Lord of Industrialization

It is a day of rest after the Winter Spirit Festival and before the arrival of the new year. There is only one place that is still busy, and that is the vegetable greenhouse.

The castle in winter was not a place for people to stay, so Frederick and the others moved to the manor early.

This manor was originally quite lively and noisy, but it was still more comfortable than a refrigerator-like castle.

Maria went home to be with her parents before the Winter Spirits Festival. Lilu returned to Amstel in the autumn to help her relatives rebuild the house that was burned down in the fire and fulfill the hull order from the shipyard there. Susan entered hibernation mode. Without waking up even though he was holding his nose, a certain Cuckoo Knight quietly went home to see his parents after returning from Citrus Island. Frederick had to go to the greenhouse to take care of his vegetable patch alone.

Nowadays, several different greenhouses have been newly built in the manor, with a length of 100 meters and a width of about 8 meters. The rammed earth wall in the north is about 5 meters high.

What is different from other greenhouses is that these greenhouses are not made of film, but large pieces of transparent hard slime sheets, 1 cm thick, which are divided into two layers, the inner and outer, installed on the steel frame. The north and east sides are rammed. The earthen walls are extremely thick and the interior is painted black.

These greenhouses were designed for the natural church in the dark land of the north. They took into account the heavy snow and severe cold weather there, and also added some lights because of the short daylight in winter.

In the summer, Psyche cleared a piece of land in a greenhouse and planted the newly introduced "Emperor Fruit", also known as eggplant, named after the fruit's noble purple color.

However, the current eggplants have not yet undergone selective breeding. They are only about the size of a mouse. They can be grown one season a year in the open air and two seasons in a greenhouse. The yield is not bad.

Now that Psyche was satisfied with braised eggplants, he went skiing in the mountains after returning from Cologne, so he threw these eggplants to Frederick.

There are many aunts busy in the greenhouse. They are all nuns and retired Aurora warriors sent by the Church of Nature to learn how to grow vegetables in winter. They will become the backbone of agriculture in the north when they return.

The only young girl was Valkyrie. She had just finished checking the beehives in the greenhouse, and when she saw Frederick coming, she came over to say hello.

It was eggplant harvest time now, and others were doing the work of saving the seeds. Frederick just ate, thinking about what to do with the eggplants today.

Walqiulei came over and asked, "Is the Emperor Fruit ripe?"

Frederick answered while picking eggplants: "You can eat them as soon as they turn purple. It will take longer to save seeds."

"Are the strawberries ripe over there?"

At present, the only fruit that can be grown in the greenhouse is strawberry, and the other greenhouse is growing strawberries.

Valqiulei did not answer, but looked around and saw that no one was looking here, so she quickly took a ripe strawberry out of her pocket and gave it to Frederick.

The aunts would scold her if she secretly hid strawberries and ate them. Moreover, it was the first time for Waldorf to do such a thing. She was so nervous that she stuffed the strawberries into Frederick's nostrils.

Frederick was stunned for a moment, then raised his head skillfully and ate the strawberry.

Walqiulei asked in a low voice: "Is it delicious?"

Frederick nodded, and then another strawberry was stuffed into him, this time in the right position.

Their little actions have long been seen by the aunts, but they just don't say anything.

Frederick picked a basketful of eggplants and asked Waldorf, "Want to try them?"

Walqiulei nodded. Psyche had cooked it once before for the teachers and students of the Agricultural College. I heard it was delicious, but she couldn't get it when she went shopping that day.

Frederick smiled and said, "Come over for dinner tonight."

After Walqiulei came to Weisenburg Castle, she basically stayed in the manor to learn from the teachers and students of the Agricultural College. She occasionally went to the city for shopping. After the students from the Church of Nature arrived, they took on the responsibility of communicating with relevant departments.

After the World Exposition, Frederick was either busy with domestic affairs or going out. He rarely communicated with her and planned to ask more about things in the north.

During tea time, Hua Qiulei came to the mansion with the northern snacks she made.

She made tea in the tearoom. When the door of the tearoom opened, she took a quick look and saw Frederick holding a snow bear. Only when she took a closer look did she realize that it was a girl wearing snow-white bearskin clothes and a bearskin hat.

Frederick put Susan on the sofa and said with some helplessness: "She has been in the north for so long, and every time it snows, it is like being sealed in the bed. She only eats and sleeps."

As she spoke, Susan blinked her big golden eyes, yawned, and said hello to Valkyrie. Then she leaned forward and rested her head on Frederick's lap. She looked lazily and looked like she was going to sleep. Keep sleeping.

Frederick pinched her nose, picked up a biscuit that Valtius had brought and put it to her mouth.

Susan just lay there and ate.

Walqiulei thought it was interesting and asked cautiously: "Can I try it?"

Frederick nodded, and then the two of them fed Susan like a pet.

Hua Qiulei said: "You can try giving her more liver in winter. We also have children like this there, and it will be better."

Frederick thought it made sense. Maybe Susan had seasonal iron deficiency anemia and insufficient oxygen supply to the brain, so she often dozed off.

He and Hua Qiulei chatted about things in the north for a while, and it was almost time to go to the kitchen to cook eggplant.

Valkyrie said she wanted to help, so Frederick took Susan back to the bedroom and then to the kitchen.

