Chapter 141: How Many Gourds on One Vine

Chapter 141: Chapter 141: How Many Gourds on One Vine

Logically, since the first batch of potato seeds had issues, the quality of this batch should have been guaranteed.

Xiaqing knew cultivating edible crops after the Natural Disaster was incredibly difficult, and she understood the reasons behind low germination rates.

But Luo Pei had said that the corn seeds he’d given the Lords were the same seeds publicly traded within the Safe Zone.

The Lords had used their hard-earned grain to trade for these seeds from the Safe Zone’s management. For the germination rate to be ten percent lower than what was available on the open market was completely unreasonable.

After the Natural Disaster, the base’s management was chaotic. Most people in power did everything they could to line their own pockets. Even the tiniest shred of authority would be exploited to its absolute limit.

Who knew how many layers of power-brokering and backroom deals were involved in this whole unreasonable seed incident.

As someone at the bottom of the base’s hierarchy, Xiaqing had seen and experienced this sort of thing countless times over the past ten years.

If someone bullied her and she could fight back, Xiaqing would retaliate on the spot. If she couldn’t, she would note it down in her little book and wait for the right moment to strike back.

If a suitable opportunity never presented itself, she would at least throw a rock through a couple of his windows to make him miserable. Xiaqing would never let herself suffer from pent-up frustration.

The honest people had all been bullied to death long ago; no one who survived to the tenth year of the Natural Disaster was a pushover. The Lords definitely wouldn’t take this lying down.

We’ll see.

Xiaqing meticulously recorded the germination data in her notebook. Then she took out her transplanting shovel, moved seedlings from the denser patches to the empty spots, and watered them.

Transplanting had to be done early. Once the seedlings grew larger and their roots ran deep, they could easily die from the shock of being moved.

After transplanting the corn, Xiaqing made her rounds, checking the mung bean, cotton, and vegetable fields before finally arriving at the sweet potato, potato, and pumpkin patches.

Xiaqing had obtained a total of sixteen sweet potato seedlings from her trade with Tan Junjie. During the second Harmful Rain, six of them underwent Qiang Evolution. Another four didn’t evolve, but the concentration of Harmful Elements within them increased, causing them to change from Green Light to Yellow Light.

So, of the sixteen Green Light sweet potato plants she’d planted in March, only six remained Green Light.

Of the two hundred sweet potato vine cuttings she had planted in mid-May, one hundred forty were still alive: sixty were Green Light, and eighty were Yellow Light.

The sweet potatoes grown from cuttings had also entered their final growth stage. As long as the third Harmful Rain didn’t bring prolonged red-level showers, the rate of Qiang Evolution among them wouldn’t be too high.

Even if a prolonged, red-level Harmful Rain did occur, Xiaqing wasn’t afraid, because she had Yi Stones. According to the data from Luo Pei, her three Yi Stones could protect a circular area about forty-five meters in diameter. While not enough to cover all her farmland, it could still shield the most critical sections.

A bountiful harvest was in sight.

Although the potato plants looked even more withered than a few days ago, Xiaqing wasn’t in a hurry to dig them up. She had nowhere to store them yet. She would wait until the potatoes were fully mature, then harvest them all at once and move them into the cave.

For the past few days, ever since finishing the cave, Xiaqing had been monitoring its internal temperature and humidity. The temperature ranged from thirteen to sixteen degrees, but the humidity was still about the same as outside.

If the cave didn’t leak during the third Harmful Rain, Xiaqing would begin to waterproof and moisture-proof it. After that, she would install the Yi Stones inside and use it to store her food.

Right now, she was like a diligent little squirrel, constantly improving her den and stockpiling food for the winter.

Speaking of squirrels, Xiaqing felt a surge of anger.

Half of the six pounds of shredded tobacco she’d traded her mung beans for had been carried off by that red-furred evolved squirrel, and she hadn’t managed to attract a single bird with it.

