Chapter 1005 Spotlight
The children of Dongjiang Village splashed fluorescent paint of night-scented fungus into the sky, drawing a long scroll of flowing dragons and phoenixes in the night sky. These seemingly scattered forces resonated through the earth vein network, forming a golden protective barrier.
Qi Tongwei decided to use the most dangerous method - to use himself as a "conductor" to connect the earth veins and human consciousness. He lay beside the earth vein egg, allowing the golden energy to flow into his body along the dragon and phoenix totem lines. In a trance, he returned to the summer night of his childhood, his mother sang "Phoenix Seeking Phoenix" while shaking a cattail leaf fan, and his father pointed at the starry sky and told the story of the Milky Way. At this moment, the pulsation from the depths of the universe overlapped with his childhood memories, and he finally understood: the so-called earth veins are the memory carriers of the planet.
When Qi Tongwei opened his eyes again, the Antarctic ice shelf had returned to calm. The earth vein eggs fell into a deep sleep again, and the ice crystal creatures turned into meteors. But his body was left with an indelible mark - a faint dragon and phoenix tattoo appeared on his skin, and these lines would emit a faint light whenever the earth veins fluctuated. Even more magical was that he could "hear" the whispers of plants and "see" the dance of microorganisms in the soil.
Late that night when he returned to Dongjiang Village, Qi Tongwei came to his parents' grave alone. The night-scented mushrooms beside the tombstones were blooming in great abundance, their fluorescent light forming a starry river. He took out his mother's handwritten sheet of the song "Phoenix Seeking the Phoenix" from his bosom and recited it softly under the moonlight. Suddenly, the handwriting on the sheet began to flow, turning into golden notes that floated into the night sky. The branches and leaves of the new locust tree rustled, as if responding to this ballad that transcended time and space.
In today's Ecology College, the children's favorite course is "Dialogue with the Earth's Veins". Wearing special sensor gloves, they "listen" to the sound of mycelium growth in the night-scented mushroom cultivation room, and use holographic projection to draw the dragon and phoenix totems in their hearts. Qi Tongwei's "Notes on the Earth's Veins" has been translated into more than a hundred languages. The title page of the latest volume depicts a frosty moon, a locust tree, and a starry sky, with an inscription below: "The sky is vast, the wilderness is boundless, the frosty moon knocks on the locust tree and asks about the vicissitudes of life. The road is never elsewhere, it is hidden in the crisp sound of rock sugar, in the lingering rhyme of nursery rhymes, and in the depths of every soul willing to listen to the heartbeat of the land."
The mountain breeze of late autumn swept across the dome of the monitoring center, and the dragon and phoenix totems in the astronomical telescope were still flowing in the starry sky. Qi Tongwei stood under the new locust tree, watching the children holding night-scented mushroom lanterns running past him, and their laughter startled a group of night owls that were roosting.
"Grandpa Qi! Try the night-scented mushroom candy we made!" A little girl with pigtails came bouncing over with a bamboo basket in her hand. On the locust leaves at the bottom of the basket were neatly stacked amber sugar cubes, with dots of fluorescent mycelium embedded on the surface. Qi Tongwei took a piece and put it in his mouth. The sweet taste was accompanied by the scent of morning dew in the forest, and it made a slight "crunching" sound when chewing, as if he was walking on a trail covered with fallen leaves in late autumn.
This inspiration came from the middle of the night three months ago. At that time, Qi Tongwei was adjusting the frequency of the ground sound waves in the laboratory, and accidentally dripped the night-scented mushroom extract into the melted syrup. A wonderful thing happened: the ordinary syrup began to ripple with the vibration of the instrument, and after cooling, it condensed into translucent crystals, showing the patterns of dragon and phoenix totems under the moonlight. What is even more amazing is that the eater can briefly perceive the emotional fluctuations of the surrounding plants - when eating sweet sugar, the green radish on the windowsill will stretch its leaves; when tasting slightly bitter sugar cubes, the old locust tree in the yard will gently shake its branches.
