Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 387 - 98: Two Liars Eating Melon_1

Chapter 387: Chapter 98: Two Liars Eating Melon_1

"No more for me, your watermelons are too small, I don’t like them," Yan Fei briskly declined. This old man, really, using tricks you would use on a child to coax me, plus big and sweet, could your watermelons be larger and sweeter than the ones at my Vegetable Garden Island? Besides, you do bite the hand that feeds you. This old man’s intentions are so obvious, I will firmly resist the temptation of a sugar-coated bullet.

"Who says our watermelons are small? These ones here are not ripe yet, let me show you the mature ones. If you don’t want to eat them, aren’t you going to let your girlfriend eat? Look at her, she’s been running around with you all day, and you’re not even going to let her have some watermelon?" The old man pestered relentlessly, refusing to back off.

"I won’t eat either." Miss Xu Xiaoyan never lets Yan Fei down at critical moments.

"Let’s go! Why be so polite? We also have seedless watermelons here. Seedless watermelons are not yet widely grown, so I assume you two haven’t tasted them before. Since you are here, you should have a taste." This Old He is unbeatable when it comes to persistence.

"Seedless watermelon? No seeds?" Yan Fei, who had never seen such a thing, was amazed. Although he grew some pretty large watermelons, he had never seen a seedless one before.

Even Miss Xu Xiaoyan was rather curious.

"Yes! Seedless watermelon has no seeds of course, come, come, let’s go and taste it. Even if you don’t want to eat it, let your girlfriend try it!" Old He said and pulled Yan Fei towards one direction, confident that Yan Fei would no longer refuse it for the sake of his girlfriend.

"How come you guys have all sorts of varieties here? Is this what you do research on?" Yan Fei asked with curiosity.

"Not exactly. Our main focus is the research on soil modification and its effects on various crops, what we plant here is just a byproduct, mainly the assignments of the graduate students. Most of the true experimental fields have been moved elsewhere, we keep this place for the convenience of student lectures," Old He explained. "By the way, you two are from the countryside too, right?"

"Yes!" Yan Fei nodded.

"Did you notice the wheat outside? It’s hard to see a difference now, but you’ll know when they spike. These are all high-yield new varieties being bred, with an average yield per acre that is more than seventy kilograms higher than the normal yield. Don’t underestimate these seventy kilograms, our province is a major wheat growing region, if this was spread across the whole province, can you calculate how much extra grain could be harvested in a year?"

"Then there’s the research topic of soil improvement by graduate students. As long as there is a little breakthrough that can increase the yield per acre by a few kilograms, it’s a great thing for our whole province and country. So you guys are here, you should study hard, don’t think that we who study agriculture are just the crude people dealing with the land, this is a matter of national economy and people’s livelihood."

Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan, although not students of the Agricultural University, also nodded seriously at the moment, what the old man said made sense.

"So, you all need to consider carefully. Imagine, if any of our topics makes a breakthrough, it would be a great thing for us rural people. Just think, if you sell the gold coins to me, what if I became cheerful and made a breakthrough in a few topics?"

As they were nodding their assent, Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan suddenly fell silent: you’ve talked so much about these big theories, but isn’t your end goal still to buy the golden coins?

Yan Fei annoyed, said: "If you keep arguing, we’re going to leave."

Old He immediately stopped talking about the coins: "Here we are, come on in!"

As he said that, he turned a corner to the entrance of the greenhouse while shouting to the other side: "Old Qi, take a break, come and have some watermelon!"

A voice came from a distance: "Didn’t you bring a few students today? How come you’re slacking off again?"

Yan Fei, with his good memory, felt uneasy at this voice.

As expected, as soon as he turned the corner, he saw an old man in the wheat field on the other side, patting the dirt off his hands and walking this way.

Is Provincial City really that small? Seeing this old man, Yan Fei started to lament, why was he running into acquaintances everywhere he went!

This old man was Professor Qi, who Yan Fei met in the library, who told him "learning is no shame". Speaking of which, this Professor Qi did indirectly help him once. If it wasn’t for Professor Qi picking up a magazine in the library, allowing him to see another magazine with cow dung on it, he wouldn’t have learned about the cow dung earthworm breeding project!

