CHAPTER 90

"Hmm," Ye Lianyin smiled and nodded. "I really enjoy the current state of being with her. It feels very comfortable."

"I'm so envious." Shan Pan looked at Ye Lianyin with eyes full of envy. "If Yunyun and I could be like you two."

After listening, Ye Lianyin slowly put away her smile. "Are you and Wan Baiyun still in the same state as before?"

Shan Pan pursed her lips and shook her head. "Since the last time I visited your place, our state has actually been improving slowly. She doesn't want to go to bars and stay out all night like before, coming back with a strong Omega pheromone."

"But..." Shan Pan thought about their current state. "But I always feel like there's a distance between us, an inexplicable feeling, as if there's always something separating us."

Ye Lianyin nodded, understanding Shan Pan's meaning. After a moment of contemplation, she suddenly spoke up. "Has Wan Baiyun ever told you that she likes you?"

Shan Pan was taken aback, and after a moment of silence, she shook her head. "No, she never has."

Ye Lianyin furrowed her brow and looked at her, her eyes filled with complexity. "Maybe you just need to break through that barrier."

"Think about it. When you two got together, it was because of the child, and your feelings for each other were unclear. Even the child was obtained because Wan Baiyun's grandmother drugged her."

"Moreover, before her grandmother drugged her, she had a terrible attitude towards you. I found it strange too. Why was she so cold towards you? Weren't you neighbors and had a good relationship when you were younger?"

"Well..." Shan Pan's face turned pale. "This, it's difficult to explain in a short time."

Understanding that Shan Pan didn't want to talk about it, Ye Lianyin tactfully didn't continue questioning and simply said, "Anyway, if Wan Baiyun truly likes you, you two should have a clear conversation about it."

"Yes, I understand." Shan Pan gently caressed her lower abdomen. Feeling the baby kick against her own skin, her eyes instantly softened. She nodded.

"Oh, by the way," Ye Lianyin looked at Shan Pan's stomach. "When are you planning to take a leave of absence from school? Your stomach is getting bigger, and it would be risky if you accidentally bump into something at school. Considering the time. It should be around six months now, right?"

"Yes, yes." Shan Pan nodded. "The baby's movements are particularly noticeable now. There have been several nights when the kicks woke me up."

"Really?" Ye Lianyin looked at Shan Pan's belly with curiosity.

Shan Pan nodded and took Ye Lianyin's hand, placing it on her belly.

The little one was considerate and lightly kicked Ye Lianyin's palm.

"Wow, it's true!" Ye Lianyin exclaimed, retracting her hand in surprise. "It's moving."

"Hahaha," Shan Pan couldn't help but laugh when she saw Ye Lianyin's astonished expression. "Yinyin, you look so funny right now."

Ye Lianyin pouted. "It's not like I've never seen it before. It's normal."

Shan Pan nodded and answered Ye Lianyin's earlier question. "Yes, yes. I'll probably take a leave of absence at the end of this month, after finishing my current assignments. Yunyun's grandmother wants me to stay with her because Yunyun often has to go to the military and can't take care of me."

"That's good." Ye Lianyin breathed a sigh of relief. "I was worried you would stay at school until giving birth."

"How could that be!" Shan Pan laughed and shook her head.

"Oh, by the way, did you see the Melody's Tea shop when you came to school today?" Shan Pan suddenly noticed a student walking by with a cup of milk tea in their hand and remembered this incident.    

Ye Lianyin hesitated for a moment, recalling the scene she saw this morning when she arrived at school with Qin Zhaoci. She nodded, "Yes, I saw it. What's the matter?"

Shan Pan slapped her hand in frustration. "I wanted to buy some, but they were sold out. They just opened yesterday, so not many people went to buy it. I bought a cup of strawberry juice, it was super delicious. Oh, and Yunyun bought watermelon coconut, I tried it too, and it was good."

"Oh, let's go buy some for lunch then." Ye Lianyin blinked her eyes.

Shan Pan glanced at her. "They are already sold out by now. Didn't you have some yesterday? Don't you know there's a purchase limit?"

Ye Lianyin blinked her eyes. "But the shop owner didn't mention any purchase limit."

"The shop owner? What shop owner?" Shan Pan paused for a moment, then suddenly realized, "It's Qin Zhaoci's shop!"

Ye Lianyin nodded with a smile, "Yes."

"In that case, please get me a cup." Shan Pan hugged Ye Lianyin's arm. "Either strawberry juice or watermelon coconut. The shop advises pregnant women not to drink milk tea."

"Sure." Ye Lianyin nodded with a smile. "I'll bring it to you at lunch."  

 "Wuwuwu, I didn't expect being friends with you would have such benefits. I love it." Shan Pan hugged Ye Lianyin's arm and rubbed her shoulder against hers, looking very happy.

