Chapter 103: Little White Egret Hatches

Chapter 103: Chapter 103: Little White Egret Hatches

’Should I ask Zhang San or Li Si for advice?’

’No.’ Xiaqing didn’t want to reveal more of the native plants in her territory. She decided to tackle it from both ends—using both organic fertilizer and insects.

Xiaqing first carefully fertilized the peanut field. After irrigating it with a mixture of filtered water and spring water, she went to her private Evolution Forest to catch dozens of Evolved Insects of various sizes and one snake. Then she returned to the terraced fields to "feed" the peanuts.

Every insect she fed them died instantly, but the Evolutionary Snake she tossed over actually knew to dodge. It twisted its body in an incredible way mid-air to avoid the Green Light Peanuts. Xiaqing pinned the fleeing snake down and placed it on a peanut seedling.

The snake, pierced by the peanut’s leaf veins, thrashed violently and tried to escape again.

Xiaqing simply killed the snake and tossed it over a third time. The needle-like leaf veins immediately pierced the snake’s body and began to absorb its fluids.

As the Evolutionary Snake "shriveled," the Green Light Peanuts produced one small, golden-yellow flower after another. By the sixtieth flower, a white stem several times thicker than the leaf veins emerged from each blossom and burrowed down into the soil.

Peanuts are also known as groundnuts because the plant flowers above ground. Then, a peg extends downward from the flower, burrows into the soil, and produces the fruit underground.

These white stems emerging from the flowers were the Green Light Peanuts’ pegs.

Xiaqing carefully pushed aside the soil with a wooden stick and saw that the tips of the first pegs to enter the soil had already begun to swell.

Xiaqing, having survived for ten years in the era of Natural Disasters, had seen many ways plants could hunt animals, but she was still utterly stunned by the Green Light Peanuts’ ability.

’If I feed it a few more snakes, will I get to eat boiled peanuts today?’

Xiaqing continued feeding it insects and found that after the Green Light Peanuts absorbed more "nutrients," the tip of each peg swelled to the size of a soybean before stopping. Instead, they began to grow branches, leaves, and root systems.

Xiaqing swiped at a peanut leaf with her dagger and found that its hardness and toughness had indeed increased compared to before it had flowered.

’A plant this vicious can’t be allowed to grow too large, or it might suck not just the Sheep Leader, but me dry too.’

No wonder the Safe Area Planting Center grew peanuts but didn’t distribute peanut seeds to the Lords. This thing was terrifying enough in its normal state. If it were contaminated with Harmful Elements, it would probably become a monster. It would definitely be more formidable than the dancing potato sprouts, and couldn’t even be compared to the two thorny jujube trees planted on the High Slope.

’How does the peanut plant protect itself before it flowers?’ Xiaqing continued her experiments.

She pinched off a small section from a non-flowering Green Light Peanut seedling and offered it to the Sheep Leader, who was lying in the shade. "You worked hard today, Leader. Here are a few Green Light Peanut leaves as a reward."

The Sheep Leader immediately turned its head away, its attitude perfectly clear.

So, it wasn’t that the terraced field with the peanuts was too steep for the Sheep Leader to climb, but that it simply wouldn’t eat peanut leaves.

Xiaqing sniffed the scent of the peanut sap, sat down next to the Sheep Leader, and took out her phone. She sent a message to Luo Pei: Brother Luo, is the Insect Repellent we use made with peanut sap?

A few minutes later, Luo Pei replied: Only the sap from edible peanuts has an insect-repelling effect. Do you have edible peanuts in your territory?

As the security for the Third Territory, Hu Zifeng’s team was forbidden by regulations from disclosing its internal situation to outsiders, so it was normal that Luo Pei didn’t know there were peanuts in the Third Territory.

Xiaqing replied to Luo Pei: Some. Have the peanuts in your territory flowered yet, Brother Luo? I discovered that Green Light Peanuts become aggressive when they flower. You must be careful.

Luo Pei replied: Not yet. Thanks.

After a moment, Luo Pei sent another long message: I asked a member of the planting team. Green Light Peanuts release a fragrance when they flower to attract insects. They use their leaf veins, which can turn into needles that paralyze an animal’s nervous system, to absorb the insects’ body fluids and continue growing. You can feed the peanuts insects until the plant grows taller. Harvest them after the plant begins to wither and loses its offensive capabilities, but be very careful of attacks from the rootstock.

