As Shen Ci had said, Han Jin and Han Muchuan were now in a period of confusion.
They didn’t know what to do.
To say that the parchment spoke falsehoods...
Yet, the high-quality fruits of Meng Chuyue fit the description of the Mustard Space so well.
But to claim that the parchment was truthful?
Before seeing the parchment, they really, truly didn’t dare believe that Mustard Space could exist in this world.
They thought it was just a myth.
Their minds were troubled and restless, and finally, they made a decision; they had to thoroughly investigate the origin of Meng Chuyue’s initial batch of high-quality fruits.
If the origin of these fruits had no issues...
Then the parchment could be discarded.
Otherwise, it would mean that Han Zheng had deceived them, and they would be unrelenting in their pursuit against him.
What they didn’t know was that Shen Ci and Chuyue had also thought of this – if they feigned a "high-quality fruit experiment base that could withstand scrutiny," they would certainly be able to deceive Han Jin and Muchuan.
Thinking up such a plan was simple; executing it was hard.
Where could they find "experimental personnel" willing to collude with their deceit?
Yes, both Shen Ci and Chuyue were adept at hypnotism, capable of hypnotizing some individuals to carry this out.
But the backlash of hypnotism was severe on themselves; thus, it was not worth it.
Shen Ci and Chuyue didn’t know what to do for a moment; however, they soon thought of a feasible plan.
They contacted some scientists who were very interested in high-quality fruit, offering to a batch of high-quality fruit seedlings to their laboratories free of charge, but they could only tell the world that these seedlings were obtained from an experimental base outside Hai City, and that the specifics of the acquisition and process must remain confidential, or else they would no longer supply seedlings to them.
The scientists were very interested in the high-quality seedlings. After careful consideration, they felt that the demands of Meng Chuyue and Shen Ci were reasonable and without pitfalls, and they agreed enthusiastically.
Shen Ci and Chuyue were as good as their word, promptly directing them to transport the seedlings from a farm on the outskirts of Hai City.
Because the time of acquisition needed to be kept secret, these individuals acted as if they were thieves.
They were not used to this.
But the outcome was perfect.
For not only did Meng Chuyue and Shen Ci to them seedlings of one and two years old, as well as robust three-year-old saplings, they also provided four, five, and six-year-old fruit-bearing saplings.
Some were bearing flowers, while others already had fruits...
In addition, they gave two thousand catties of high-quality fruits to each of them.
The seedlings were transplanted with soil.
Upon their departure, Shen Ci advised them, "Apart from the time and process of acquiring the seedlings, you can talk freely about anything else. If you want the outside world to know about your research on high-quality fruit seedlings, you can also claim that you purchased the seedlings from this experimental base years ago, but because their cultivation and grafting are difficult, you hadn’t planted them on a large scale until now."
This had no negative impact on the scientists, and they all agreed.
After Shen Ci and Chuyue had arranged this matter, it wasn’t long before rumors spread on a small scale throughout Hai City that many research institutes were studying high-quality fruit seedlings, but progress was slow.
Not long after Han Muchuan and Han Jin returned to Hai City, they heard this news and learned that the earliest high-quality fruit seedling cultivation base was a farm in Hai City.
When they sought it out, they found a farm covering three hundred mu, belonging to a small developer in Hai City.
It had been leased to a research institute five years prior.
The high-quality fruit trees inside were nearly ten years old...
Each tree was laden with heavy fruits, but there were not many trees.
There were only a few trees of each variety for each tree age, totaling just over six hundred for ten tree ages and a dozen varieties...
In other words, these high-quality fruit trees, the seedlings were difficult to cultivate.