As time passed, the child grew visibly larger. The seeds of over a dozen low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace-crafted vegetables planted on the land Ding Yun leased began to show distinct changes.
These were remarkably prominent and clear transformations.
How to describe them?
According to Ding Yun's own recorded data analysis, the changes in these vegetables were not one-sided but all-encompassing, even describable as evolution.
The growth period was shortened.
Their resistance to pests and diseases was enhanced.
Their demand for soil fertility weakened.
Simultaneously, the yield and appearance of the vegetables also changed significantly, with increased output and improved aesthetics.
Excluding taste, these were basically the most important aspects of a vegetable. As long as the taste wasn't too poor, these would undoubtedly be excellent, superior varieties.
Far surpassing all high-quality breeds on the market.
Furthermore, she discovered another useful function of the low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace: by altering the external environment of the furnace, it could steer the plant seeds inside towards specific adaptations.
For example, placing the furnace in an extremely cold environment would result in seeds that could withstand extreme cold. Placing it in a high-temperature environment would yield seeds resistant to high temperatures. Planting them in saline-alkali land would produce crop seeds capable of growing normally in such conditions.
In short, its applications were numerous.
Ding Yun believed that if she could fully utilize the functions of this low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace, she could monopolize the global seed market in no time.
However, she was currently just a fruit shop owner. Becoming a seed industry giant was something she could only dream of for now. Additionally, to prevent others from knowing she possessed such excellent seeds, potentially harming her, persecuting her, or trying to extract the source of the seeds, she needed to remain as discreet as possible.
Therefore, after harvesting the first batch of vegetables and confirming that their taste was several times better than vegetables directly matured by the low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace, Ding Yun immediately paused this line of experimentation.
She decided to focus wholeheartedly on the fruit business first, gradually developing by contracting large tracts of land and planting fruit tree seeds that had been crafted by the low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace.
She would think about other matters after she had grown bigger and stronger.
The reason for this was quite simple.
Compared to crop and vegetable seeds, the cultivation of superior fruit varieties was less prioritized by global monopolistic seed companies. Most excellent fruit varieties were developed spontaneously by fruit farmers, assisted by national institutions, or researched and developed by large fruit conglomerates.
They were basically not controlled by global seed companies.
Nor did they consider fruits more important than grains.
Even if a few new and superior varieties emerged annually, it wouldn't have a significant impact.
To put it more concisely, a doubling of fruit yield absolutely would not have as much impact as a doubling of crop yield; the two were incomparable. Therefore, even if Ding Yun quickly produced some fruits with higher yields, superior overall qualities, and excellent taste, it would at most have an influence within the fruit industry and would not attract the attention of seed conglomerates.
This was why she had to start with this aspect first, accumulating wealth. Once she had sufficient funds and influence,
making it so that others wouldn't dare to easily cross her,
she would then venture into vegetable and crop seeds.
With a plan in place, the next step was naturally execution. Although the workload seemed much greater than before, the advantage was that Ding Yun had already established her own company and hired many employees. Tasks like order taking, packaging, shipping, and customer service were handled by others. Procurement and quality control were also managed by staff.
Contracting land for fruit trees was also handled by others.
She only needed to continue secretly using the low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace to craft fruits and seed fruit saplings acquired from elsewhere. Therefore, even though her business had grown larger, she herself was not overly busy.
As long as she didn't have to travel.
She could generally spare ample time to be with her child.
Apart from occasional rumors, her days were quite good, and her business was thriving.
However, Zhou Junyu's situation was quite the opposite.
After his divorce, his mother officially moved into his home and began arranging blind dates for him.
But his blind dating journey was far from smooth.
The news that his mother insisted on a daughter-in-law who could give birth to a son had already spread throughout the surrounding residential areas. Since the gender of a child was not something a woman could decide, most women who did not want to be mere birthing machines or have such a mother-in-law rejected him outright from the start.
As for the remaining women who were willing, he found them unsuitable. Most of those willing were either widows, women with a son, or women with a daughter. Alternatively, they had relatively high demands, such as a dowry of two to three hundred thousand yuan, their name added to the property deed, or even the outright transfer of the property deed to them.
How could these demands possibly be agreed to by them?
They still wanted to find a gullible fool like the original owner, but currently, the women he met were no longer naive fresh graduates. Anyone who had been in society for a few years and gained some experience wouldn't be so foolish as to still believe in pure love and thus naturally couldn't be easily deceived.
Consequently, their blind dates.
Clearly yielded no results.
They wanted to remarry someone better than the original owner at a low cost to spite her and prove their divorce was the right decision, but they failed to consider what Zhou Junyu was like when he was with the original owner back then, and what he was like now. In the past, he had no money, but at least he had good looks and a promising future. Now, he lacked both looks and was stingy.
Coupled with a host of other messy issues.
It was a pipe dream for their wishes to come true.
Where were there so many fools in the world?
Time passed day by day. After that, Ding Yun stopped paying attention to Zhou Junyu's situation. For her, it was better to focus on her own career and spend more time with her daughter than to waste it on insignificant people.
As for Ding Yun's career?
It was, of course, flourishing.
With the help of the low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace as her golden finger, if she couldn't develop a business, she would be too useless. Therefore, the success and continuous growth of Ding Yun's career were entirely logical.
In just ten years, she had basically secured over ninety percent of the domestic high-end fruit market and over seventy percent of the international high-end fruit market, summing up to eighty percent of the global high-end fruit market.
She achieved this using only three percent of the global fruit yield.
Earning fifty percent of the fruit industry's profits.
To leave some scraps for others to chew on, so that some might not resort to mutually destructive measures, Ding Yun completely abandoned the remaining mid- and low-end fruit markets. After her fruit business stabilized, she began to secretly develop the vegetable and crop seed industries using the profits earned. In this endeavor, she not only utilized the low-grade Grass and Wood Creation Furnace but also incorporated the most advanced agricultural biotechnology.
The combination of the two was seamless. One evolved and modified vegetable and crop seeds, while the other was used to appropriately sterilize those seeds, preventing anyone from stealing a single seed and cultivating a whole field.
Ding Yun had secretly experimented and verified this for a long time, and even when all related technologies were mature, she dared not use these seeds to make money.
Because once these seeds were officially released, they would represent a complete upheaval of the entire global seed industry. Simultaneously, they could potentially alter the world order and even cause certain hegemonic nations to lose their dominant position in agriculture.
This could bring immense profits and status.
But it also carried immense risks.
Out of concern that she might not be a match for seed industry giants,
or that she might be assassinated,
Ding Yun eventually found a way to cooperate with the state. Only then did she muster the courage to formally establish a seed industry group and confront other world-leading seed industry giants.
Thus began her journey to become a seed industry overlord.