"Oh, by the way," Shan Pan suddenly remembered something, "When I ordered the milk tea yesterday, there was a prompt on the screen asking if there were any allergies to the ingredients used in the shop. But the ingredients Qin Zhaoci is currently using is not available in the Empire's market, and hospitals wouldn't be able to conduct allergen tests for them."

"Ah, what should we do then?" Ye Lianyin frowned. "If someone drinks it and has an allergic reaction, and they blame the milk tea shop, it will be troublesome."

Shan Pan nodded and furrowed her brows, thinking for a moment. "You let Qin Zhaoci bring the prepared milk tea to our family's research institute. I'll inform the institute and have them study it based on the ingredients. Then they can distribute the results to the hospitals near our home. Don't worry, with the speed of our research personnel, it shouldn't take more than three days to get the results and distribute them to the hospitals."

"Okay, I'll message Qin Zhaoci." Ye Lianyin nodded and relayed Shan Pan's suggestion to Qin Zhaoci. Qin Zhaoci quickly had Yang Xizi send some of the ingredients and finished products to Shan Pan's family's research institute.

As  expected, just as Shan Pan had said, the researchers at the institute indeed developed the reagents within three days and distributed them to the designated hospitals. Thoughtful Shan Pan was worried that the students at school might be too lazy to go to the hospital, so she arranged for some reagents to be sent to the school's medical office as well.

Yang Xizi was also thoughtful and reminded customers on the ordering screen that if they were unsure about their allergies, they could go to Shan's family hospital or the school's medical office for allergen testing.

Thanks to Shan Pan's careful reminder, it didn't take long for a student to complain on the forum, stating that they broke out in hives and suspected that there was an issue with the Melody's Tea after drinking the strawberry juice.

Yang Xizi quickly contacted the relevant student and advised them to go to the school's medical office for allergen testing. The test results confirmed that the student was indeed allergic to strawberries.

Once the student realized that it wasn't an issue with the shop, they immediately apologized, and the crisis was resolved swiftly.

After this incident, Qin Zhaoci contacted Shan Pan's older brother, Shan Yuan, to propose a collaboration with Shan's family hospital. Qin Zhaoci wanted the hospital to research the relevant reagents whenever they introduced a new product.

Shan Yuan, the current head of the Shan family, a talented 30-year-old Alpha in management and business, listened to Shan Pan mention Qin Zhaoci before and now looked at her in a different light. When he learned about Qin Zhaoci's proposal for collaboration, he didn't hesitate and agreed immediately, without giving it a second thought.

After all, Qin Zhaoci had only recently opened one shop, and yet the business was booming. There was no guarantee that she wouldn't open more shops in the future. With more people, there would naturally be an increase in the number of individuals going to the hospital for testing. It was a profitable and risk-free business, and only a fool would pass up on such an opportunity.

.....

Soon, a month had passed, and there was a constant queue of customers outside the Melody's Tea shop. Yang Xizi exceeded Qin Zhaoci's sales target with exceptional performance.

Qin Zhaoci checked the growth status of the fruits she had previously moved out from the space of the Pastoral planet and confirmed that they were growing well. She then dispatched Qin's family transport spacecraft to harvest a batch of fruits.

The harvested fruits consisted of approximately five boxes of strawberries, one box of apples, two boxes of mangoes, one box of grapes, one box of longan, and one box of lychee. These harvested fruits were the ones Qin Zhaoci had moved out from her space, so the results were relatively quick.

The boxes were of a size of 2m x 2m x 2m, and Qin Zhaoci had them delivered directly to the warehouse behind her research institute.

Although she was in the Empire this month, Qin Zhaoci hadn't forgotten about the pastoral planet. Using her optical brain, she controlled robots to continuously develop and cultivate new land. Within a radius of one kilometer from her mansion, the area was almost filled with fruits and vegetables.

Seeing the large boxes, Zheng Siwei approached curiously, examining the items in front of him.

After the robots unpacked the large boxes, they revealed smaller boxes, each measuring approximately 50cm x 50cm x 20cm. There were 160 small boxes in each large box.

Qin Zhaoci directed the robots to take out one box of each kind and placed them in front of Zheng Siwei. She said, "Teacher, take these back and enjoy them. These are fruits grown on the pastoral planet. When Teacher Bai comes in the afternoon, you can have her take some home as well."

Zheng Siwei looked at the Pastoral planet logo on the boxes, which consisted of four green squares combined to form the character "田" (Tián). He nodded and said, "Alright, I'll bring them back to your teacher to taste this evening."

Qin Zhaoci nodded and asked, "Teacher, are you comfortable using the experimental equipment here?"

