The days ahead slipped into a comfortable, sun-drenched routine.
An Feng spent his mornings riding Philip through the golden valley, inspecting the sprawling vineyard, and occasionally heading into the city to indulge his shooting hobby.
In the afternoons, he would spend a few hours sweating in his home gym.
Joanna’s language lessons were officially wrapping up.
His spoken English was nearly flawless now; all that was left was turning the new vocabulary into a daily habit.
By the end of July, the three hundred acres of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes had transitioned into the veraison period, their green skins blushing with deep purple hues.
In about two months, they would be ready for harvest.
According to Old John, they’d be picking by October.
But An Feng’s mind was occupied by a completely different kind of agriculture.
Lately, he had been spending his spare time in his makeshift laboratory.
He shoveled soil samples, mixed experimental bio-organic fertilizers, and meticulously logged the growth rates of various test plants.
It wasn’t just a hobby—his hard work had officially paid off.
Working through a specialized patent agency to avoid dealing with the bureaucratic headache himself, he had successfully secured seven agricultural patents.
Sometimes, he wondered why he had bought a vineyard in the first place.
Perhaps it was the perfect California weather, the sky so brilliantly blue it practically demanded he lie on a sun lounger and do absolutely nothing.
As a result of his long hours outdoors, his skin had tanned several shades darker.
Or perhaps it was just a deep-seated, ancestral desire for land.
Back in China, an average office worker might spend their entire life savings just to buy a hundred-square-meter apartment.
Out here, land was measured in acres.
His estate didn’t just have a swimming pool—it had a small horse paddock, a badminton court, and an undeveloped off-road track in the backyard.
‘It really is crazy,’ An Feng thought, resting his hands behind his head.
‘I came here on a whim for a vacation, and somehow ended up investing, immigrating, and putting down roots.’ When he called his parents to explain that he had successfully completed his immigration paperwork, they had been highly anxious.
But once An Feng explained that he was keeping his Chinese passport and could fly back home whenever he wanted, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Then came the inevitable motherly nagging about his diet.
She had heard that Americans only ate raw lettuce and worried about whether the vegetables were actually clean.
At night, An Feng dragged his laptop to the living room couch to surf the web.
When he first bought the computer, the English interface had given him a headache.
He had eventually called customer support, and under their patient guidance, figured out how to download a multi-language pack and switch the operating system to Chinese.
Even on the other side of the world, his internet habits remained unchanged.
His browser homepage was still a cluttered directory of Chinese web portals, and clicking on his search bar automatically defaulted to Baidu.
With his incredibly fast fiber-optic connection, he could effortlessly jump between local forums, YouTube, and Facebook.
It truly was the era of a globally interconnected world.
‘Though, absolute freedom of speech is definitely a myth,’ An Feng mused as he scrolled.
‘Look at Edward Snowden.
If he hadn’t blown the whistle, who knows what kind of digital wiretapping the government would still be getting away with.’ Joanna had taught him how to set up Facebook and Twitter accounts, but he rarely used them.
He didn’t have many local friends to interact with, so his social media activity mostly consisted of silently scrolling and double-tapping photos.
Instead, he booted up his old QQ account, hoping to catch some late-night owls back home.
A small icon for his university class group chat was flashing frantically in the corner of his screen.
He clicked it open.
After several years of graduation, the group chat had lost its initial post-college warmth.
Most of the daily chatter had devolved into an endless stream of reaction memes—an easy, lazy way for everyone to pretend they were still keeping up with youth culture.
Suddenly, a message highlighted in bold red text popped up: “Extra!
Extra!
Announcing the Class of 2012 Autumn Reunion!
All you silent divers, step up and report!
Message the class monitor immediately with your availability!” The message was from their old class monitor.
An Feng switched his keyboard input and quickly typed a reply: “Monitor, the Autumn Festival is still months away.
Isn’t it a bit early to start booking people?” “I have to start early!” the class monitor replied almost instantly.
“Some of you comrades dive so deep into the digital ocean that it takes you half a year to resurface.” Slowly, other classmates began to pop up in the thread.
As a gathering to mark several years since graduation, a reunion was definitely highly anticipated.
A moment later, the class monitor sent a follow-up message: “By the way, yours truly is officially getting married after the reunion.
I expect everyone to show up, and those red envelopes better be thick!” “How about I send you a fat stack of eighty thousand?” their classmate, Wang Le, replied.
“Sure!
If you’re talking about eighty thousand points on a mahjong table, I’ll happily take it,” the monitor shot back.
“Haha, count me in on that deal!” An Feng chimed in.
