CH-052

The morning after the wheat had ripened.

Once the sun came out, the morning mist dispersed, and the air carried no trace of moisture—two figures were busy at work in the fields.

The plot of land wasn't very large, but the tidying still took nearly two to three hours.

Once everything was done, the air still carried a scent of earth and straw.

Raymond hugged a bundle of wheat stalks and hurried toward the young priest ahead—whose face was damp with sweat, wrapped in heat, cheeks flushed red, looking as if he'd been steamed.

An ordained priest normally exuded a sense of cleanliness and composure; even when working in the melon fields, he projected a certain freshness. But this priest before him—sweat-drenched, shirt clinging to his waist—looked in every way like a farmer, except for a face that was fair and handsome.

Only in this moment did Raymond suddenly realize—the priest he served was actually quite young. When he thought carefully about it, the priest was still roughly five years younger than himself.

But that thought was only a passing one.

He reported carefully: "Father Aliss, all the wheat has been collected."

"Good. Find a spot and spread all the wheat grains out to examine," Shu Li said, his voice carrying an undertone of deliberation and decisiveness. "If any of the wheat looks problematic, we'll have to burn all the wheat stalks from this field."

Raymond was frightened by Shu Li's serious expression, but dared not ask more, lest the delay cause trouble. He sprang into action quickly.

In truth, Raymond had assumed that once this wheat had miraculously ripened—as if blessed by a divine miracle, while the people around were beginning to envy it beyond all restraint—Father Aliss would be happy too. After all, the priest had been worrying about the wheat's growth since early spring, and had previously been concerned about the crop going bad, coming to check on it every day.

But the reality was the opposite: from that point onward, the priest's expression grew heavier by the day, his mood increasingly difficult to read.

The priest had wanted to harvest the wheat before it was fully ripe.

But because of everyone's objections, the priest had held on until the wheat had completely ripened.

He had originally wanted to deal with it before dawn, but then—because if grain is piled up before atmospheric humidity drops sufficiently, the wheat is liable to mold—Shu Li had no choice but to follow Raymond's advice and wait until the sun started rising over the mountains before beginning the harvest.

At this stage, still largely theoretical, Shu Li had no option but to go along with Raymond's plan and hold on.

In truth, Shu Li himself dreamed that even if the hybridization had failed and reproductive isolation had occurred, rendering successful hybridization impossible, at least a normal yield might still come out—rather than severe losses.

But when the church's supply field wheat suddenly turned plump and ripe, it gave Shu Li a terrible fright.

Because by scientific common sense, wheat would not dramatically transform itself for the sake of Shu Li's emotional state—and this had happened within less than a week.

That left only the worst possible explanation—

The wheat had fallen ill.

Something like "ergot blight."

This was an extremely serious plant disease.

It was not until the end of the eighteenth century, it was said, that the pathogen was definitively identified as a fungal infection of the wheat. Before that, common people all believed it to be a normal substance in food.

The part usually affected was the wheat spike—the grain would turn dark purple and swell, becoming what was commonly known as "ergot."

These ergot growths contained toxins.

If consumed by humans or livestock, poisoning would occur: first hallucinations, then convulsions and gangrene, forcing amputations.

The famous "St. Anthony's Fire" throughout history was precisely this ergot blight.

Places where St. Anthony's Fire broke out were typically either household units or entire villages.

There had even been cases of mass hysteria traced to it, which Shu Li had once come across in the books he had read. Since it wasn't related to mental illness, and the books had no illustrations, Shu Li had only skimmed over it at the time without retaining much.

No one could know how frightened Shu Li was.

Because by his understanding, ergot blight was actually fairly easy to recognize—it turned the wheat dark purple.

But what if this was the stage before the dark purple had appeared? What if it looked perfectly fine at the start, but was already dying?

Shu Li could not determine what stage of ergot blight this might be, and was further afraid it could spread to other wheat fields—his entire body was on edge.

