CHAPTER 591: CHAPTER 590: IGO INSPECTION GROUP (PART 1)

A tree with a rainbow halo, a fantasy tree, made the glass room vibrant and colorful.

As the Rainbow Tree flowered and bore fruit, it meant that long-overdue recipes like "Rainbow Wine" and "Rainbow Pudding" could soon enter the research queue.

Xia Yu was delighted, he had a premonition that the first harvest of Rainbow Fruit might help with the second phase of the Sapporo competition.

From his position, he naturally did his utmost to help his Aunt Zhu Qing.

With the first phase over, the Far Moon participants had essentially left the competition team, and what remained was up to the Xia family themselves.

Ichise Hui, having seen Xia Yu wandering around the glass room for quite some time, attempted to say, "Instructor Xia, should we strengthen the security for this area? Although we have installed quite a few surveillance cameras..."

"Deploy five mercenaries, no, a special squad of ten, dedicated solely to guarding the glass room."

Xia Yu said, "Keep in mind, apart from you and me, no third party is allowed to set foot inside."

"After all, the harvest is near, and I certainly don’t want someone else to reap the fruits of my labor."

Upon hearing this, Ichise Hui solemnly agreed.

Xia Yu had entrusted the farm to him, and Ichise Hui naturally understood the value of those crops.

The two locked up the passcode door and headed to the farm’s storage facilities.

The warehouse was a separate area converted from an original building, with three floors in total, having numerous small rooms, each with a sealed metal door bearing a special marker.

"This is the automatic freshness preservation room with 4 degrees Celsius..."

Ichise Hui pointed to the transparent porthole where vegetables and fruits already selected and packaged were visible, boxed individually – they could have been placed directly on supermarket shelves for sale.

"This temperature is suitable for preserving vegetables like cucumbers and green beans, hence the main ingredient here is ’banana cucumber.’"

After a pause, Ichise Hui’s smile was somewhat subtle: "The ’banana cucumber’ and other fruits and vegetables have such high yields that they can be harvested several times within a month, this cold storage room will soon be too small."

They continued the tour.

"This is the 6 degrees Celsius cold storage."

"This cold storage mainly stores leafy vegetables, but as you, Instructor Xia, should know, leafy vegetables usually do not last long. If they are placed directly into the cold storage, within a few hours, the leaves will turn yellow, and the quality will plummet. Therefore, before storing them, I had students from the Far Moon Agricultural Association come over to select and process them, such as ’Almond Cabbage,’ for which we would wrap at least two layers of fresh-keeping film. Of course, the same goes for other leafy vegetables, but no matter how professional the cold preservation methods, these vegetables can only be kept for a maximum of 2 to 3 weeks..."

As he spoke, Ichise Hui observed Xia Yu’s expression.

"Does that mean that if we don’t use this batch of leafy vegetables soon, the quality will be greatly compromised?" Xia Yu said.

"Yes."

Ichise Hui gave a wry smile: "I was waiting for you to come back and deal with it."

"Next time, for fresh vegetables and fruits about to expire, don’t ask me, just find someone to buy them," Xia Yu said with a slight smile. "I think there will be many restaurants clamoring to get the special products from Xia’s Farm, right?"

Thanks to the "Autumn Selection" publicity, by now many food industry giants were aware of the existence of such a fantasy cultivation institution.

Such as the famously popular "Indra Moon Orange," even the discoverer, Lady Indira, had to purchase fantasy spices from this institution.

And various other high-quality vegetables and fruits.

Not just "Lemon Peach" and "Bacon Leaf," along the way, Ichise Hui introduced many fantasy vegetables and fruits to Xia Yu that he had cultivated from his own purchased seeds.

Fertilizer warehouse.

"Boom"

The rolling door opened, but the farm’s fertilizer warehouse was left with only a few bags of fertilizer.

Ichise Hui scratched his head, a bit embarrassed: "Well, we’ve consumed more fertilizer than expected, and now there are only six bags left."

He rubbed his hands together.

"Instructor Xia, what exactly is that fertilizer? When I tried using it to cultivate ordinary vegetables and fruits at the Polar Star Dormitory, the quality immediately shot up by a great margin, the tomatoes that grew were as big as this, solid and full..."

