Chapter 24: This Isn’t Illegal, Is It?

Chapter 24: Chapter 24: This Isn’t Illegal, Is It?

The next day.

Zhang Lin woke up bright and early. He looked at the game in his mind and opened the procurement market:

1. Water Peaches (Quality 1), wholesale price 4 yuan/pound, available quantity 1,500 pounds/day.

2. Sunshine Rose (Quality 1), wholesale price 6 yuan/pound, available quantity 1,000 pounds/day.

3. Special Fast-Growing Rapeseed Flower Seeds (Quality 1), purchase price 250 yuan/pound, available quantity 10 pounds/day.

4. New Model Tiller (Quality 2), purchase temporarily restricted!

There were now four items in the procurement market’s catalog, but the new model tiller was temporarily unavailable for purchase.

The 500-acre Rapeseed Flower Sea was fully planted, so he didn’t need to buy any more rapeseed flower seeds for now. Today, he just needed to use the 12,000 yuan he’d borrowed from WeChat Loans yesterday to wholesale the 1,500 pounds of water peaches and 1,000 pounds of Sunshine Rose.

To make transportation easier, he followed his usual routine and purchased the 1,000 pounds of water peaches and 500 pounds of Sunshine Rose for Lin Tuo first.

This way, by the time he got to the farm, Liu De and his men would have already finished loading this batch for delivery. He could then just purchase the 500 pounds of water peaches and 500 pounds of Sunshine Rose for Zhang Dong.

After washing up and getting ready to leave, he saw that his mom had already ladled out some congee for him and left it to cool. There was also a fried egg, served with a bit of soy sauce.

Zhang Lin sat down. The congee was perfectly warm.

’Mom is always so thoughtful.’

Lin Yan came out of the kitchen, sat down, and asked, "Lin, isn’t it nice to have someone make you breakfast in the morning and cool your congee for you?"

"Yeah, it’s great having a mom!" Zhang Lin said with a smile and a nod.

But Lin Yan’s tone suddenly shifted. "But I’m getting older, and my health isn’t what it used to be. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to make breakfast for you. That’s why this family needs a young woman. You said your girlfriend was away on a business trip. She should be back by now, right?"

"Uh..." Zhang Lin froze instinctively.

What girlfriend? He’d just made that up to get his mom off his back. Otherwise, she would have forced him to go after Yingzi—a woman who was older than him and built like a brick shithouse.

’Who would’ve thought his mom would launch a surprise attack about this first thing in the morning?’

"Mom, she went for training. It’s not over that quickly!" Zhang Lin hastily replied, wolfed down his congee and fried egg in a few bites, and rushed out the door.

Watching her son’s retreating back, Lin Yan seemed to understand something and couldn’t help but sigh.

Her son was already 26. Given their family’s current situation, she couldn’t help but worry about these things.

So, she decided she still had to meddle a little.

...

Zhang Lin quickly rode his scooter to the farm. Just as he’d expected, Liu De and his men had already finished loading the goods and sent them off to Lin Tuo.

He then purchased the remaining water peaches and Sunshine Rose for Zhang Dong and stored them in the warehouse.

After Liu De’s team delivered both batches of fruit, the payments from Lin Tuo and Zhang Dong came in one after another.

Lin Tuo’s was 44,000, and Zhang Dong’s was 32,000, for a total of 76,000.

After paying back the 12,000 yuan from the WeChat Loan, his card’s balance was down to 64,494.52 yuan.

’At least it’s not a negative number anymore.’

Zhang Lin checked the game map in his mind again. A night had passed, and the workers building the agricultural-style service center were still working like mad, as if they didn’t need any rest.

Moreover, the service center’s foundation had already been laid, and the workers were now erecting the main pillars.

It was truly astonishing. It wasn’t just the workers’ death-defying work ethic; in the real world, you couldn’t continue construction immediately after laying a foundation. You had to wait at least a few days for it to set and become solid.

But under the game system’s influence, the process of the foundation setting was apparently completed instantly.

That feature alone would probably make everyone in the construction business burn with envy.

Zhang Lin watched the service center’s construction on the map for a while before leaving the prefab steel house. He rode his scooter to the rapeseed flower fields to check on the progress of the main paths Liu De and his men were laying.

Across the 500-acre plot, a main path was laid roughly every 100 acres. Four paths cut across the middle, and with the two paths on the outer edge forming a loop, there were six in total.

Because the 500-acre Flower Sea was a long, irregularly shaped plot, the four central paths had to be about 1,000 meters long each. These would be the main thoroughfares for tourists, while the smaller paths left between the planted rows would connect to these main routes.

The reason for these smaller paths was to prevent tourists from trampling the flowers.

Many tourists, when taking selfies, want to go into the middle of the rapeseed flowers to experience the breathtaking feeling of being surrounded by them. Without those small paths, the fields would be a complete mess.

That’s why all rapeseed Flower Seas now include such paths.

If people still trampled the flowers even with these measures in place, then it was truly a matter of their character.

