Jing Shu stared at the blinking console, then at the old man's triumphant, toothy grin. The heavy door of the association headquarters stood open behind him like a waiting maw. You're such a sly old man, she thought, the words sharp and clear in her mind. To push me into joining so quickly, he actually used this trick. Even if he hadn't, I would have come on my own. Really!
The sheer, absurd smoothness of the ambush was exactly what made her uneasy. It felt less like being recruited and more like being processed. Her original plan to join the Medicinal Herb Association had been to borrow their "tiger skin" as a banner for protection and access. But the texture of this place, with its sterile halls and silent machinery, felt less like the imposing hide of a tiger and more like the clever, elusive fur of a fox, a different kind of power, and potentially more treacherous.
Seeing that Jing Shu didn't immediately protest, that her expression had shifted from shock to a kind of wary, calculating acceptance, Zhou Bapi showed his big, yellowed teeth in a wider grin. He had struck gold, and he knew it.
"Our president is in seclusion right now," Zhou Bapi began, leading her deeper into the cool, echoing building as he introduced the invisible hierarchy. His voice bounced off the clean tiled floors and the glass partitions of empty labs.
Jing Shu shot him a sidelong glance. "A president? Who was that? Why go into seclusion? Could this be reliable?" The whole setup was beginning to smell even more like a very niche, very strange cult.
"The others are all scrambling to head out into the countryside, pulling in anyone who can grow a medicinal herb in a teacup. Eventually, there will be formal competitions too. Consolidation," he explained, waving a dismissive hand as they passed a bank of darkened monitors.
Zhou Bapi led her through a series of heavy doors that sighed open, revealing the heart of the operation, the cultivation bays. The air changed, growing warmer, thicker, humming with the bass note of hydroponic pumps and smelling of damp soil, leaf mold, and the faint, sweet-tang of fertilizer. "Here, we're growing plants that are relatively easy to keep alive. This patch," he pointed to a rack of slender, green stems, "is Scutellaria barbata, planted last year for clearing heat and detoxifying. Now that the weather isn't blistering hot anymore, we'll harvest this last batch and stop planting it. Too much waste of resources." The leaves looked thin, almost thirsty.
"This section," he gestured to another tray of grassy, drooping blades, "is Ophiopogon japonicus, good for regulating the spleen and stomach. We only planted it because someone upstairs sponsored us with a monthly energy supply allotment. Otherwise, the lights alone would bankrupt us."
He moved on. "Over there is honeysuckle." The vines clung to a trellis under full-spectrum lamps, a lush green that was almost deceptive. "It's a widely used medicinal herb, but unfortunately, these only grow leaves and don't flower. Without flowers, they can't be used in medicine. All foliage, no potency."
He stopped before a trough of spiky, fleshy plants. "This is aloe vera. A lot of what we planted last year simply died, but aloe's drought tolerance let some survivors cling on. Useful for burns, at least."
Jing Shu looked at the struggling aloe, its tips browning, and felt a sudden, sharp pinch of regret. "Damn it," she thought. She'd just spent 200 precious virtual coins to buy a single, fat segment of aloe from a trader. If she'd known there was a whole trough of the pathetic stuff here, she wouldn't have wasted the money.
Zhou Bapi went on, his enthusiasm undimmed by the generally depressing state of the flora. "Even though we can simulate photosynthesis with these full-spectrum monstrosities," he tapped a glowing panel overhead, "adjust temperature and humidity with the ventilation system, and mimic bits of specific climate data, we still can't reproduce the four seasons. Not truly. Some herbs must be planted in spring and harvested in winter. Others require autumn planting for their roots to develop properly. With the seasons so utterly chaotic now, most herbs just… stop. They stall halfway, or they bolt and bloom without bearing fruit because the photoperiod is all wrong, the temperature cues are nonsense."
Jing Shu nodded, surveying the racks of stunted or dormant plants. She strongly agreed. You couldn't plant crops meant for a gentle spring in the middle of a simulated, eternal summer and expect results. Ignoring seasonal biology only led to this, weak, confused growth. The winter wheat strains and cold-weather vegetables they relied on today were the products of decades, even centuries, of careful selective cultivation. These medicinal herbs were far more finicky.
