Chapter 250: Chapter 150: Do You Have to Do This to Me? It’s So Humiliating

Lu Yuan saw the bed and immediately collapsed onto it, where the faint scent of Aunt Song’s perfume still lingered.

Su Liyan knew her brother hadn’t returned all night. Aware that he was busy with something important, she had slept fitfully, tossing and turning in a daze.

In the early morning, the factory workers gathered in a wide circle around the wheat harvester, chattering amongst themselves about the behemoth.

None of the workers had ever seen such a thing; to them, it was like some kind of monster.

The clamor outside woke Lu Yuan. He rubbed his eyes, threw on his coat, and went out.

Without a word, Lu Yuan climbed onto the wheat harvester in front of everyone and started the machine.

The wheat harvester let out a deafening ROAR, startling the crowd and sending them stumbling back a dozen paces. Some even clapped their hands over their ears and ran.

"What is that monster?"

"Isn’t the guy riding that behemoth the same man who had his arm around Director Song yesterday?"

"Yeah, that’s him!"

"Stay back! You don’t think that thing will hurt anyone, do you?"

"It looks like that monster swallowed the man! Oh, wait, look, I can still see him in there."

...

As everyone watched, Lu Yuan drove the machine out of the factory grounds. No one dared to stand in his way.

Lu Yuan drove the wheat harvester slowly toward the fields.

The common folk followed from a safe distance.

’No amount of talk will convince them whether this thing works or not. The only way to get them to accept it is to drive it straight into the fields and give them a demonstration.’

Lu Yuan headed for a vast, flat field of wheat.

He had already found the owner of that field the day before and bought the wheat for several times its market price.

He also promised to return all the harvested wheat to the owner.

How could the owner possibly refuse?

The field’s owner was probably thinking: ’What kind of fool pays to harvest my wheat and then doesn’t even want to keep it?’

Lu Yuan drove the wheat harvester into the wheat field, and the machine’s roar grew even louder.

The massive crowd of townsfolk trailing behind watched the behemoth. Wherever it passed, the wheat simply vanished.

"Look! Whose field is that? The monster is eating it all!"

"Ai, a whole year’s work, just when it was time for a good harvest... gone, just like that."

"That thieving thing can really pack it away. CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP... it’s stuffing everything into its belly."

...

The townsfolk shook their heads and sighed.

Sitting atop the wheat harvester, Lu Yuan knew that explanations would be useless. ’It’s not that the people are stupid,’ he thought, ’they just can’t possibly process something like a wheat harvester so quickly.’

It was like when the first train was introduced to China—it had to be pulled by men, yet the people riding inside were smugly declaring, "This is a great invention! We should apply for a patent."

If even people from the same era couldn’t accept a new invention, how could he expect the people of the Divine Ling Empire to understand just by hearing him talk about it?

Actions spoke louder than words. So, Lu Yuan just kept driving the wheat harvester, cutting swathes through the field.

Before long, the harvester’s grain tank was full.

Lu Yuan drove the wheat harvester out of the field and over to the threshing ground.

Before everyone’s eyes, he emptied the wheat onto the ground.

"Holy crap, the thing can spit the wheat back out?"

"That’s insane!"

"Damn, what the hell is this thing?"

...

The crowd erupted in another wave of chatter.

Seeing that he’d achieved the desired effect, Lu Yuan climbed down from the wheat harvester.

"Look! It spit the man out, too!" an old man exclaimed.

A young man in the crowd spoke up, "Isn’t that the magistrate of our Taiping City, Lord Lu?"

Hearing the young man’s words, the crowd broke into another noisy discussion about their young Lord County Magistrate.

"I can’t believe the Lord County Magistrate of Taiping City is so young!"

"Of course he is! He’s involved in compiling that newspaper we read every day, isn’t he?"

"I also heard our Lord County Magistrate married a beautiful wife, though none of us have ever seen her."

...

Lu Yuan waved his hand to silence the crowd. They were getting sidetracked.

Lu Yuan announced, "What you’re all seeing now is the wheat harvester I invented. It’s here to help everyone harvest their wheat."

He patted the wheat harvester behind him, presenting it to the crowd. "Don’t worry about it swallowing your grain. It’s only here to help you bring in the wheat. I’ll stake my official’s hat on it as a guarantee."

The crowd wasn’t entirely convinced by Magistrate Lu. After all, he had only been in office for a few months.

While he hadn’t engaged in any corruption, he hadn’t yet truly won the people’s hearts. No one was quite sure what to make of this Magistrate Lu.

The daily newspaper Lu Yuan had created recorded all sorts of novel events but never actively promoted him. For such a prominent figure in Taiping City, Lu Yuan was remarkably low-key.

Lu Yuan continued, "I will harvest the wheat for the first twenty households for free and bring it to the threshing ground. I will personally compensate for any and all losses."

The townspeople looked at Lu Yuan, then glanced at their neighbors. They weren’t convinced.

But there’s always one brave soul. A burly man pushed his way out of the crowd, raised his hand high, and shouted, "I’ll do it! Come harvest the wheat in my field!"

’It’s not a machine malfunction I’m worried about, but the possibility that no one would be willing to try.’

Now that someone had volunteered, he could harvest this family’s wheat and give the townsfolk another demonstration of the wheat harvester.

On the first day of the machine’s existence, Lu Yuan was the only one who dared to operate it.

Following the burly man’s directions, Lu Yuan drove the wheat harvester to his field.

The wheat field wasn’t large, only about half a *mu*, which was just enough to fill a single grain tank.