Courtyard House: Primordial Chaos Pearl

The warm spring sunshine bathed the Hongxing Agricultural Machinery Industrial Park. In the square of the R&D center, a silver-gray prototype agricultural machine equipped with a Beidou navigation module stood out—this was the "Hongxing-100" intelligent seeder, specially designed for space-bred crops, awaiting its first field test. Lin Dong stood beside the prototype, holding a small bag of glistening seeds in his hands, his eyes filled with solemnity.

"These are the 'space rice' and 'interstellar pasture' seeds that the National Space Breeding Center just sent over," He Yushui said, unfolding the test report with barely concealed excitement. "After being subjected to microgravity and cosmic ray mutagenesis in space, their disease resistance and drought tolerance are more than 30% higher than traditional varieties. However, the seed size is uneven, and the germination rate is extremely dependent on soil moisture. Ordinary seeders simply cannot meet the precision requirements."

Yan Jiecheng was adjusting the central control system of the prototype machine, his fingertips quickly swiping across the screen: "We've added a millimeter-level precision seed metering device to the seeder, and also integrated Harbin Institute of Technology's pre-sowing electromagnetic treatment technology for seeds. It can activate seed activity by precisely controlling electromagnetic waves, increasing germination potential by 20%." But then he changed the subject, "However, there's a problem. Space rice is suitable for direct seeding in paddy fields, while interstellar pasture needs to be planted in the arid land of the Gobi Desert in Northwest China. It's difficult for one machine to adapt to both extreme operating environments."

Lin Dong had already considered this, and that very night he entered the Chaos Space. He input parameters such as the mud adhesion coefficient of paddy fields and the hardness of sand and gravel in dry land into the simulation system. Combining this with the shape memory alloy material purified from the Chaos Bead, he improved the furrow opener of the seeder—this alloy could automatically adjust its hardness according to soil type, remaining flexible and preventing tangling in paddy fields, and switching to hardness and wear resistance in dry land. At the same time, he optimized the drip irrigation module, using shallow flood irrigation to retain moisture in paddy field mode, and deep seepage irrigation in dry land mode, achieving a water-saving rate of up to 70%.

A week later, the testing team split into two groups: one went to a 2-mu unmanned farm in Heyuan to sow space rice using the "Red Star-100" drone; the other went to the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang to test-plant interstellar pasture. In the paddy fields of Heyuan, the unmanned seeders operated precisely along the routes planned by Beidou, completing ditching, sowing, and covering in one go, completing 5 mu of sowing in 1 hour, more than twice the efficiency of manual labor, with a sowing depth error of no more than 0.5 centimeters. In the Gobi Desert of Xinjiang, the improved furrow opener easily broke through the gravelly soil layer, and the electromagnetically pretreated pasture seeds still germinated on schedule in the arid environment, with tender green seedlings standing tenaciously in the wind and sand.

Just as the good news arrived, a delegation from the Pakistani Ministry of Agriculture arrived at the industrial park. They brought local soil samples and were eager to introduce space breeding technology and intelligent agricultural machinery: "We have too many saline-alkali lands and arid areas, and we urgently need solutions to turn wasteland into fertile fields." Lin Dong immediately approved the establishment of the "China-Pakistan Space Breeding Joint Base," which would not only export seeds and agricultural machinery but also provide a full range of services including "technology + standards + training."

When the news spread, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and other countries extended offers of assistance. Yan Jiecheng volunteered and led a technical team to Pakistan, where they built an assembly plant and training school on the outskirts of Karachi. Drawing on his successful experience in Almaty, he translated the technical manuals into Urdu, personally taught local workers how to operate the equipment, and even added high-temperature resistant dust covers to the intelligent agricultural machinery to suit Pakistan's climate, enabling the machines to operate stably even in extreme temperatures of 45°C.

Domestic development is also booming. Hongxing Agricultural Machinery Technical College has established a major in aerospace breeding supporting technology. Yi Zhonghai, along with veteran technicians, compiled teaching materials, sharing their experience in optimizing material formulas and adapting to extreme environments using Chaos Pearl. Liu Haizhong's daughter, Liu Lan, led her students to establish a "Space Crop Demonstration Garden" in the industrial park's experimental fields. They filmed the planting process of space rice and space peppers into educational videos, which were widely disseminated in rural areas, allowing more farmers to understand the charm of aerospace agriculture.

Jia Dongxu's core component production base has also undergone technological upgrades. To meet the precision requirements of aerospace-grade agricultural machinery, he introduced intelligent numerical control equipment. The electromagnetic processing modules and precision sensors produced have passed ISO international agricultural machinery standard certification, supplying not only the domestic market but also exporting to several overseas assembly plants. Banggeng has grown into a technical backbone, leading the research and development of corrosion-resistant seals, which has successfully solved the aging problem of agricultural machinery in the high-humidity environment of Southeast Asia.

That autumn, the first "Belt and Road Aerospace Agriculture Technology Expo" was held at the Hongxing Industrial Park. Inside the exhibition hall, the heavy ears of space rice, the lush foliage of interstellar pasture, and the "Hongxing-100" intelligent agricultural machinery created a picturesque scene. Representatives from more than twenty countries stopped to admire the prototype, and the Pakistani representative brought exciting news: the space rice grown at the joint base had achieved a yield exceeding 600 kilograms per mu, revitalizing thousands of mu of saline-alkali land.

At the closing ceremony of the expo, Lin Dong, as a representative of the organizers, delivered a speech. Looking at the faces of different skin colors below the stage, he recalled the hardship he faced in the courtyard house years ago, and his heart was filled with mixed emotions: "From small innovations in the courtyard house to aerospace technology empowering agriculture; from the improvement of a single agricultural machine to the overseas expansion of the entire industrial chain, the growth of Hongxing is inseparable from the perseverance of every partner, and even more inseparable from the original aspiration of revitalizing agriculture through science and technology."

That evening, Lin Dong took He Yushui and Lin Xiangyang, who was already in elementary school, back to the courtyard house. In the courtyard, Yan Bugui was telling the children stories about space breeding, Liu Haizhong wrote the couplet "Space helps farmers, the red star shines," and Yi Zhonghai sat to the side, watching the laughter and joy filling the courtyard, tears of satisfaction welling up in his eyes.

Holding a handful of golden space rice seeds, Lin Xiangyang said in his childish voice, "Daddy, the teacher said these seeds have been to space. I want to be a scientist when I grow up so that more seeds can become good crops!"

Lin Dong bent down to pick up his son and looked up at the starry sky. In the distance, the industrial park was brightly lit, and a new research and development plan had been launched—experimental breeding agricultural machinery for deep space environments such as the moon and Mars was being simulated and optimized in chaotic space.

He knew that this red star, rising from the courtyard house, had long since transcended the boundaries of the land. From the fields of the earth to the distant space, from single-machine improvements to technology exports, the mission of Red Star Agricultural Machinery is to illuminate every land yearning for a bountiful harvest with the light of science and technology, and to write a brilliant chapter belonging to China on the long scroll of human agricultural civilization.