"We can create a brand called 'The Taste of the Earth'." At the team meeting, Qi Tongwei turned a dinosaur-shaped paperweight, and various creative designs emerged in the holographic projection. "Using the ancient sugar-making technique combined with modern biotechnology, each product corresponds to a different frequency of the earth's veins." Liang Lu pushed her glasses and called up the ingredient analysis data: "Night-scented mushrooms contain special quantum entangled substances, which may be able to establish a subtle connection between people and the earth's veins through taste."
The sugar-making workshop is located in the old warehouse next to the new locust tree. In the early morning, villagers carry bamboo baskets to pick dewy night-scented mushrooms; at noon, the syrup in the copper pot gurgles under the simmering firewood; at dusk, the masters use their ancestral sugar-pulling skills to pull the fluorescent sugar strips into various shapes - there are phoenixes with spread wings, coiled dragons, and the children's favorite white rabbit shape. The surface of the sugar cubes is not sprinkled with ordinary sugar powder, but ground into fine powder of ground vein ore, which shines like the Milky Way under the moonlight.
The brand's first "Frost Moon Candy" quickly became popular around the world. The packaging box is made of biodegradable locust bark paper, and when it is opened, a faint melody of "Phoenix Seeking the Phoenix" floats out; each candy is embedded with a microchip, and after scanning, the images of the earth veins of Dongjiang Village changing with the seasons can be seen. The most special is the "Fate Blind Box" series, in which the candy cubes randomly picked by consumers will release different frequencies of earth vein energy fluctuations according to their current emotional state.
However, there are undercurrents behind the success. A food giant attempted to acquire the formula, but after being rejected, it launched a counterfeit product. However, the industrial additives they used caused the "fake sugar" to display a black pollution waveform when it came into contact with the ground vein monitor. Qi Tongwei did not choose to sue, but instead held a unique "sugar identification conference" with the children. When the children accurately distinguished between real and fake products based on taste and intuition alone, the media cameras watching recorded the most authentic power of the ground vein.
On the eve of the winter solstice, the workshop was brightly lit. Qi Tongwei, wearing an apron printed with dragon and phoenix totems, taught the children how to make the "Galaxy Candy" special for the New Year. The syrup in the copper pot reflected the moonlight outside the window, and the waves were shimmering. Suddenly, the new locust tree made a melodious hum, and all the sugar cubes lit up with golden fluorescence at the same time, forming a huge "Fu" character in the air. At that moment, Qi Tongwei suddenly realized that the so-called brand is nothing more than passing on the gift of the land to the world in the warmest way.
Late at night, he wrote a new chapter in "Notes on Earth Veins": "The sky is vast, the wilderness is boundless, and the sugar-frost-woven moon asks about the vicissitudes of life. It turns out that the code to protect the earth is hidden in this bite of sweetness - sweet and pure, sweet and awe-inspiring, sweet enough to make every inch of land sing with pride."
Suddenly, a subtle buzzing sound came from the astronomical telescope, and the dragon and phoenix totems on the lens quietly overlapped with a nebula in the Milky Way.
1. Galaxy in Frosting
In the early morning, Dongjiang Village is awakened by the aroma of sugar. In the workshop converted from an old warehouse, the steaming heat blurs the carved wooden windows, and 72 copper pots are bubbling on the green brick stove. Qi Tongwei, wearing a coarse cloth apron, stirs the amber syrup with a bamboo spoon. The crisp sound of the wooden spoon hitting the edge of the pot, interweaving with the noise of the threshing ground outside the yard, forms a unique morning song.
"Professor Qi, the fluorescence index of this batch of night-scented mushroom syrup has exceeded the standard again!" The technician ran over holding the detector. Qi Tongwei smiled and scooped up a spoonful of syrup, looking at the golden-green light spots flowing in the morning light: "This is the earth vein singing."