Chapter 73

Morning light pierced the pale gold dome of the Serenitea Pot barrier, shattering into starlight upon the dew of the Liyue terraced fields. Limeng's knees had long sunk into the damp mud, the icy touch seeping through his coarse cloth trousers. His upper body was nearly pressed flat against the ridge, his right hand holding a pair of tweezers gripping an extremely thin-edged glass lens—a "microscope" he had "modded" from a scrapped steam pressure gauge window by the Fontaine engineer Renoir. Under the lens, a uniquely shaped rice flower was magnified: the stamens were withered and shrunken like dehydrated, curled sponges, utterly devoid of life; while the pistil was plump and swollen, resembling a transparent pouch filled with clear water, revealing the luster of life in the dim light. "Found it!" Limeng snapped upright, his knees leaving the muddy ground and leaving two dark brown round marks on his trouser legs. The water stains blurring at the edges looked precisely like the stubborn rosin flux smudges he used to get when pulling all-nighters soldering PCBs at the Gengxin Technology Shenzhen lab. A morning breeze swept across the rice leaves, bringing a crisp botanical scent and dispersing the fog in his mind. This wild rice, originating from the Natlan volcanic region and struggling for survival in the barren soil of the Serenitea Pot, had undergone such a crucial mutation—natural male sterility!