From Apocalypse Boss to Farmer: My Vegetables Make Me Stronger!-Chapter 70 - 65: A Late-Night Little Secret

Once Da Hong had led its flock of chickens and ducks into the distance and silence fell, Wei Heng finally began to speak. "About a year ago, I was leading a team on a mission near City A..."

That day, Wei Heng and his team had just finished their mission and were preparing to return to the Central Base when they suddenly received a distress call from the A City Base. The report mentioned a bizarre incident in the East Suburb of City A...

The details were vague, but driven by his sense of duty as a soldier, Wei Heng reported the situation and immediately led his team to the location.

However, what awaited them was a malignant mutant plant.

It was the first time Wei Heng’s team had ever faced a malignant mutant plant. No one was prepared... You can imagine how brutal the battle was.

On top of that, someone had deliberately obscured the information and given them a false assessment report...

In the end, though they managed to kill the malignant mutant plant, Wei Heng was severely injured, and several of his comrades lost their lives.

But the Abnormal Ability Research Institute suppressed the incident, citing the need to maintain stability at the base and avoid public panic. They didn’t even issue an internal bulletin afterward.

They even placed Wei Heng and the other surviving team members under house arrest, ostensibly for treatment.

During that month of confinement, once certain people learned his ability was crippled, they coldly tried to squeeze out his last bit of value in the name of "research"...

Before long, a second malignant mutant plant incident occurred. Because the military hadn’t been informed, even more soldiers died that time...

The whole affair became a massive incident.

He and his surviving comrades were finally brought back.

But in the end, the Abnormal Ability Research Institute still managed to forcefully cover up the malignant mutant plant incidents.

Disheartened, Wei Heng submitted his retirement papers and left the Special Service Team.

After recounting his story, Wei Heng lowered his head, seemingly lost in memory.

After a long moment, he looked up at Gu Xi. "Later, I met a friend in the food section of a forum. He recommended a lot of good food to me... and then I came to South City."

Gu Xi raised an eyebrow slightly. "That friend of yours...?"

"We only ever communicated online, talking about local food and scenery. At first, I didn’t know who they were," Wei Heng said. "But I do now."

Gu Xi asked, "Who?"

"Zhou Jing." Wei Heng opened his personal terminal and turned the Light Screen toward Gu Xi. "This is the intel Mr. Ye just dug up a few days ago..."

Gu Xi’s eyebrow twitched. ’Zhou Jing?’

The name was so common that, as it happened, she also knew a girl named Zhou Jing.

"The Zhou Jing you mentioned... you don’t mean Mr. Zhang’s lab assistant, do you?" Gu Xi asked, quickly scanning the information on the Light Screen for final confirmation.

"That’s her. According to all the evidence we’ve gathered, it seems this Zhou Jing intentionally guided me to South City."

With that, Wei Heng looked up at Gu Xi again and lowered his voice. "Mr. Ye just uncovered her identity a few days ago. Guess who she is."

Gu Xi raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

Wei Heng closed the Light Screen and looked toward the experimental fields. "She’s likely Zhou Jinyu’s daughter. His illegitimate daughter."

’Zhou Jinyu?’

’That extremely low-profile director at the Abnormal Ability Research Institute? The one rumored to be Ye Xin’s old flame?’

In an instant, Gu Xi pulled up all the information she had on the name "Zhou Jinyu."

"You’re saying," Gu Xi looked up at Wei Heng, "that back in City A, it was Zhou Jinyu who secretly garbled the reports from the A City Base and gave you the false assessment?"

"Yes." Wei Heng nodded, meeting Gu Xi’s eyes and frankly sharing his suspicions.

He finished, "Whether he masterminded my injury is hard to say. After all, a battle is unpredictable, beyond human control. But, Gu Xiaoxi."

Wei Heng looked at her and said seriously, "My coming to South City seemed like a random choice at the time."

"But in hindsight, Zhou Jing played a crucial role. Most of the food videos she recommended to me were related to South City."

"In other words, she was deliberately guiding me to South City from the very beginning."

"Gu Xi, I’m now starting to suspect that even our first meeting wasn’t a coincidence... Someone deliberately sent me to you."

Wei Heng held nothing back. At this point, there was no reason to.

Gu Xi watched him calmly. After a moment, she sighed softly. "If everything you’ve experienced was because of me..."

