"So that's how it is. Your mother was truly a person of great virtue! Her merit is second only to Emperor Yan, the Divine Farmer. Such an existence, comparable to the ancient sages, was married poorly and, for not bearing sons, was constantly bullied, leading to an early death. This is truly a loss for the Great Gan, a loss for humankind! Your father, he truly is..."
Although Ding Yun did not explicitly detail how the superior strains were cultivated, the cultivator's explanation was clear enough. Thus, Yunqi Nüguan immediately felt infinite respect for the mother she had never met. Simultaneously, she harbored boundless hatred for her husband, Ding Yun's fictitious渣爹 (scumbag father), even beginning to suspect he might be a sinner for all eternity. Such a sage died early because of him. What a tremendous loss it was.
Just as she thought this, Yunqi Nüguan's intended insult, "He's not a good person...," was almost on the tip of her tongue. She ultimately decided it would be awkward for Ding Yun to hear her father insulted directly, so she forcefully reined herself in. However, the pity and indignation on her face remained.
"I too have only just learned how extraordinary my mother's actions were. However, there is one point I wish to mention: I am not entirely certain if these superior strains my mother cultivated will continue to grow as well after being planted. I vaguely recall my mother mentioning before. New strains are unstable. Some may degenerate continuously. Some may not even be suitable for seed saving. As for whether these rice and wheat belong to which category, or if these issues have already been resolved, I am truly ignorant. Therefore, I hope you will be cautious. It would be best to convey this to the laborers as well. They cannot bear the burden of failed cultivation."
The wheat and rice Ding Yun presented were all grown on the farm. As for whether the produce from the farm could be saved as seed, or what the outcome would be if it were, she knew nothing and had never tested it. What if these could not be used as seeds, and Yunqi Nüguan, believing they could, used them all? Then, over ten million jin of wheat and rice seeds would need to be planted across a vast area. If it all failed, what immense loss and harm would that cause? It was precisely due to considering these possibilities that Ding Yun hurriedly reminded her.
"What? There are such problems? That's right. If these seeds were flawless, there would likely have been related news circulating long ago. Or perhaps your mother would have submitted them to the imperial court."
Ding Yun's words were like a splash of cold water, extinguishing the excitement that had just ignited in Yunqi Nüguan and calming her considerably. Based on Ding Yun's description and the reality of the situation, she drew what she considered a reasonable inference. This made her feel even more regretful, lamenting the early death of Ding Yun's mother before she could fully perfect her superior strains, and wondering if she had any successors. If they were lost, and the seeds were not perfected, what a pity and loss that would be.
"That's what I think as well. Therefore, even if you wish to use these seeds, it would be best to first conduct experimental planting on a few mu of land. Perhaps even plant them for several years, three to five years, to confirm there are no issues before widespread promotion. If there are problems, further improvements must continue to be attempted. Otherwise, a slight misstep would not be helping people, but rather causing disaster and calamity for the nation."
Regarding this matter, Ding Yun was even more cautious than Yunqi Nüguan, as she had not yet had the opportunity to flesh out and solidify the origins of the seeds and her own fabricated background in reality. If news of the superior strains spread widely, and someone investigated, there was a high probability of her being exposed. Therefore, she naturally hoped to delay things, ideally for three to five years, giving her ample time to implement all the lies she had previously concocted into reality, making it impossible for anyone to find fault.
Yunqi Nüguan, unaware of the underlying reasons, felt that Ding Yun's words were indeed sensible. There was no harm in being cautious, so she nodded and quickly returned to the laborers. She gathered them and explained the potential risks. She also gave them a new choice: they could take some seeds home to plant, but they must absolutely keep it a secret, and absolutely not share the seeds with others; they were only for their own families to plant. Furthermore, to mitigate potential risks, and because Nanhua Temple needed to conduct experimental planting anyway, she offered to cover any losses for the laborers' land. If the cultivation was successful and there was no yield reduction, she would charge nothing. If problems arose, even a complete crop failure, she would compensate them for the normal expected yield and profit, ensuring their interests would not be harmed.
If, at first, the laborers had harbored some suspicion that Yunqi Nüguan might be going back on her word and not letting them plant the seeds, upon hearing her guarantees of coverage, all their doubts vanished. They felt they had judged the noble Yunqi Nüguan with petty minds and also believed that the seeds' traits were unstable and might not guarantee a good harvest. Fortunately, Yunqi Nüguan had promised to cover their losses, so no one refused to plant. However, to prevent the news from leaking, Yunqi Nüguan ultimately abandoned the idea of hiring more laborers to help transport grain and requesting the local yamen runners to escort them. She had to make the existing laborers work harder, without additional help, to carefully and secretly transport all this grain back to Nanhua Temple.
And so, the work began. To accelerate the process, both Ding Yun and Yunqi Nüguan joined the moving, although their help was minuscule, it did slightly increase the speed, albeit by an almost imperceptible amount. However, due to the rugged mountain paths, it ultimately took them over three days, nearly four, to finally clear out the six caves Ding Yun had hidden near Nanhua Temple and move all the wheat and rice to the temple. All available rooms and underground storage at Nanhua Temple were filled. This was only possible because they had Nanhua Temple disciples constantly threshing and storing the transported ears of rice and wheat, allowing them to barely fit. If they hadn't threshed them, even filling the main hall would likely not have been enough for so much grain.
Once the grain was brought back, Ding Yun no longer had to worry about the subsequent matters. Whether it was distributing seeds to the laborers to take home and plant, ensuring secrecy, or finding ways to transport most of these freshly threshed rice and wheat to drought-stricken areas to aid the victims, all were handled meticulously by Yunqi Nüguan. Ding Yun's energy was mainly focused on studying the Daoist scriptures gifted to her by Yunqi Nüguan and continuing to harvest from the farm to level it up as soon as possible. Her secondary focus was occasional trips to Jinling City to enjoy good food, listen to gossip, and incidentally inquire about the Xue family's situation, as well as the Jia, Wang, and Shi families, to understand whether the world she was currently in was the authentic Dream of the Red Chamber timeline or a parallel fanfiction dimension.