Zheng Siwei quickly nodded and replied, "Of course, I'm used to it. The experimental equipment you purchased is the most advanced, even more advanced than what we have at the academy. How can I not be comfortable?"

"However, currently, there are only two researchers in the institute, me and Xiaobai. Have you considered hiring other research personnel?" Zheng Siwei asked.

Qin Zhaoci nodded and said, "Of course, I've already considered it. But I'm not familiar with this aspect. Could you help me with hiring? You must know many talented individuals in this field since you're well-connected. Besides, you're currently the vice director of the institute, so it's your responsibility."

"What about the salary?" Zheng Siwei asked.

Qin Zhaoci thought for a moment and replied, "We'll offer salaries in line with other research institutes. And I can assure you that the benefits at our institute will be better than those at other institutes. At the very least, we won't skimp on vegetables and fruits. Oh, by the way, Teacher, I plan to build a cafeteria behind the institute once we have achieve mass production on the pastoral planet. It will provide free meals for the staff for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

"That's fantastic! With the incentive of meals and fruits, I'm sure people will be interested." Zheng Siwei smiled and nodded. "I'll start working on recruiting. After working at the academy for so many years, I've trained many outstanding students."

"I also have some friends who research in this field. I can reach out to them and ask if they're interested. I'll send you their resumes for reference. After reviewing the current scale of the institute, including me and Xiaobai, we can probably hire around 28 researchers."

Qin Zhaoci nodded and said, "That sounds good. I trust your judgment, Teacher."

"Then I'll get started." Zheng Siwei said, feeling affirmed by Qin Zhaoci's response. He began to think about which individuals would be suitable for the positions. 

Qin Zhaoci turned her head and looked at the large quantity of fruits in front of her. She called a transportation truck and sent some to the homes of her two mothers and two grandmothers.

She also sent some to Wan Baiyun, Shan Pan, Teacher Zhou Qifei, Shan Pan's brother Shan Yuan, Sun Sui, and Yang Xizi.

She had initially thought of sending some to her mother-in-law, but the thought of Ye Yufeng's unpleasant face made Qin Zhaoci decide to send them separately to Ye Yici's home near the Ye Family Group.

Although the warehouse had preservation capabilities, it still fell short compared to the freshness when the fruits were first placed inside. There was some deterioration. Taking them out and distributing them again would inevitably affect their preservation.

After thinking for a moment, Qin Zhaoci contacted the Qin family's business partner, Qin Zhongying's company, and asked Sun Sui to deliver some fruits to them, stating that they were from the new project the Qin family had recently developed.

Naturally, the fruits sent to these wealthy individuals were limited. Qin Zhaoci didn't want them to eat her fruits for free. So she had the robots repack them, taking a small portion of each kind and placing them in a single small box.

After dealing with all of this, Qin Zhaoci personally loaded some fruits into her car and brought them home.

That evening, when she returned home, Qin Zhaoci took out her optical brain and began contemplating how to expand the production of the pastoral planet.

Since the cultivation of fruits, future problems with pests and diseases are definitely unavoidable. Qin Zhaoci looked through the relevant books she brought from Earth and thoughtfully considered her plans.

"Why do we have so many boxes of fruits at home?" Ye Lianyin, who had returned from school, looked at the ten boxes of fruits piled up in the living room, feeling a bit surprised.

Qin Zhaoci put away her book and explained, "We harvested a batch on the Pastoral planet, and the rest are stored in the research institute's warehouse. These are some that I brought back home."

"I see." Ye Lianyin sat down beside Qin Zhaoci and looked at the Pastoral planet video transmitted by the satellite on her optical brain. She blinked her eyes and asked, "Are you planning to continue purchasing robots?"

"Yes, indeed. I plan to continue buying them." Qin Zhaoci nodded. "But right now, I want to build greenhouse facilities in certain areas of the Pastoral planet. Some places on the planet have noticeable seasonal temperature variations, and certain seasons are not suitable for cultivating crops. Additionally, I also want to construct several buildings, warehouses, and even a small research institute at different latitudes on the Pastoral planet. This will facilitate researchers in conducting field surveys, and we'll need to build employee dormitories as well."

"Okay, that sounds good. Anyway, I've already rented two floors of office space with Sister Lin. I've also contacted some manufacturing factories and hired researchers. We borrowed the research institute from my sister's small company. However, the startup capital is not sufficient to support us in building the research institute yet." Ye Lianyin explained her recent activities to Qin Zhaoci.

"My wife is amazing." Qin Zhaoci smiled and nodded after listening. She turned off her optical brain and leaned her head on Ye Lianyin's shoulder. "Do you have time recently? We agreed that you would teach me how to fly the aircraft, remember?"

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