"So," Zhou Bapi turned to her, his wrinkled face earnest under the artificial sun, "how exactly did you grow yours? How did you overcome the seasonal problem?" This was the question that had kept him up, pacing his small room at Su Mali's, running through every agricultural principle he knew and finding no answer that fit the thriving potted evidence.
For such a "philosophical" and technical question, Jing Shu, who understood none of the underlying botany, simply offered a flat, "Secret."
The truth was laughably simple. She just casually buried seeds in good soil, watered them daily with Spirit Spring water diluted a hundredfold, and let the cheat code do its work. So crude. So brutally effective.
At this point, Jing Shu truly felt the godlike advantage of her Cube Space. In this apocalypse where even a state-funded facility with stolen grid power could barely keep plants alive, only her hidden dimension combined with the Spirit Spring could produce vegetables that were not just surviving, but thriving. With the second form unlocked, the comparison was almost cruel. The memory of her own lush, heavy eggplants and vibrant greens made the struggling specimens around her seem like botanical ghosts.
The only pity was the Spirit Spring's meager daily output. She could keep her family in fresh vegetables and the occasional fruit, a miracle in itself. But saving a whole country, or even supplying a single association, was impossible. The spring was for a garden, not a farm.
They continued through the cultivation base. It was fairly large, with a wide variety of herbs represented, though many trays held more brown than green, and some were simply empty, labeled with tags bearing crossed-out names. Every time a worker in a simple smock passed Zhou Bapi, they would nod and murmur, "President Zhou." None of them were formal, salaried staff, Zhou Bapi explained, but with a daily wage of 4 virtual coins for this delicate work, it was already considered a premium job in the current economy.
"How's that patch of Angelica dahurica?" Zhou Bapi called out to a woman carefully trimming dead leaves from a wilted stalk.
"Same as before, President Zhou. No progress. The new shoots just… stop," the woman replied, not looking up from her task.
"Alright. I'll find another solution. You may go." Only here, amid the failing plants and the respectful workers, did Zhou Bapi seem to fully inhabit his title, his shoulders straight, his voice carrying an echo of real authority.
He clasped his hands behind his back, adopting a mentor's posture as he addressed Jing Shu. "So, you're now a junior horticulturist of the Medicinal Herb Association. The path is clear. As long as you can successfully cultivate and document a new, viable variety here, you'll get promoted. If you can keep five separate species alive through a full growth cycle and solve three major cultivation problems for the association, you'll be nominated for vice president. Substantive achievements, not just potted luck."
"Does my pot of Astragalus count?" Jing Shu asked, thinking of the plant currently serving as Zhou Bapi's bedside companion.
Zhou Bapi shook his head, his expression turning stern. "It has to survive here, in our system, and be proven usable in medicine. If random herbs from anyone's windowsill counted, we'd be swimming in vice presidents. The standard is replication and utility."
He leaned slightly closer, his voice dropping conspiratorially. "Work hard. The vice president position comes with high-level data access privileges, and plenty of operational rights. Even the local police and civil administration can't easily interfere with our internal affairs. Only the Medicinal Herb Association's own disciplinary board has jurisdiction over its senior members. That's a huge privilege. You said you were grabbed by a little officer yesterday, if you were a vice president, he wouldn't have dared lay a finger on you. The paperwork alone would bury him."
Jing Shu narrowed her eyes, the gears in her mind turning. Zhou Bapi was dangling a carrot, but it was a carrot she actually wanted to eat. From the sound of it, the Medicinal Herb Association operated on a separate track from the usual military-civilian hierarchy, hovering somewhere above food distribution and local supplies. In chaotic times, doctors were worth more than gold, and the source of medicine was a seat of power unto itself.
High-level data access, that was authority potentially higher than Su Lanzhi's director-level position in agricultural logistics. Su Lanzhi's current direct superior was someone like Niu Mou, equivalent to a ministry head. Above that were the military region commanders like Li Yuetian. High-level data rights were normally reserved for that major-general tier and above.
