Chapter 4128: When the Pumpkins Ripen (Part 21)

The next morning, it stopped raining. Although the wind was still strong, the East Coast finally entered the dry period of late autumn. The cold, dry air began to drop continuously until it pressed the needle of the thermometer to an unimaginably low level. The temperature dropped rapidly to single digits, but the entire sky, set off by the autumn leaves, was blue in a way that felt unreal.

The weather was so good that as soon as one stepped outside, everything looked like it was covered in a hazy halo. The dazzling sunlight made it impossible to open one's eyes, and the presence of eyelashes had never felt so intense. Because the wind was blowing too hard, a trench coat was useless. Greed wore a windbreaker and opened the courtyard gate, shivering slightly.

Pride had just walked out of the house, and looking at Pamela, who was carrying a piece of equipment in each hand, he said speechlessly, "So you are that so-called testing expert?"

"I must correct you," Pamela raised her voice to prevent her voice from being drowned out by the wind, "I am not the only testing expert in Cat Getan, but I am the only expert who can safely walk into this dangerous nature reserve and deal with a wild beast like you!"

Pride turned his head away and sighed, walked down the porch steps, and followed Pamela and her assistant to the front yard on the east side.

Pamela put down the instrument, then looked up at the huge beech tree, and after hesitating for a long while, she asked, "You mean, you successfully raised this beech tree, so you also have the conditions to raise that chestnut tree."

Greed nodded and said, "I heard they are the same type of plant, or from the same family."

"That's not the point; the point is you said this tree is one you raised in the courtyard?"

"That depends on how you define a courtyard."

"How to define it? Is the entire Western Hemisphere your courtyard?"

"I generously think it can exclude the Atlantic Ocean," Greed nodded and said.

Pamela rolled her eyes hard, then pointed at the tree and said, "It told me that when you moved it over, your movements were too rough, and now its root system has some sprains."

"You are a scientist; you should use more scientific methods to test everything in this courtyard, instead of listening to hearsay. Did this tree tell you what the heavy metal content in our soil is?"

Pamela was left speechless by Greed's righteous indignation, so she had to set up the instrument and said, "Successfully planting the same type of tree species is of no benefit to your qualification for raising and protecting trees, because although they belong to the same type of tree, their protection levels are different. Don't look at me like that; there are no trees in the natural woodlands near you that are at the same endangered level as the American chestnut tree. Stop harming those trees, okay?"

"Also, stop using your superpowers to ripen the lawn; those little grasses are still dizzy to this day..."

"Oh, God. Gray Mist, did you steal wine to drink again?!"

Although the process was a bit bumpy, the test results were quite optimistic. There were no harmful substances in the courtyard of Schiller's house, the soil nutrients were very sufficient, and because it was adjacent to a lake, the underground water system was also very rich, so raising a chestnut tree was not a problem.

Then Pamela took out a large stack of materials and said, "In my opinion, the most important thing among all these environmental protection regulations is that you cannot use anything from this tree for profit, including the tree itself, the tree's branches, leaves, and fruits."

"In other words, chestnuts cannot be sold?"

"Correct. The number of fruits produced by this tree is not enough to impact the current chestnut market, but after the fruits are bought back, they might be illegally cultivated."

"I don't understand," Pride said, "The American chestnut tree is indeed a bit endangered now, right?"

"Yes, their disease resistance is too poor. Previously, because of a large wave of epidemics, 80% disappeared, and the rest are all deep in the mountains. And this one might have been preserved precisely because it is isolated overseas."

"Then why is cultivation not allowed?"

"Because ordinary people don't have the ability to edit tree genes, and without improving the variety, what is planted will also be non-disease-resistant varieties. When the epidemic strikes, they will still be wiped out."

"Can't it be cut down for firewood then?"

"This is an act of disregarding plant welfare," Pamela said with her hands on her hips, "If you don't understand when I say it like this, then use animal protection behavior to make an analogy. There are many pets that look very cute, but have innate genetic diseases, such as rickets or heart disease. As long as someone buys them because of their cute appearance and profits can be generated, this kind of pet will be continuously bred, and more little animals will suffer as a result. This is what animal protectionists oppose."

"It's the same for plants. If the planting of such plants is opened, many people will want to plant their own chestnut tree, but this variety has innate defects, and epidemics will also make them suffer. But ordinary people don't have the ability to isolate plant epidemics, so before a disease-resistant variety is cultivated, individuals are not allowed to cultivate them."

"Fine, I understand. The tree I want is healthy, right?"

"Yes, and if individual cultivation is not opened, there is only this one tree in the entire community, so the probability of it being infected is extremely low, which can ensure that it is always healthy. Beech trees don't have short lifespans, so it can accompany you all the time."

"Then let's return to the chestnut problem," Greed pulled the zipper of his windbreaker up a bit against the wind and said, squinting his eyes, "Can they be given away, right?"

"Yes, but you have to ensure that they won't sell them either, let alone plant them privately. Otherwise, once it's traced back to you, you could be sued."

"Then I can give them cooked ones."

"That would be best."

The test report came out very quickly, because Brainiac had replaced the vast majority of administrative staff, so as long as the data was uploaded, it could be approved immediately, and then in less than an hour, the tree could be transplanted.