So that was it. The Green Light Peanuts relied on their still-living roots to protect the seeds after the main plant withered. The following spring, after the roots had completely died off, the peanuts would sprout and grow into mature plants with insect-repelling leaves.

Xiaqing marveled, "Amazing. The Green Light Peanuts have survived this long not by luck, but by strength."

’Then what abilities did the Green Light Perilla and Asparagus Tree, so beloved by the Sheep Leader, use to survive until the tenth year of the Natural Disasters?’

’I’ll find out when they flower and bear fruit.’

Xiaqing leaned against the Sheep Leader. "Leader, do Asparagus Trees flower?"

Of course, the Sheep Leader ignored Xiaqing and continued to chew its cud with its eyes closed.

Thinking of flowering, Xiaqing’s gaze shifted to the pumpkin vines, which were growing more and more wildly. They were the only crop in her territory that should have flowered but hadn’t.

Back in May, Xiaqing had said that if the pumpkin vines didn’t flower in June, she would cut them down to feed the sheep.

It was now the end of June, and the pumpkin vines still hadn’t flowered. Not only could Xiaqing not bring herself to cut them, but she had even extended the insect-proof netting by more than twenty meters to give the vines room to grow.

She was hoping that the pumpkins would, just as Qi Fu and Shi Zhong had mused, be covered in gourds as soon as they flowered.

"COO, COO..."

The White Egrets in the dawn redwood by the reservoir let out low, happy calls.

Don’t ask how she could discern happiness from a bird’s call. The answer was that she’d heard them so often she just could. The calls these two were making now sounded even happier than when they’d smeared bird droppings on her window.

Xiaqing sat up and looked toward the bird’s nest in the dawn redwood.

Two Night Egrets had become neighbors with the White Egrets, their nests very close to each other. These days, one of the Night Egrets was always in its nest, so Xiaqing guessed the couple was also incubating eggs.

Xiaqing, who was about to have Green Light Chickens, no longer wanted to eat other birds’ eggs, but she still observed the two pairs of egrets every day.

Although the Night Egrets and White Egrets were friendly, helpful neighbors, the two birds incubating their eggs never seemed to chat to pass the time—at least, Xiaqing had never heard them.

Today, the White Egret couple was so happy they were both standing by the edge of the nest. There was no need to ask; a baby egret must be hatching, or had already hatched.

This was a happy occasion.

Xiaqing stood up, patted the dirt off her clothes, and retrieved a homemade iron-ringed fishing net from her cabin. She scooped up more than a dozen palm-sized, ferocious Evolved Fish from the pond that gnawed at the net.

Qi Fu had said that these slender Evolved Fish, the ones with black backs and golden bellies, were native Spring Water Fish and were highly nutritious. Xiaqing had once caught a Yellow Light one and roasted it, and it had indeed tasted quite good.

Unfortunately, the proportion of edible fish in the pond was too low; you might not find a single edible one even if you caught a hundred. So, to eat one fish, you had to catch and test a hundred. Xiaqing didn’t mind the trouble, but she had to save the fish for the kitten.

’Now that the cat is long gone, what’s the use of keeping this pond of fish?’

After Xiaqing brought the net ashore, not only the White Egrets, but also larger Evolved Birds like the Night Egrets, Magpies, and crows came over, lining up to wait for fish.

"The White Egrets had a baby today, so there’s enough for everyone." Xiaqing cheerfully pulled the largest, teeth-grinding fish from the net, pinned it down, knocked it unconscious, and tested its Harmful Element content.

It showed a Red Light.

She tossed it to the waiting White Egret. "The first one’s for you. Congratulations. Let’s call a truce, what do you say? We can be good neighbors again."

The White Egret ignored Xiaqing, snatched the fish, and flew back to the tree with an elegant flap of its wings. It fed the fish to its wife (or husband) guarding the nest, then flew back again.

Xiaqing chuckled and gave it another one. "Raise your kids well from now on, and stop vandalizing my window."

The White Egret snatched the palm-sized fish and swallowed it in what was probably a second.

Xiaqing knocked another Red Light fish unconscious and gave it to the Night Egret, which had two long, white feathers on its head. "Your partner has been working hard guarding the nest, too. Take one over."

The Night Egret quickly snatched the fish and swallowed it whole.

Xiaqing tossed it another one, and it tilted its head back and swallowed that one too. Xiaqing brandished her machete angrily. "Get lost."