Slumped on the ground, it took Zhang Min a good while to recover, yet she still could not accept the fact before her eyes.

Who could have imagined that in the five or six days she had been away, Zizai Liang Lane would really manage, with that batch of useless people, to build energy stone tools no worse than Qiankun Grain Store’s, or rather...

better than those across the street!

The shock was like hiring a group of three-year-old children to research how to build an atomic bomb,

and then finding that the children had actually made it!

“Could it be him?” The image of Su Mo standing in the canteen and arguing his case flashed through her mind, and a spark lit up in Zhang Min’s head.

Of all the electricians, only this Su Youzong, surnamed Su, deserved to be called Master Su.

And only his background was somewhat more mysterious than the others’.

But even so... how on earth did he do it?

Zhang Min’s mind was in turmoil as she kept recalling everything that had happened from the moment Su Mo entered the Lane until today.

But in the end, she gave a long sigh.

If she had not gone to Murloc City, had not met Yu Chenghui, did not know the details of the next disaster, and did not know who was really behind Qiankun Grain Store,

at this moment she might have been as wild with joy as Zhang Bowen, thinking only that Zizai Liang Lane had found the power to turn the tide.

But knowing all this, looking at what was before her now, Zhang Min felt only that fate was cruel.

How could these mysterious-looking energy stone tools save Zizai Liang Lane?

Even if they hired a thousand people now, or ten thousand,

it would not be enough to harvest all the wheat within the first three days after the Summer Harvest began.

And three days later, when the great hail that could cover the whole continent came down, Qiankun Grain Store, backed by the territory, would not go under at all.

Only Zizai Liang Lane, only those shops that had contracted land with trade points, would lose everything and vanish from the course of history.

And this was precisely the bloody first step the territory’s reform and development was about to take.

It was just that Zizai Liang Lane had the bad luck to walk into the gun first.

Thinking of this, Zhang Min staggered to her feet and stumbled toward the shop entrance.

“No cutting in line, everyone back to the line, everybody gets a turn... wait, I’m talking to you!”

“Damn, sis, why are you back? What happened to your head...” When Zhang Min appeared in his sight, Zhang Bowen’s first thought was that someone was trying to cut in line, but when he saw it was Zhang Min, he started and hurried over.

“I’m fine. Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m going in to have a few words with Dad.” Seeing her excited younger brother, Zhang Min showed a bitter smile and quickened her pace.

She really could not bear to tell her brother that everything they had done was in fact wasted effort.

Nor did she dare say it outright, because Yu Chenghui’s threat still echoed in her mind. This was something only she knew, and only she could know.

She passed through the busy public area, and only when she reached the shop’s back courtyard did she let out a breath.

“Oh, Min’er, you’re finally back!”

“Aiya, you left in such a hurry! You have no idea what a treasure we found. That teacher you found for Bowen...”

Seeing the travel-worn woman slip in through the doorway, Zhang Da, who was sitting in the courtyard trimming flower branches, put down his big shears, just as excited.

Yesterday’s big splash at the warm-up meeting had relieved nine tenths of the gloom he had felt these past days.

By today, without his wife Ju Yunxiang looking after him, Zhang Da could even feel his own way out of bed and, in good spirits, trim the flowers and plants in the courtyard.

“Dad, did they really make it?” After listening for a while, Zhang Min sat down with a complicated expression.

“They really did. Why would I lie to you? Of the first three thousand that Bowen ordered, two thousand have already been delivered, and yesterday I had him go and sign for another ten thousand.”

“This time our Zizai Liang Lane is really going to take over the entire land-contracting business in Mulberry Field Town in one stroke!”

Immersed in dreams of the shop’s expansion, Zhang Da did not notice his daughter’s strange manner at all, and simply went on about the Lane’s future plans.

From the terrifying income of nearly two million trade points that the Summer Harvest was initially expected to bring, to three branches to be opened later and expansion into neighboring towns.

From building their own contract factory and taking over the upstream and downstream supply chain, to moving on into the whole grain-processing industry.

At first, Zhang Min patiently listened as Zhang Da went on.

But when she heard that he was even willing to hand thirty percent, or even fifty percent, of the shares to “Su Youzong,” an electrician who had only just arrived, to manage the expanded shops,

Zhang Min instantly bristled like a lion and leaped up.

“Dad, have you lost your mind? You want to give our shop to a stranger who has only been here a few days?”

“What stranger? He is Bowen’s teacher, and in the future he will also be your... ahem, anyway, he’s one of us!” Zhang Da waved a careless hand and pulled the conversation back just as he was about to let it slip.

“But what if the shop can’t possibly earn that much in the Summer Harvest...”

“How could that be? We have energy stone tools now, and so many workers have joined. Even ten days for the harvest would be more than enough.”

Realizing that Zhang Min might not have seen how powerful their own energy stone sickle was, Zhang Da stopped explaining and rolled his wheelchair toward the house to fetch a tool.

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