With Liu De and his crew working at full capacity, most of the main paths were already laid, and progress was swift.

To be honest, while Liu De and his men didn’t work themselves to death day and night like the system-generated construction workers, they didn’t slack off at all during work hours. They always gave it their all.

Frankly, in the current market, the daily wage for a farmhand doing high-intensity labor was already 300-500 yuan/day in most places.

He had definitely gotten a good deal hiring Liu De and the others from the game for 7,500 yuan a month. Their efficiency was even higher than that of real-world farmhands.

When Zhang Lin rode his scooter to the area where the rapeseed flowers had been planted on the first day, he was met with a pleasant surprise.

The rapeseed flowers planted on the first day were already showing dense patches of greenish-yellow. They were beginning to bloom. At this growth rate, they would probably be in full bloom by tomorrow.

Sure enough, when he returned to the rapeseed fields the next day, his eyes lit up instantly. The 15 acres of rapeseed flowers planted on the first day were now in full bloom. The expanse of brilliant gold was stunningly beautiful at first glance. It gave him a pleasant, comfortable feeling, and his gaze was involuntarily drawn to it.

He had seen rapeseed Flower Seas before, but not even the most popular one in Min Province had ever made him feel this way.

He immediately understood. This must be the effect of the rapeseed flowers’ "Aesthetic +1" attribute.

’To have this kind of effect at first glance, making people unable to look away... this attribute is absolutely incredible!’

Then, he remembered that the rapeseed flowers also had a "Photogenic +1" attribute. He immediately took out his phone, shot a video of the flowers in front of him, and was once again amazed.

The video he had casually filmed had an indescribable artistic quality to it, a poetic and picturesque feeling. It was incredibly cinematic.

’This is just too damn good.’

He was well aware of his own filming skills—they were as basic as it gets. How could he possibly shoot a video with such an artistic feel?

Therefore, it had to be the effect of the "Photogenic +1" attribute.

He suddenly realized that this attribute was arguably even more appealing than "Aesthetic +1."

After all, for many people on vacation, whether the scenery itself is beautiful isn’t the most important thing. What matters most is that their own photos and videos in that scenery look beautiful, especially for most girls.

When they travel somewhere, the top priority is getting enough good-looking photos to fill out a nine-square grid for their Friends Circle.

With this "Photogenic +1" attribute, they could satisfy that need with just a few casual snaps.

Therefore, for a rapeseed Flower Sea that was not only beautiful to look at but also stunningly photogenic, it would be a crime against heaven if it didn’t become popular.

Now that the rapeseed Flower Sea was ready, he needed to get the word out and attract visitors. That meant he first had to let people know the Flower Sea existed, which required shooting promotional videos and photos.

The Flower Sea’s picture would also need to be printed on the admission tickets.

Originally, he had planned on hiring a professional photographer, but with the "Photogenic +1" attribute, what was the point? He could just shoot it all himself with his phone.

He would, however, need to find a beautiful model. After all, the goal was to attract girls, so he had to give them a template to aspire to. This was a common tactic used in promoting flower seas and even other tourist attractions.

As long as he could attract the girls, they would almost always bring along a guy, or even several guys.

But after watching the video again, he felt it wasn’t perfect. The field was only 15 acres, so when the video panned out to a wide shot, the undeveloped rapeseed fields behind it were exposed, ruining the effect with their un-bloomed flowers.

This was a result of how the planting area was distributed.

To get that breathtaking panoramic view of solid gold, he would probably have to wait for the flowers planted on the second and third days to fully bloom as well.

Sure enough, two days later, Zhang Lin tried filming again, and that problem was gone.

With 45 acres of rapeseed in bloom, the panoramic view was a solid sheet of gold. It would have been impactful even without the "Aesthetic +1" attribute; with it, the sight was truly breathtaking.

Zhang Lin shot a few videos from multiple angles, almost mistaking himself for a master photographer. Satisfied with the results, all that was left was to find a beautiful model.

The only problem was, he didn’t really know any beautiful women in You City. He’d long since lost touch with his high school classmates, and after high school, aside from coming back during school breaks, he had spent most of his time away.

But that was an easy problem to solve. He posted directly to his Friends Circle:

"Seeking a paid female model to shoot a few promotional videos and photos for our farm’s rapeseed Flower Sea. 500/day for labor + 2,000 for image rights for advertising. Red envelope reward for successful referrals from my Friends Circle."

A price of 2,500 yuan was already what some minor print models charged.

You definitely didn’t need to offer such a high price in a small place like You City, but by aiming high, he’d have a better chance of picking a prettier one, wouldn’t he?

Some beautiful women who might not have been interested would probably change their minds seeing that price. After all, how easy was it to earn 2,500 in a day just for shooting a video?

Not long after Zhang Lin sent out the Friends Circle post, he received an inquiry on WeChat. But when he saw the girl’s profile, he froze. ’Hiring her wouldn’t be illegal, would it?’

...