How to eat pineapple buns on the immigration ship

Chapter 291 The Search for Nettles

The day after the dinner party ended.

Nancy successfully met up with the four members of the Bite of China (plus Gary) at the entrance of the botanical garden early in the morning.

"Is she... fast asleep again?"

Looking at Kagawa, who was being carried on Aino's shoulder and looked half-dead, Nancy felt a little speechless, but she quickly got used to it.

As everyone knows, the president of the A Bite of China only has influence when he's in the kitchen or when he's serving new dishes; otherwise, he's at the bottom of the food chain!

"She just didn't want to get out of bed, and she also told us to go find that... nettle."

Ouyang Yating casually turned on the light screen, which showed a plant that Nancy thought looked like a weed.

"Based on this alone, and with our knowledge of ancient plants, we'd probably have to transport all the weeds from the botanical garden back to the Xiang family's kitchen."

Nancy didn't hold back in criticizing everyone in her group, which earned her a fierce glare from Aino, who was walking behind her.

Unfortunately, it had zero destructive power.
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No matter how much Kagawa missed her wonderful bed, she had no choice but to rearrange herself and meet with Ye Huiying, the head of the botanical garden, again after several months apart, having been dragged to the entrance of the botanical garden by her good-for-nothing colleagues.

The slightly plump middle-aged woman remained enthusiastic towards Kagawa, even more so than before. Kagawa, being thin-skinned (?), couldn't bear the woman's enthusiastic greetings along the way.

As Kagawa passed the conveyor belt in the area, he glanced in the direction of the gate and was shocked by what he saw.

A few months ago, when their school organized a visit to the botanical garden, the number of ordinary visitors to the entire botanical garden could probably be counted on one hand, while there were more researchers wearing white lab coats.

But now, a huge crowd of people is standing in front of the gate.

You can even see them holding steamed buns and milk they bought from the nearby Yuexiang Restaurant, eating their breakfast while waiting for it to open.

Is this some kind of dedication?!

Unable to contain his curiosity, Kagawa directly asked Manager Ye about the reason for the crowd gathered in front of the gate.

"Haha, Kagawa, that's an interesting question. Have you forgotten? The first episode of 'A Bite of China' has only been airing for a short time. When everyone sees those ingredients that were developed by ancient people for hundreds or even thousands of years in the documentary, but can only lie in botanical gardens in modern times, how can they not be curious about them?"

As Manager Ye spoke, her smile deepened, and she couldn't help but pat Xiangchuan's shoulder a few more times.

"Actually, the botanical gardens of each fleet only serve an educational purpose; the parent plants of all kinds of plants are preserved in gene banks. Only our Third Fleet has an additional purpose: researching agricultural crops. As for making a profit, that's really not within our consideration."

"But in just these few days, we've earned enough from the symbolic one-star-yuan entrance fee to buy several castrated pigs. How can this not be a pleasant surprise?"

Kagawa: Castrated pigs have become a unit of counting!

Suppressing the thought that was about to spill from his mouth, Kagawa glanced back at the crowd in front of the gate once more.

Each fleet had a population of no more than 100 million, a significant portion of whom were dispersed across the twelve escort ships. Even so, the main ship still had a permanent population of over 50 million.

Kagawa wasn't entirely oblivious to the ancient culture craze he had sparked, after all, online drama websites were literally making a fortune every day.

But when she saw this craze sweeping into places that had little to do with her, she deeply felt how much curiosity and thirst for knowledge modern people have about ancient culture. "However, no matter how many people gather, we still have to open on time according to the rules, so please bear with us waiting outside, even if researchers come."

Manager Ye spoke with righteous indignation.

If the smug little curve of her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth hadn't been so obvious, Kagawa and the others would have really taken her words seriously.

"Researchers should be allowed some privileges, after all, these uncles and aunts are working hard for the cultivation and development of crops..."

As the son of the head of the escort ship department, Liang Gong still tried his best to ask for some benefits for his mother and the uncles and aunts who had taken care of him.

"Young man, your idea is good, but our current circumstances don't allow it."

Manager Ye spoke earnestly.

"Leaving aside the time after 'A Bite of China' aired, after the draft of the 'Adjustment of the Proportion of Increased Production of Agricultural Products' was made public, almost everyone from various agricultural departments and research departments of the production escort ships came to us. Today the supervisor came, tomorrow the person in charge came, and some even brought their entire team."

"Even the chief commander of the fourth escort ship, An, and the chief commander of the second escort ship, Shi Li, brought their entire project team with them, with the reason being that 'in order to cultivate new breeds of livestock, we need to further study different feed ratios, and for this reason, we must study the effects of these plants on livestock more deeply'... I've never seen them so proactive before!"

Upon hearing Steward Ye mention his mother's name, Liang Gong no longer had the courage to seek any more benefits for his mother. After all, judging from Steward Ye's tone, his shrewd mother had probably already squeezed a considerable amount out of the botanical garden.

The fact that researchers from various departments now have to queue up on time with the general public is probably partly due to their mothers' influence.

With that in mind, Ryoko chose to ignore everything else and focused intently on following Kagawa, keeping his eyes fixed on the nettles on the screen.

"But things might get better after the 'A Bite of China' craze dies down... right?"

As Kagawa spoke, he himself began to lose confidence.

She recalled that in her previous life, up until her own time travel, "A Bite of China" led a trend of food documentaries for more than a decade and spawned a boom in food bloggers.

Given modern people's tendency to be fickle and easily bored... well, it's really difficult to get them to ignore the scenes in "A Bite of China".

Therefore, Kagawa could only silently apologize in his heart for the various industries that might be affected later.

I'm sorry, but I'll do it again next time!

—After all, I also want to eat the things featured in "A Bite of China" in modern times! Using documentaries to stimulate the dopamine of modern researchers is not a bad shortcut!

Kagawa tried to justify himself in his mind.
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After following Manager Ye into the herbaceous plant area, everyone was eager to try, turning on their screens to begin the timed challenge of "finding nettles before the botanical garden opens."

"Ah, that's it."

Kagawa, who was also holding a light screen, suddenly pointed to a plant that looked like a weed in a glass culture tube to the left after entering the room, and announced that the purpose of this trip to the botanical garden had been successfully achieved.

Everyone: ...

Kagawa: That's why I already said you could just look at the pictures.