The monitor noticed his username.
“Hey, third child!
I haven’t seen you online in ages.
How’s the job hunting going?” “I actually quit my old job a while ago,” An Feng replied.
“I’m still online, my timezone is just completely flipped from yours.” “Where did you run off to?
The African savannah?” An Feng was just about to type a response when Wu Chao, his former college roommate, jumped in: “Hold on.
I just checked your IP location.
It says you’re logging in from California.
What are you doing in the US?” An Feng smiled.
“I bought a small vineyard out here in California.
Just keeping busy with some agricultural projects.” “No way!
A vineyard?
That sounds incredibly fancy,” the monitor replied.
“Did you strike gold and become an overseas tycoon without telling us, An Feng?” The chat room immediately erupted.
Classmates flooded the screen with playful accusations, jokingly calling him a traitor for crossing the Pacific without warning, and lamenting how they weren’t emotionally prepared for such a massive lifestyle upgrade.
Wang Le suddenly took a screenshot of a photo from An Feng’s personal profile and posted it directly into the group chat: “Holy crap, guys!
An Feng isn’t kidding.
Look at this photo.
He’s totally channeling his inner action movie hero!” The photo was one An Feng had uploaded recently to test his network upload speed.
He was shirtless, wearing tactical cargo pants and leather boots, sitting confidently bareback on Philip’s muscular frame.
The sunlit California valley stretched out behind him.
Joanna had taken the shot during one of their trail rides with Henry and Mary.
The group chat went wild.
“Look at the size of that horse!
That is a majestic beast!” “Wait, look at his hip.
Is that a real M1911 strapped to his belt?
And here I am, only allowed to carry nail clippers!” “Who’s the gorgeous blonde girl in his other selfies?
They look incredibly close.
Spill the beans, man!
Is there some international romance going on?” An Feng spent the next hour batting away their dramatic accusations.
He insisted they were just close friends, but his classmates refused to believe him.
The conversation quickly shifted to the group demanding that he act as their personal tour guide when they visited, begging him to ship back luxury handbags and cheap American cosmetics.
Amused by their enthusiasm, An Feng typed out a public invitation: “If any of you get a visa, feel free to fly over.
I’ll cover your lodging at my estate, feed you, give you a personal tour of the valley on horseback, and throw in a pool party.
Hell, if my future wife ever agrees to it, I’ll even let you stay in the master suite.
Disclaimer: Airfare is strictly at your own expense.” Wu Chao, ever the comedian, immediately replied: “Wait, we have to pay for our own flights?
If I buy a ticket to California, I’m going to have to sell a kidney to pay off my credit card debt!” The female classmates in the chat quickly hijacked the thread, teasing An Feng about his comment.
“Ooh, ‘future wife’?
Does our local tycoon already have someone in mind?” By the time the chat wound down, several of his classmates were genuinely tempted to make the trip.
With the National Day holidays coming up, combined with some accrued paid time off, they could easily piece together a two-week vacation.
The US West Coast was a dream destination, and those with a bit of disposable income were already looking up flights.
An Feng chatted with them until his eyes grew heavy, finally logging off to head to bed.
At noon the next day, An Feng booted up his computer and opened his email inbox.
Unlike back in China, where he relied heavily on instant messaging apps for business, in the US, email was king.
He opened his Gmail account and scrolled past the promotional spam, finding a few messages that had arrived a week prior.
He opened the first few emails, only to find polite, automated rejection letters from major agricultural corporations.
Some of the industry giants had sent cold, dismissive two-sentence replies.
It was clear they hadn’t even bothered to look at the lab data for his organic fertilizers, assuming his claims were wildly exaggerated.
“Short-sighted fools,” An Feng muttered, rolling his eyes as he clicked delete.
‘Your loss.
You’re missing out on the future of agriculture.’ Disappointed but not discouraged, he kept scrolling.
Suddenly, his eyes locked onto a subject line that stood out from the rest.
A mid-sized agricultural firm called “Teraland” was expressing serious interest in acquiring the patents for his specialized corn and potato fertilizers.
An Feng immediately ran a search on the company.
While Teraland’s scale couldn’t compare to the massive, multi-billion-dollar corporate giants of North America, they were a highly respected, rapidly growing brand with a deeply loyal customer base across the Western United States.
An Feng eagerly opened a folder on his desktop containing the valuation reports his patent agency had compiled the previous week.
According to the experts, a fair transfer price for those two specific patents was valued at a minimum of eight million dollars.
An Feng let out a triumphant laugh, leaning back in his chair.
‘Eight million dollars…
I am officially rich!’