After all the wheat had been brought in and he still saw no trace of dark purple, Shu Li began to worry about wheat nematode disease instead. Nematode disease couldn't be distinguished from external appearance and color as easily as ergot blight—otherwise, the news stories about "toxic seeds" would never have gained traction.

Because nematode disease also affected the grain, the infected parts of the wheat spikes would form seed-like "galls."

Inside those galls were not the fungal infection of ergot, but actual insects.

Imagine the image of a single seed containing tens of thousands of tiny larvae...

Shu Li couldn't simply look at it the way Raymond and the others did—believing a miracle had solved everything.

For a person of his sensibility, the goal was to pursue the truth.

For instance, when attending the wedding and seeing a tree that had been green begin to bloom, Shu Li had felt not a shred of romance—only terror, thinking it might be a common forest disease called "witches' broom." One symptom of this disease was flowers appearing first, followed by fruit.

At the time, while everyone else crowded in for a closer look, Shu Li alone covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve, and had also covered the nose and mouth of Finnian standing beside him, so he wouldn't breathe it in.

He had more or less forgotten about it afterward, when he found that everyone was perfectly healthy.

But now the wheat had problems too.

This terrified Shu Li.

No, no! He wasn't the type to simply destroy something the moment he discovered a problem.

Shu Li's first instinct was: he had to understand for himself exactly what had happened. And so, with a pounding heart, he went to examine what looked like golden, glowing grain.

Narci the little fox, having been ignored off to one side for a long time, grew bored sitting in the pile of wheat.

Sitting on the ground, yawning repeatedly, stretching lazily—when Shu Li still paid it no attention, the little white fox hopped about in circles trying to attract his notice.

The little white fox had no idea it was anything but irresistibly cute and beautiful, and believed wholeheartedly that it would succeed, so it went around twice. But when Shu Li still kept his eyes on the wheat pile, the fox indignantly buried itself in the wheat stalks, leaving only its tail behind to unhappily slap the dusty ground.

Shu Li caught a peripheral glimpse of his little fox acting silly and, worried it might eat the wheat by burrowing into the pile, called out: "Narci."

Narci the little fox was like a child called in for dinner—scrambled out of the wheat pile, circled Shu Li twice, then found a suitable spot to flop down on top of his feet.

Raymond, charmed by its adorableness, couldn't help crouching down to play with it.

The little fox began slapping Raymond's hand earnestly as it pestered the fox.

Shu Li glanced at the interaction between man and fox, then turned his attention back to the grain—the wheat kernels were full and plump, healthy-looking, with no signs of mutation, not shriveled or strange-looking.

Since it had just been freshly harvested and hadn't fully dried out yet, Shu Li could still peel open the wheat husk.

The wheat kernel inside was pure white and innocent, still carrying the familiar clean fragrance of wheat.

"...?" It looked perfectly normal.

Shu Li was quite puzzled.

Raymond, having been keeping an eye on Shu Li's expression, noticed that the gravity in the priest's face had lightened somewhat, replaced by something closer to confusion, and couldn't resist asking: "Father Aliss, what's the verdict?"

Shu Li couldn't lie to him: "It looks quite normal."

Raymond laughed: "This is simply a miracle granted to us by the Lord—!"

Shu Li had no faith in any "Lord."

Raymond glanced down at Narci the little fox, lying belly-up on the ground, and laughed: "If it isn't the Lord's doing, then perhaps it's a blessing from the harvest spirit!"

Raymond laughed and said: "Father Aliss probably doesn't know yet that the harvest spirit venerated here is represented in the form of a fox?"

"That I didn't know."

"See how many foxes are up there on the mountain—yet hunters and farmers only drive them away, never hunt them down, precisely because the fox is the guardian deity of agriculture here!" He paused, then added: "And look at Narci—it's even more beautiful than an ordinary fox, and naturally carries that grain fragrance. Perhaps it's an avatar of the spirit?"

