Legendary Fruit Hunter: It All Began with an Encounter with a Wild Man

In 2024, more than two years after the island nation’s amendments to its Plant Variety Protection and Seed Law officially took effect, the feared scenario of people being strangled by restrictions on “affordable fruit” never came to pass.

Instead, high-quality and exotic new fruits sprang up like mushrooms after rain: black pineapples whose name sounds like “love you” in Chinese, dwarf durians that can grow in Guangdong and Guangxi, wax apples with the flavor and texture of hairy crabs, and all-purpose fruit trees that grow true to type without grafting, among others.

It all began when a young man who had transmigrated encountered a wild man deep in the mountains...