So, yes, that was objectively impressive.
It meant that even though this "association" might be small in headcount and currently failing at its primary task, its status within the new system was disproportionately high. A vice president here might carry weight equivalent to a major general elsewhere, at least on paper.
Most importantly, Jing Shu realized this was the perfect, tailor-made promotion track for her. Farming was her undeniable, cheat-code-backed specialty. The job was flexible, based on tangible results, with monthly checks tied to performance, exactly the kind of meritocracy she could dominate.
Of course, a lofty title didn't automatically equal real-world power. Li Yuetian controlled actual soldiers and resources, far more concrete influence than Niu Mou had over seed distribution, and certainly far more than Zhou Bapi, who seemed to have a grand title but commanded only a greenhouse of dying plants and a handful of underpaid gardeners. It was just like the ministerial rankings of old empires, some officials had low rank but held the emperor's ear and the treasury keys; others had magnificent titles but were governors of empty deserts.
"But you'll need to hurry," Zhou Bapi warned, puncturing her calculations. "This year is the last round for vice president promotions under the old charter. Soon, growers from across the province, people with real pre-collapse botanical degrees and research backgrounds, will flood in as the networks stabilize. The competition will be fierce. You'd better seize this chance while the field is still… sparse."
Jing Shu nodded furiously, like a chick pecking at grain. This vice president position, she was claiming it. It was a flag she could plant, a layer of formal protection for her family, and a key to the data streams that governed this new world.
"Then let me start by planting my first new variety," she said, her voice firm. "Astragalus."
The designated experimental plot they arrived at was only about ten square meters, but it utilized vertical space with ruthless efficiency, seven or eight layers of metal racks rose toward the high ceiling, each holding shallow growth trays under their own individual light arrays. It was a very resource-saving, post-apocalyptic design. That was why the building's ceilings had been built so intimidatingly high in the first place.
Jing Shu was sizing up the empty tray on the third rack, mentally planning her approach, a bit of good soil from her stash, a few seeds, a careful, diluted watering regimen, when a sharp, panicked shout sliced through the low hum of the greenhouse.
"Something's wrong!" A young man in a stained smock was crouched by a rack on the far side, his face pale under the purple-tinged grow lights. "That whole batch of Gastrodia! It's been infested with bug eggs! Someone must've irrigated with unfiltered reservoir water! The stems and leaves are being eaten alive!"
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虎皮 (Hǔ pí) - "Tiger Skin"
Idiomatic Meaning (借虎皮 - jiè hǔ pí): This comes from the idiom "狐假虎威" (hú jiǎ hǔ wēi), which literally means "The fox borrows the tiger's might." The fable tells of a fox who walks in front of a tiger, making other animals flee not from the fox, but from the tiger behind it.
In Context: Here, "borrow their 'tiger skin' as a banner" means Jing Shu wanted to use the reputation, authority, and influence of the Medicinal Herb Association to protect herself and gain status. She wanted to make others think she was powerful and untouchable because she was associated with a powerful "tiger" (the Association).
狐狸皮 (Húli pí) - "Fox Fur"
Idiomatic Meaning: The fox in Chinese culture is almost universally a symbol of cunning, trickery, deceit, and slyness. It is an trickster figure.
In Context: By saying it now feels like "fox fur," Jing Shu is saying the association feels deceptive, tricky, and insincere. Instead of getting the genuine, powerful protection of a "tiger," she feels she's being wrapped up in the clever, manipulative schemes of a "fox." The Association's smoothness isn't legitimate power; it feels like a trap or a clever plot she doesn't yet understand.
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What she wanted (Tiger Skin): She wanted to borrow the open, raw, intimidating power and prestige of the Association. (A tiger's power is obvious and direct).
What she fears she got (Fox Fur): Instead, she suspects she has walked into a situation defined by deceit, manipulation, and hidden agendas. The "smoothness" of the process feels like the work of a sly fox, not the genuine offer of a powerful tiger. She isn't being protected; she's being handled.