Shu Li blinked. That somewhat resembled Japan's Inari deity.

But then again, the author of this novel was also a modern person, so basing the worldbuilding on existing mythologies was entirely plausible.

Once he accepted the premise of the harvest deity taking fox form, Shu Li could even begin to understand why part of the Northern Territories had broken away from the church—in the Bible, foxes were portrayed as agents of evil threatening the faithful, representing sin: heretical thought, false speech, and defiant behavior.

The people of the Northern Territories, children under the protection of their "agricultural deity," would understandably be reluctant to accept the church's characterization of their auspicious creature as something demonic.

But that wasn't the central issue.

The wheat looked normal, but Shu Li was still somewhat worried.

Just then, rapid footsteps approached from a distance—it was Finnian running over from afar, holding a letter.

He had clearly grown a little taller recently. Children at this age tend to get thinner easily. Finnian's figure had also grown somewhat leaner than before, though his posture had become more upright. His soft hair had grown a little longer and was casually pulled back behind his head in a small braid—looking both playful and disheveledly handsome.

Though not yet fully past the soft, childish look, there were already traces of a young man's clean, sharp features emerging at his brow.

Believe that in the next three to five years, he would grow into a clean, ardent wind—carrying a tide of youthful energy in every direction.

But he didn't rush to explain about the letter; instead, he glanced quickly around before letting his gaze settle on the priest's slightly troubled expression. He steadied himself, then asked: "Father Aliss, do you need any help?"

His family had long since heard about the miracle that had occurred in the priest's farmfield.

In truth, Finnian found Father Aliss quite extraordinary.

Call him clever, and he seemed to know everything—yet he was completely unaware of news the rest of the world was buzzing about. Call him not clever, and that couldn't be right either. He just couldn't be anything less than clever!

"Is this what everyone calls a miracle... the wheat really is... incredible..."

After expressing this agreeable sentiment as he gazed upon the spectacular harvest, Finnian added: "Actually, it doesn't have to be a miracle—someone with special abilities could probably do it too, right?"

Shu Li recalled that Finnian had mentioned before that the miraculous flowering tree at the wedding had also been produced through special abilities. But at the time he hadn't paid it much mind. He had been too exhausted from working all day. Besides, he wasn't interested in things that had nothing to do with him.

But now, brought up again by Finnian, Shu Li suddenly remembered that this world had a low-magic setting.

He was actually quite glad it was a low-magic world, where only a small number of people had special abilities—no other fantastical races running everywhere. In a high-magic world full of every manner of creature, Shu Li's logical and scientific mind would probably have snapped long ago.

"Seeds produced by someone with special abilities—would they still be edible?" Shu Li couldn't help murmuring to himself, his tone carrying the doubt and unease of someone encountering GMO food for the first time.

Still, Shu Li's suspicions had clearly diminished.

Finnian and Raymond were also slowly coming to understand why Shu Li had been so tense before: this had been in his blind spot of knowledge, so he had been especially cautious. Or perhaps, precisely because Shu Li knew so much, he was always prone to worrying about one thing after another—perhaps if he truly knew nothing, he might have been more relaxed.

Regardless, Finnian launched into his star scene—pulling a letter out from his pocket.

The letter, balanced on his fingertips like a plate, began to spin, while Finnian's face broke into an excited grin. "We received the admissions notice for the grammar school Father Aliss mentioned before."

Because Vice-Bishop Hugo—or rather, now Bishop Hugo—had said there was no need for secrecy, Shu Li had shared the news about the grammar school with Finnian.

Shu Li strongly encouraged Finnian to continue his studies.

The world is vast, and one can't travel every road—but through books, one can save an enormous amount of time and find the field one most wants to explore.

"This is good news!" The moment Shu Li spoke, his attention fully shifted to the letter, and his mood settled considerably along with it—Finnian's heart gave a little leap of joy.

