When he wakes up, cook Zhang Yi is dumbfounded. Other people who transmigrate at least get a chance to die on arrival; he lands straight in a besieged city, as the user of a premium, limited-edition siege experience package: the Southern Song's Diaoyu Fortress, complete with a five-star, long-term encirclement service by a hundred thousand Yuan troops, who won't let even a single rat through.
With food running low and everyone ready to raise the white flag, Zhang Yi feels in his pocket and pulls out his ultimate weapon: not nuclear arms, not some divine martial art, but a few unremarkable lumps of dirt: potatoes and sweet potatoes.
While the whole city looks on in doubt, the first to jump in and challenge him is Zhang Rulan, niece of the garrison commander Wang Li. This young lady of the Zhang family may be a refined young woman, but she has no airs. She's always full of mischief and wild ideas. Crouching on a field ridge, she blinks her big eyes and asks, “Brother Zhang, can these divine seeds make you fly if you eat them? If not, can they help my family's pigs put on another two ounces?”
She becomes Zhang Yi's most enthusiastic, and most exasperating, number-one fan. When he farms, she eagerly records his work in The Mysteries of Divine Seed Growth. When he gives lessons, she leads the class in asking strange questions like, “If a watermelon gets this big, would it work if we dropped it on a Yuan soldier's head?” Through the years they spend protecting this green hope together, she is his greatest comfort when he is tired and the steadfast supporter of every one of his wild ideas.
When a secret order from the new Yuan emperor arrives in the south and new trouble begins to brew, Zhang Yi takes her hand and looks at the granaries full of food and the strong, healthy seedlings. Then he tells Wang Li with absolute confidence, “General, don't worry. They can keep us surrounded for as long as they like. Your niece and I have already grown enough food for the next generation, too.”