He gestured exaggeratedly, accompanied by a look of disbelief in his eyes – it seemed he was yet another human conquered by "Golden Kela."

"Shh!"

Xia Yu’s lips moved, forming the shape of "Golden Kela," then he laughed and said, "Out of fertilizer, you say? Then I’ll deliver a batch tomorrow, let’s set it at 100 bags for now, use them sparingly!"

Ichise Hui immediately nodded: "100 bags? That’s enough, at least it will last for two to three months!"

At this moment, Ichise Hui’s pager in hand emitted the sound of the security guard’s voice:

"There’s a visitor."

Upon hearing the identity of the visitor from the security guard, Ichise Hui’s expression immediately became peculiar.

She hesitated, then looked at Xia Yu.

"Ichise, you go greet them. I’ll listen in from the conference room alcove."

Xia Yu threw up her hands and made her way to the farm’s office building on her own, and before long, a car stopped downstairs, and a faint female voice could be heard.

Soon, two stunningly attractive mature women took their seats in the office. They were none other than the Chiben sisters, known as the "Curry Queens."

"Ichise, I heard Chef Xia is back in Tokyo!"

The elder sister, Chiben Natsuka, entered the door and spoke forcefully, "Get in touch with him quickly. I want to order a batch of the latest Fantasy Moon Tangerine Leaves for the research of Fantasy Curry dishes."

"Also, we want to order a batch of potatoes and vegetables, those kinds of products from your farm!"

She did not conceal her eagerness.

Her sister, Chitben Orin, said softly, "If Xia’s Farm and the Curry Princess can establish a stable cooperative relationship, it would be greatly beneficial to both parties. Ichise, please discuss our intent to collaborate with Chef Xia. This is the third time my sister and I have come to see you, isn’t that evidence of our sincerity?"

Ichise Hui stole a glance at the closed-off alcove, clearly troubled.

Just as she was about to speak, there came another report from the security guard at the door.

Thus, the second group of visitors arrived.

"Hahahaha..."

Laughter rang out before the person arrived.

A vigorous middle-aged man with an imposing aura strode in; it was Takai Masashi, the leader of Takai Group, who had risen to fame in the past half a year as a top-ranking special chef.

He was accompanied by a male secretary.

"Ichise Hui, you have been managing the farm for Chef Xia and have consistently rejected our Takai Group’s intent to collaborate. Now that the Sapporo competition has concluded and Chef Xia has returned to Tokyo from Sapporo, you should report the collaboration matters to Chef Xia, shouldn’t you?" Takai Masashi got straight to the point.

In the alcove.

Xia Yu listened in astonishment.

HOB Food, Takai Group.

These were the veritable giants of the Japanese Food Industry, though not quite on par with the ’Four Respected Families,’ their influence was fast catching up to the increasingly left-behind Dubian and Hasegawa families. And now, the heads of both these giant corporations had personally come to seek collaboration...

Instantly, Xia Yu became curious; was the promotional campaign for the "Autumn Election" really that successful?

...

At ten o’clock in the morning.

A visiting team from the IGO headquarters was also heading towards Xia’s Farm on a bus.

Onboard, Shinohara Shigetaro, who had just returned from Sapporo the night before, sat side by side with a neatly combed, silver-haired elder.

That elder was none other than Luther, the world-renowned research authority and director of the IGO Research Institute, someone Xia Yu was certainly familiar with.

"Over the past month, I’ve heard nothing but praise from Indira about this cultivation institution. Since they are able to mass-produce ’Indira Moon Oranges,’ there must be areas where they exceed our research institute; this ten-day break is a good opportunity for an inspection..." Luther said.

Upon hearing this, a female with smokey makeup seated at the back of the bus pursed her lips.

"A civilian institution?"

"The IGO and the cooking community have gathered the elite of the culinary research domain. Many research projects haven’t made progress, what special insights could a civilian institution have. It must be exaggerated, false advertising! There are far too many such instances of fraud!"

Seeing is believing.

The bus was filled with the institute’s elite; although none spoke up, they all inwardly agreed with these words.

Academic and scientific research fraud is all too common, but out of respect for Luther, they refrained from questioning it.

They might as well treat this as a farm sightseeing tour.