at an underground shop in Hangzhou—flavor bomb."
"Zero pesticide. Impossible texture. WHERE IS THIS FARM?"
Lin Feng watched the posts without engagement.
His food was beginning to haunt the consciousness of a consumer base trained to seek stories.
And all they had were symbols, silence, and taste.
Two weeks later, at a midnight hour, a visitor arrived.
He was elderly, wore a dark green overcoat, and had the sharp gaze of a former field officer. He was greeted by one of Lin Feng's logistics men at the depot.
"Name?" the man asked.
The visitor held up an old government agricultural permit.
It bore the stamp of the Central Bureau for Agricultural Intelligence—a long-defunct agency once tasked with tracking high-value crop smuggling and seed black-market routes.
"I'm looking for the boy who grows whispers," the man said.
The message reached Lin Feng's desk in less than five minutes.
Inside the cooperative office, Lin Feng sat across from the man, pouring tea made from his own chrysanthemum varietal—a flower so fragrant it had drawn bees from other hills.
"You were CBAI?" Lin Feng asked directly.
"Retired," the man said, sipping tea. "But not blind. You're not just growing crops. You're rebuilding a forgotten ideal."
Lin Feng didn't reply.
The man leaned forward.
"There's a movement underfoot. Not government, not foreign. Something in between. They're watching people like you."
"I know," Lin Feng said.
"They see you as a seed vault."
"I see myself as compost," Lin Feng said quietly. "I rot so the future can root."
The old man chuckled. "Good. Stay unpredictable. But careful—some will want to harvest you early."
With that, he left, offering nothing but a nod.
In the Inner Realm, the camphorwood trees had begun to release a faint scent into the artificial air. The microclimate there had reached its sixth evolution—humid mornings, dry afternoons, cool nights. Even the bees were adapting.
Lin Feng stood barefoot in the dew-soaked moss, staring at the grove's edge.
Something was calling him.
There, on the perimeter, a single stalk had bloomed overnight.
It was not one he planted.
The flower was obsidian black with a crimson heart—pulsing gently.
He walked closer.
The soil around it shimmered. This wasn't just a seed—it was a spontaneous evolution. Proof that his Inner Realm was no longer just a controlled zone.
It was alive, and intelligent.
He knelt, touching the earth.
It was warm.
It was listening.
Back in the outer world, another wave of challenges began.
A national agricultural reform bill proposed new restrictions on "unregistered botanical variants," quietly pushed by industrial lobbies.
In Hangzhou, ZhenHua Holdings launched a public "farmer empowerment campaign" using AI-generated stories of fictional growers supposedly producing Verdant Shimmer.
In a small news outlet, a whisper article accused Lin Feng of creating "a ghost agricultural empire using non-disclosed techniques." Though names were obscured, the implications were clear.
Xu Yuhan was furious. "You want me to fight this?"
"No," Lin Feng said.
"We can sue."
"Let them bark," he said. "We're building roots. Not reputation."
By the end of the month, something unexpected happened.
An anonymous donor gifted a struggling medical research institute a rare root sample with powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
The root?
Red-Gold Tuber.
Within days, doctors confirmed its cellular benefits.
Without a supplier to trace, they named it "Miracle Tuber #13."
But across every health forum and private chatroom, one symbol began to be mentioned:
A silver leaf on green soil.
In Chen Valley, life continued quietly.
Children ran through rice paddies. Elderly men played chess under gingko trees. A new storage shed went up near the greenhouse.
And Lin Feng sat on the bamboo bench outside the cooperative, eyes closed, a warm cup of tea in hand.
His phone buzzed. A message from one of his Ghost Bloom test sites.
"First harvest complete. Soil stable. Distribution ready."
He stared at the screen.
Then typed back:
"Hold. Let them ask."
And put the phone away.
He wasn't here to chase demand.
He was here to grow it—one unseen root at a time.
End of Chapter 30