The monsoon clouds lingered like solemn guardians over Chen Valley, their bellies swollen with unshed rain. Beneath them, the village pulsed with a subtle energy—quiet, persistent, and utterly different from the sleepy hamlet it had once been.
The fields were lush with green, the harvest delayed slightly by rain but healthier than ever. Rows of broad-leaf vegetables shimmered with natural oils under the overcast light. The silverleaf crop—small in area but enormous in value—stood proudly near the eastern edge, cordoned off with bamboo fencing and signs in four languages: No Entry. Research Zone.
Inside the cooperative's office, Lin Feng poured over reports from the other cold-chain nodes.
Guanshi Depot No. 3: stable.
Node 112-Green: running at 88% efficiency.
Node 115-Willow: delays due to local labor disputes.
He paused at the last one. Labor issues were rare in his network—because he only hired people who believed in what they were doing. The fact that there was dissent meant one thing: someone had infiltrated.
"Liu Qiang," Lin Feng called calmly, "we need to visit Willow Node."
---
Two hours later, in a disguised transport van labeled "Organic Soil Testing Unit," Lin Feng and Liu Qiang arrived at a hillside facility tucked into a forested patch near the county border.
The air smelled of pine resin and wet soil. The depot itself looked unremarkable—just a refurbished barn on the surface—but underneath, it housed refrigerated tunnels and climate pods.
"What's going on here?" Lin Feng asked the local manager, a wiry man named Zhou Bin.
Zhou looked visibly nervous. "Sir… it's just a few temp hires. They've been asking questions. Too many."
"Like what?"
"Where the silverleaf is grown. Why our shipments get priority but no branding. Why their ID cards only work for one sector of the site."
Liu Qiang's jaw tightened. "They're fishing."
Lin Feng nodded. "Terminate their contracts. Quietly. Pay severance. Make it clean."
Zhou hesitated. "But what if they—"
"—talk?" Lin Feng finished. "They will. Let them. Just make sure what they say is vague enough to sound like legend."
---
Back in Chen Valley, Xu Yuhan was working with a small editing team to finalize a short documentary: The Seed That Listens. It followed a grandmother planting crops alongside her grandchildren, tracing the transition from chemical-intensive farming to natural soil revival using techniques Lin Feng had introduced.
Soft background music. A voiceover in Wu dialect. No mention of brands. No mention of Lin Feng. Only the valley, the soil, and time.
"We should submit this to the Green Earth Media Festival," said one of the editors.
Xu Yuhan shook her head. "Not yet. Let the underground channels carry it first. When it's a whisper, people lean in. When it's a scream, they tune out."
---
That evening, Lin Feng returned to the Inner Realm.
The Nightroot seeds had sprouted.
He hadn't watered them. Hadn't even disturbed the soil. Yet from the patch he'd left under the willow tree, tiny black shoots pushed through like obsidian needles, glistening in the artificial twilight.
He knelt beside them, brushing his fingers against one. It shivered at his touch. Not from fear—but awareness.
"Are you... sentient?" he whispered.
The shoot vibrated again.
Fascinated, Lin Feng placed a single leaf of silverleaf next to one of the Nightroots. Overnight, it wilted and was absorbed into the soil.
The next morning, the Nightroot had doubled in size.
He recorded the results in a leather-bound journal:
> Nightroot Sequence A
Absorbs energy from adjacent organic matter.
Grows in silence. Responds to intention.
Possibly symbiotic with user's emotional state.
It wasn't just a plant.
It was a conduit.
---
The next day brought visitors.
Not investors. Not inspectors.
Farmers.
From as far away as Hunan and Guangxi, they arrived in old trucks, weather-beaten and wide-eyed. Some had heard about the cooperative through family; others through encrypted forums and off-grid WeChat circles.
They weren't looking to invest. They were looking to learn.
One man, in his sixties, approached Lin Feng after touring a compost station.
"I've been farming longer than you've been alive," he said gruffly. "But your compost smells... different. Rich. Like forest after rain."
Lin Feng didn't boast. He simply offered the man a handful. "It's alive."
The man nodded slowly. "Teach me."
---
Lin Feng gathered the visitors in the open-air hall of the eastern slope, where terraced planting beds lay before them like an amphitheater.
He didn't use slides or spreadsheets. He picked up a clump of soil and crumbled it between his fingers.
"This," he said, "is your real capital. Not your land deeds. Not your equipment. Just this."
He taught them the basics of microbial diversity. The dangers of over-fertilization. The way worm castings could change a root structure.
And then he told them a story.
"Once, there was a farmer who wanted to grow the biggest pumpkin. He used chemicals, lights, and machines. Another farmer just fed the soil and left the pumpkin alone. In the end, the soil-fed pumpkin lasted longer, tasted better, and healed those who ate it."
A pause.
"I don't grow crops," Lin Feng said. "I grow ecosystems."
---
Later that week, a low-profile media house released an anonymous article titled The Hidden Farmer Revolution: Rural China's Quiet Kingpins. It mentioned no names. No photos. But it described an emerging movement—one that prized resilience over fame, ecosystems over profit.
At the center of the article was a phrase:
"The man with the silver leaf."
Lin Feng read it without expression.
Xu Yuhan, however, was giddy.
"You've officially become folklore," she said.
"I'm not a kingpin," Lin Feng said quietly. "I'm a gardener with secrets."
---
But not all attention was benign.
In a provincial office two cities away, a man named Director He stared at a dossier with furrowed brows. He represented a powerful agro-industrial conglomerate whose profits had quietly dipped in the last six months.
"Chen Valley," he said aloud. "What are you hiding?"
His assistant entered with an update. "We've tracked the shell companies. They lead nowhere. But the supply routes are… decentralized. Almost fractal."
Director He narrowed his eyes. "That's not amateur work. That's military-grade logistics."
He tapped the desk. "Send in an offer. Disguised. If he bites, we'll know his price."
---
Back in Chen Valley, Lin Feng received a courier letter.
Not email. Not a call.
A letter.
Inside was a simple invitation card:
"Strategic Partnership Invitation – From a Mutual Friend in the Industry."
Attached was a blank check.
No name. No logo. Only a stamped seal: a red plum blossom, used historically by a now-defunct party military supply bureau.
Lin Feng burned the check in a clay pot.
As the flames flickered, he whispered, "The game has changed."
---
That night, as he rested under the willow in the Inner Realm, the Nightroots pulsed faintly. A hum ran through the soil—not sound, but sensation. As if the land was bracing itself.
He reached down and felt the ground.
It was warm.
Awake.
And whispering.
---
End of Chapter 32