Stews are commonly eaten in the north. Everything is put into the pot and stewed before eating, and it is easy to keep warm.

Frederick first made a salted fish and eggplant stew. The livestock industry is not developed in the north, so salted fish is a commonly eaten meat.

He made some improvements and cut the eggplant into small pieces to make it easier to eat with a spoon.

Next, the eggplant slices and red eggplant are stewed together. When the eggplant is ripe, the red eggplant becomes soft and becomes a paste, which can be eaten on bread slices.

Finally he got an eggplant box, which was convenient for eating with a knife and fork.

Valkyrie saw Frederick put a medicinal ingredient into the dish while cooking, her face suddenly turned as red as a strawberry, she bit her lips tightly, and finally seemed to have figured it out.

Everyone was very happy after the meal. Susan ate more slices of bread than usual with the red eggplant slices. Val Qiulei had a special liking for the salted fish and eggplant stew.

After dinner, it started to snow, and Frederick held an umbrella to send Valkyrie back to her residence.

Walqiulei and other "students" of the Church of Nature live in a red brick building not far away. This is what Frederick called a "peach blossom stone-style residence", also known as a tube building, which is the target of migrant workers. , it was originally intended to be used by Frederick's guards, but now it is used by them.

This building has three floors, with eighteen rooms on one floor, five stairs, and a public corridor to the north.

There is a bathroom and a kitchen on the left and right sides of the entrance to the house. There is a bedroom and a living room inside. The floor is paved with rough tiles. There is a balcony outside the bedroom.

When he walked downstairs, Frederick felt Valkyrie pulling on his coat a little nervously, and walked up without letting go.

Frederick thought she had something to say, so he followed her.

"Sit down for a while and drink some water." Walqiulei helped Frederick take off his coat and hang it on the coat rack, took out a pair of cotton slippers from the shoe cabinet, turned on the heater, and ran back to the bedroom. Change clothes.

This was Frederick's first time here.

On the right side of the living room is a dining table and chairs, with a samovar and cups on them, and a cabinet next to them.

The left hand side is like a library. The wooden sofa is covered with thick cotton cushions. There are stationery and thermos cups on the coffee table. There is a half-read "Color Atlas of Diagnosis and Treatment of Poultry Diseases" pressed with half a pack of fruit gummies. There are full bookshelves on both sides of the sofa, with books on agriculture on the right and books on surgery and trauma treatment on the left.

Frederick glanced at the trash can next to the coffee table. They were all packed with snacks.

At this time, Walqiulei changed into a pair of loose pink pajamas and came out. She saw Frederick noticed that the trash can was full of snack packages, and ran downstairs to take out the trash with a blushing face.

Frederick sat on the sofa and read the "Color Atlas of Diagnosis and Treatment of Poultry Diseases", which was full of notes.

After Valkyrie came back, she sat next to Frederick, clasping her hands tightly together. After a while, she blushed and whispered: "I'm inconvenient these days and can't sleep with you. Why don't you give me a hug?" "

Frederick blinked, he didn't say he wanted to sleep with her.

Walqiulei continued: "When I came here, the Pope told me that he wanted me to...be pregnant with your baby..."

Frederick had a question mark on his head, what the hell is this?

He hurriedly asked: "Wait, when did I say I wanted to sleep with you?"

Walqiulei raised her head and looked at him and said, "If you didn't want to sleep with me, why did you put horse radish in the dish?"

Frederick scratched his head and asked, "What is a horseradish?"

Hua Qiulei was stunned. Seeing that he was not pretending, could she have misunderstood?

After some communication, the two parties understood what was going on.

There is a plant from the east of the Piast Kingdom to the eastern coast of the Inland Sea. The locals call it "horse radish", and its roots are spicy.

Frederick didn't understand why there were tomatoes and potatoes but no peppers in Taohuashi, so he looked around for spicy substitute plants.

At this year's World Expo, a businessman heard about it and offered a kind of rhizome, saying it was called "Platinum Radish." Frederick was overjoyed when he tried it. Although it was not as good as peppers, it was just fine, so he gave him a lot of rewards and asked him to take the seeds. Get it here.

The businessman played a little trick and gave the plant a rich-sounding name. Frederick was not familiar with botany and herbal medicine and did not think about herbal medicine.

The so-called "white gold radish" is a horse radish, which looks a bit like a radish, is about the thickness of a finger, and looks a bit like a horse's whip. It has been used medicinally in its place of origin and surrounding areas for thousands of years. It can be taken internally to aphrodisiac and applied externally to treat rheumatism.

The locals say that "the value of radish is measured by the weight of lead, the value of sweet radish is measured by the weight of silver, and the value of horse radish is measured by the weight of gold." This shows how precious it is.

Walqiulei also studied medicine, so she naturally recognized horse radish. When she saw Frederick adding this to the dish and sending her back, she thought she was going to attack him.

After Frederick figured it out, he twitched the corner of his mouth, scratched his head and said, "The businessman only told me that it was a condiment like ginger and garlic, but he didn't tell me that it had medicinal value!"

Walqiulei asked a little uncertainly: "Really?"

Frederick replied firmly: "If I lie, I will eat instant noodles without seasoning packets in the future!"

Walqiulei saw that he didn't look like he was lying. Thinking of what she just said, her face suddenly turned red to the root of her neck.