"It wasn’t because of you," Wei Heng cut in. "Gu Xiaoxi, don’t try to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders."

The truth was, given the state of his body back then, he wouldn’t have lasted much longer even without the City A incident.

The X Energy in his body was already becoming uncontrollable. If he couldn’t get effective Purification, it was only a matter of time before disaster struck.

’Thinking about it this way,’ Wei Heng suddenly thought, ’maybe I should thank that person?’

After all, that person had gone to great lengths to send him to Gu Xi.

And from that moment on, his fate had completely changed.

Wei Heng suddenly chuckled.

Gu Xi looked at him, confused. "What are you laughing about?"

"I’m laughing at the thought... Could this be a blessing in disguise?" Wei Heng said.

Gu Xi raised an eyebrow. "...Perhaps?"

He tilted his head to look at her. "Gu Xiaoxi, since that person did me such a huge favor, how do you think I should thank them?"

Gu Xi thought for a moment. ’That’s a good question.’

’Worth considering.’

’Worth considering very carefully.’

...

「That afternoon」

After listening to the radio for a bit, Gu Xi slowly walked out of the courtyard.

Near a small creek not far away, Mr. Zhao was busy in a paddy field with several of his lab assistants. They had just harvested a crop of ratoon rice there yesterday.

As soon as Gu Xi walked over, a tall, slender girl with her long hair in a bun and a studious air smiled at her. "Gu Xi, you’re here."

"Mhm, I came to discuss something with the professor," Gu Xi replied with a smile.

This girl was Zhou Jing.

Just as her name suggested, she seemed to be a very quiet girl.

"You want to clear all the nearby hillsides and turn them into orchards? And you also want to lease several hundred more acres to plant crops?" Mr. Zhao asked, stunned, after hearing Gu Xi’s proposal. His brow furrowed slightly.

The food crisis was growing more severe by the day. Everyone’s efforts were focused on making sure the entire nation could eat their fill as soon as possible. As for fruit...

To be honest, even though Mr. Zhao himself had applied for this project, he had given it a very low priority.

Gu Xi nodded, her peripheral vision unintentionally sweeping over Zhou Jing, who was squatting at the edge of the field taking samples.

’Such a nice girl,’ Gu Xi thought. ’She even gave Qin Yi an orange once. I heard her friend had it specially mailed from the Central Base.’

’What a pity...’

Gu Xi pulled her gaze away and turned back to discuss the orchard plan with Mr. Zhao.

She guessed the mastermind would assume that after suddenly seeing a fragment of her own Crystal Core, she would be overcome with anger and desperate to uncover the truth.

That would be the logical reaction.

But Gu Xi wouldn’t give them that.

Years of combat and countless life-or-death situations had taught Gu Xi one thing: the more critical the moment, the calmer you had to be.

Losing your composure and acting rashly would only lead to a disastrous loss.

And this was precisely the moment her enemy wanted her to lose that composure.

So, she would use their "eye" to send a clear message to the mastermind: right now, Gu Xiaoxi was only interested in developing her grand farming enterprise!

Of course, this wasn’t just to lull her enemy into a false sense of security and throw them off her trail.

It was also because Gu Xi genuinely loved farming. It was tied to a little secret of hers.

A little secret that only her old teammates knew.

It turned out that when an eight-year-old Gu Xi had first gone berserk in a zombie horde, she had become so overwhelmed by a murderous aura that she’d almost lost her mind and harmed her own teammates.

Li Ming had been worried that if she returned to the base in that state, it would cause huge problems. So, he tried everything he could think of to help Gu Xi calm down and return to normal.

Later, it was Qee Ran who found some pre-apocalypse videos. He’d claimed they were for treating a certain kind of psychological condition, specifically for someone in Gu Xi’s state...

And Li Ming discovered that among all those videos, the young Gu Xi was particularly fond of watching the ones about farming.

A few days later, the little girl’s mind had calmed, and the murderous aura lingering in her eyes had strangely vanished.

Li Ming had always been cunning, even as a child. He was only thirteen or fourteen at the time, but he worried that if people at the base found out, they might use it against Gu Xi one day. So he gave a strict order, forbidding anyone on the team from ever mentioning it.

Gu Xi admitted that the events of the last few days had indeed stirred her emotions.

That’s why she had stood in the courtyard all night, thinking...