"But I haven't decided whether to go yet." Finnian casually waved the letter again, then muttered: "There's still an exam, an interview... just thinking about it is exhausting."

After saying this, he snuck a peek at Shu Li, as if waiting for a response. "If there's no reward involved, somehow this doesn't feel worth getting excited about."

Shu Li looked at him—this expression was practically tattooed across his face—and couldn't help smiling: "So what reward do you want?"

Finnian had been waiting for exactly those words, and grinned as he leaned a little closer: "On the day of the exam, come to Carson City with me."

Finnian was unwilling to admit that with Shu Li beside him, he felt at ease and happy.

He deliberately pouted, as if hiding his feelings, and said: "I just know, ever since I was little, I've always annoyed my teachers."

Then his tone shifted, half-joking: "But that old Bishop Hugo really likes me. If you come with me, he'll definitely make sure the teachers won't be too hard on me at the exam."

Shu Li couldn't help laughing, his expression softening: "So you want me to act as your lucky charm?"

He made a show of sighing solemnly: "You, at ordinary times naughty as you please, and now it turns out you're afraid of teachers being strict. Fine, I'll go with you."

"Though I can't guarantee you'll be admitted."

Finnian waved his hand: "Whether to enroll or not isn't decided by my teacher—it's decided by me."

He teased Shu Li into a slight upward curl at the corner of his lips, and Raymond beside them, knowing Finnian had been cracking jokes to lighten the mood, judged the moment right and steered the conversation back: "Then Father Aliss can go back to the church with Finnian while I take care of the wheat. Are we keeping some seeds?"

Shu Li thought for a moment, his gaze falling once more on the grain, yet he couldn't identify any clear problem.

"Don't keep any—grind it all into wheat flour."

Shu Li always felt that this batch of "GMO" wheat was somehow off.

Though it appeared normal on the surface, judging from the inexplicably accelerated ripening, the seed's stability was questionable.

Never mind the failed hybridization and the probably wrong variety choice. Even if it had succeeded, the same variety shouldn't be planted in the same field again—otherwise, nematode disease could truly take hold.

In this situation, with the seed's safety or replantability uncertain, at the very least it could be put to use promptly to avoid waste.

"Afterward, go to Carson City's merchants to buy new seeds." There was no shortage of money to buy seeds now—the most important thing was to be prudent.

As Shu Li said this, his gaze unconsciously swept across the freshly harvested wheat field.

Sunlight fell on the remaining wheat stubble, like a soft, golden-yellow blanket of velvet.

But his heart suddenly clenched—in his mind floated the scene from the wedding ceremony at the church steps not long ago, beneath that flowering tree.

The tree had borne fruit too early that day; and now the wheat had ripened too fast.

The unnaturalness of both was of the same kind.

This suddenly reminded him that Leslie had also been standing under that flowering tree at the time.

Shu Li thought about it, feeling that this time too it was probably because Leslie had come. He was uncertain, so he confirmed with Finnian: "Have you heard any news about Leslie lately?"

He had a feeling the two young ones got along quite well, often spending time together talking.

Finnian heard this question and immediately averted his eyes from Shu Li, unwilling to respond. He walked briskly over and crouched down in front of Narci—the little white fox still trying to coax attention from Shu Li—breathed a puff of air at the fox, and grabbed a fistful of the little fox's belly fur. "Look how smug you are—you haven't even known him as long as I have! You can't even talk, and yet you're showing off right in front of me like this?"

The force was nothing much, but it genuinely startled Narci, who had been lying peacefully.

Narci hastily flipped upright, just about to bristle and confront Finnian when it lifted its head and saw that Finnian was taller and scarier than itself, then went "yip yip yip" and hid behind Shu Li's legs instead.

Finnian let out a "hmph," as if venting an old grievance at an enemy.

Shu Li's eyes flickered. "...?"

Before Shu Li could react, Finnian raised his head and smiled: "Oh, right! The September harvest festival—Father Aliss, you're coming with me, right?"