Of course, it couldn't be transplanted by Greed, because he wasn't a professional, and the beech tree he transplanted before sprained its foot. Instead, it was transplanted by professional arborists and botanists. This time it wasn't just Pamela; there were indeed several people who looked very professional.

And when the equipment needed for transplanting trees entered the site, Pride didn't realize it was aimed at him; he thought it was there to fish equipment out of the lake.

And when he saw the crane that was dozens of meters high, as well as various excavators and some equipment he couldn't name, all parked at his door, Pride couldn't help but cover his forehead.

Their plan was to dig the tree out and then lift it directly over here via a crane, so that there would be no need for truck transport.

"Why not use a truck?"

"Because lifting such a large tree onto a truck also requires a crane, so it's better to just use a larger crane to lift it over directly. Don't worry, the engineering equipment is all controlled by Brainiac, and there won't be any accidents."

"... But they look like they are going to rebuild the Twin Towers in my courtyard."

"You don't have the Twin Towers here."

"What good news."

Regardless, the project progressed very smoothly. The engineering staff operated the excavator, dug the big tree out of the soil, and then tied it to the crane. The crane rose to a very high place, letting the tree cross the house and come to the courtyard. Pamela controlled the tree to straighten its position and put it into the pit dug by the engineering staff in Schiller's courtyard.

Once the tree was in place, Pamela went to straighten the root system, sprayed various disinfectants, then added fertilizer, and finally filled in the soil and restored the damaged lawn to its original state. It had to be admitted that Pamela's level was very high; this tree looked as if it had grown right there.

It should have ended at this step, and the engineering team could have withdrawn. But just at this moment, the excavator operator in the house let out an exclamation and said, "There's something underneath! Ms. Isley!"

Pamela walked over quickly, and then they dug out a black box from underneath in a few moves. Pamela squinted at the box and said, "What is this? I feel it is releasing some kind of... radiation?"

Pride and Greed also heard the excavator operator's shout, but because the wind was too strong, they didn't hear clearly what was shouted. They thought it had nothing to do with them, so they walked toward the house.

And then, very unfortunately, Greed was knocked down by a chestnut.

He left some for the little animals when he went to pick chestnuts. Those chestnuts were not fully ripe yet, but they were close. As everyone knows, chestnuts are not born smooth and shiny; they are wrapped in a layer of spiky shell on the outside, which is to prevent their seeds from being harmed.

Falling from a very high tree sometimes breaks the shell, which is why little animals can enjoy them. The shells of fully ripe chestnuts sometimes crack, which also makes it easy for people to peel them. Most of the chestnuts that Barry and the main universe Batman peeled before were cracked, so they were easier to peel.

However, chestnuts that were already ripe but hadn't fallen from the tree had a very hard and firm spiky shell. When it hit a person at a speed of 450 kilometers per hour, which was half the initial speed of a pistol bullet, the result would be devastating.

This chestnut directly knocked Greed flying; fortunately, he turned into mist halfway, otherwise he might have been in pieces by now.

But this was just the beginning, because there were at least a hundred chestnuts left on this chestnut tree. This tree seemed to have gone crazy and started throwing chestnuts out continuously. Greed hurriedly got Pride back into the house and then shouted at Pamela, "Stop it quickly, this joke is too much!!"

Pamela had just realized the change here; she flew over in an instant and raised her hand, and the whole tree was frozen, all the chestnuts fell off, and the entire courtyard was a complete mess.

"My God, what the hell is going on?!"

"I should be asking you that, plant expert," Greed said, looking at the chestnuts all over the ground, "This tree is indeed healthy, but the chestnut that just flew at me had a higher initial speed than any record of human throwing sports. What is going on?"

Pamela frowned and went to check the tree, and then she said, "We just dug out something radioactive under the tree; perhaps during the growth process of this tree, the radiation from that equipment merged into its soul and became a part of it, and after it left that place, because of the damage to its soul, it went crazy."

Greed opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything. After a long while, he said, "So why would the murderer do this? Just so that one day when someone wants to transplant this tree, they will be killed directly by this tree?"

Greed just put forward an absurd hypothesis, but Pamela nodded and said, "I'm afraid that's exactly it. I'm afraid that anyone who wants to touch the root system of this tree, or wants to move it, will be attacked."

At this moment, Greed thought that this tree might have been planted just to cover up the noise made by the kidnappers in the basement one day. Because the growth of trees is extremely slow, in order for their plan to be carried out smoothly, they had to ensure that this tree lived and was not stolen by others.

"It's too absurd," Greed said, "So if someone wants to transplant a tree, and this tree attacks him, what do you usually do? Call the police?"

"No. If it were the Cat Getan of the past, no one would call the police, because this kind of thing is not rare, and the police would only tell you not to mess with flowers and plants when you have nothing to do, otherwise it's your own fault if you get hit."

Greed couldn't help but cover his eyes and said, "You mean, there were man-hitting plants everywhere here before, so they thought the best way to protect this tree was to let this tree protect itself."

"Correct. It's a pity that the probability of being killed by a plant is very low, but it's not zero, and in Cat Getan, this is even a paper data that can be calculated."

"I almost became one of them."

"You should consider the possibility of 'evil having its own retribution'."

?? It's been cold lately, everyone take care to keep warm. ===== CHAPTER 4129 =====