Professor Qi came over and apparently still remembered Yan Fei’s ’new fashion’ outfit, he said to Professor He: "You two know each other? Wasn’t he looking for your apprentice, the one making compost, last time?"

Old He was puzzled, and didn’t bother to delve into why Professor Qi called his apprentice a compost maker again: "When was he looking for my apprentice?"

Professor Qi was curious: "You didn’t know? Last time, he was looking for Wang Dafu in our school for a few days. I called you and you sent your apprentice over."

Old He and Yan Fei both reacted at the same time.

It was only then that Yan Fei knew, so there was such a little episode about how Wang Jiuming could find him. Well, although this old man ’taught’ him a lesson at their first meeting, it seemed like he was indebted to him twice now.

Old He was frustrated! He asked Yan Fei, "Didn’t you say you’re a freshman in agricultural science?"

Before Yan Fei could answer, Professor Qi glanced at him faintly, with a smirk he said, "You’ve learned quite a bit, haven’t you? Last time, you told me you were majoring in cattle farming, it seems you didn’t waste time in the library, now you know our school has an agricultural science department!"

Xu Xiaoyan knew nothing about Yan Fei’s little episode and couldn’t help laughing secretly. Looking at him and Old He—these two big and small liars, what a coincidence!

Yan Fei rarely found himself in such an awkward situation. Being caught in a lie wasn’t a big deal, but feeling guilty about it was, especially since they had helped him out, "Well, actually, I am a cattle rancher. Back home, getting professional books isn’t convenient, so I took the opportunity to visit the library in the provincial city when I came."

"Uh-huh." Professor Qi nodded and walked towards the greenhouse with his hands behind his back. As he walked, he asked Old He, "How do you know him?"

Now it was Old He’s turn to be embarrassed. But he felt no shame, and confidently said, "I used to be in a cattle shed too. I heard this student is a cattle rancher, so I wanted to share experiences."

Professor Qi did not believe him, "You know how to raise cattle? Remember when you and two others had a stand-off with two bulls and couldn’t separate them. You discussed dozens of plans but none worked, until a bare-assed lad came with a blade of grass and led them apart?"

Both Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan immediately imagined such a scene: three bookworms squatting beside two bulls, brainstorming on the ’major issue’ of how to separate squaring-off bulls. No doubt they came up with all sorts of unreliable ideas like tugging at the bull’s tails, but no plan worked. Eventually, a cowherd boy lured the bulls apart with a blade of grass.

What an... awkward situation!

Old He felt uneasy, "It’s been decades since then, can we not bring that up again? Aren’t you supposed to be the professional here? Why don’t you go and pick up a few melons to taste and see if your skill in picking melons has deteriorated..."

Yan Fei quickly offered to help, "I’ll do it!"

He went over, picked up a watermelon without even knocking on it, and came back.

The place was fully stocked, right next to them was a watermelon knife. Yan Fei took the initiative to take it and cut the watermelon open. The ripe watermelon, with its reddish flesh and black seeds, was presented in front of them.

Xu Xiaoyan couldn’t help asking, "Isn’t this supposed to be a seedless watermelon?"

"The seedless watermelons are in that shed, and the unripe ones are seedless." Old He, who had lied initially retained his composure, and took the opportunity to change the subject by complimenting Yan Fei, "Not bad, not bad, your skill in picking watermelons is at professor-level."

The young liar didn’t feel like getting tricked by the older one again, and humbly said, "If you eat enough, you naturally know more."

Professor Qi said, "That’s not necessarily true. Some people have eaten their whole lives and still don’t know how to choose a watermelon."

Old He pretended not to hear this and boasted to Yan Fei, "So? Have you ever eaten a watermelon this big?"

Xu Xiaoyan almost laughed out loud—she remembered Yan Fei’s earlier comment about this place’s watermelon being a horse bubble melon.

As soon as Old He noticed, he asked her, "What’s so funny about what I said? Have you ever eaten a watermelon this big?"

Xu Xiaoyan and Yan Fei ate too many watermelons during the summer vacation together, they often saw ones bigger than this. Now seeing such a watermelon, it puzzled her to think of it as big?

However, now that they were enjoying it for free, she felt obliged to lie, "I haven’t, your watermelons are really big."

She just wanted to comfort Old He with a lie, but her lying skills were clearly subpar, it was so perfunctory!

Even a fool could see through it.