Xiaqing gave up on stuffing the other half into bird nests and decided to just put it in the cave to act as a desiccant.

After passing the sweet potato and potato fields, Xiaqing stopped at the edge of the pumpkin patch. Staring at the pumpkins, now the size of a baby’s fist, she was again reminded of the question of how many to leave on each vine.

Xiaqing turned on her walkie-talkie and heard Qi Fu and Shi Zhong discussing the feasibility of raising fish and shrimp in the rice paddies.

Xiaqing was not interested in this.

Most fish species had already evolved teeth. They could chew through wire mesh with a CRUNCH. Wouldn’t chewing through rice roots be a piece of cake for them? Even if she chose fish that hadn’t evolved teeth, they could still grow them during a Harmful Rain. Xiaqing only had a little over five hundred rice plants; she couldn’t afford that kind of damage.

Once they finished with that topic, Xiaqing asked, "Brother Qi, how many pumpkins should I leave on a single vine?"

Qi Fu answered patiently, "It’s hard to say for now. We usually leave two or three on each vine to start. Once they get a little bigger, we’ll see how they’re growing and decide how many to keep. Try to leave the ones closest to the base of the plant."

"Alright, thanks, Brother Qi." Xiaqing thanked him, then grabbed her machete and started tending to the pumpkin vines.

After tending to the ten Yellow Light Pumpkin plants in her main field, Xiaqing headed for the terraced fields with her machete. As she was about to work on the five Green Light Pumpkin plants there, she heard Zhao Ze’s voice over the walkie-talkie. "Xiaqing, you weren’t on last night. Brother San was asking about you."

Xiaqing pressed the button. "I was exhausted yesterday. I fell asleep as soon as I was done with my work. Brother Zhao, do you know what Brother San wanted?"

"Brother San didn’t say," Zhao Ze replied, then asked nosily, "There isn’t much heavy work in the fields right now. What have you been so busy with?"

Zhao Ze’s tone reminded Xiaqing of the people from Territory No. 4 climbing trees to spy on her land. She replied icily, "It’s precisely because the fieldwork has been light these past two days that I had time to forge a couple of knives. I’ve gotten stronger, so my old ones feel too light and unwieldy now."

Zhao Ze...

’Scary. I can’t afford to provoke her. I’ll just stay out of her way.’

Kuang Qingwei immediately piped up, "I didn’t realize Sister Xiaqing had such skills! Are those iron knives you forged for sale? How many points each?"

Xiaqing, who had stopped on her terraced pumpkin patch on the hillside, pressed the walkie-talkie button. "My smithing skills aren’t that great. It took me two days just to make two knives. They’re for my own use, not for sale."

Shi Zhong spoke up as well. "Being able to forge your own saves a lot of trouble. I’ve already chipped three of the hatchets I brought from the Safe Zone. I’ll have to take them back there to get them repaired."

Xiaqing replied, "My machete was broken too. The blacksmith wanted too many points to fix it, so I had no choice but to buy the materials and repair it myself."

Tang Huai, who was cleaning his gun, muttered under his breath, "So that’s why there’s been all that clanging from the Third Territory these past couple of days. She’s smithing. Is there anything she can’t do?"

Tang Zhengpo, who was reading, reminded his son, "Stop staring at the Third Territory all the time. Xiaqing is just here to farm. She’s not a problem."

Tang Huai grumbled quietly, "Dad, I’m really not staring at the Third Territory all the time. She just makes so much noise that I can hear it even when I’m not trying to."

"You’ve had sharp hearing since you were a kid. Your mother and I could be talking in the living room, and you’d hear us from your bedroom upstairs with the door shut."

Among Tang Zhengpo’s three children, only Tang Huai had undergone Auditory Evolution. He was their family’s hope. "You’re thirty this year. It’s time to think about marriage. If you marry a High Level Evolved Person, the next generation will have an easier life."

"Dad, you should worry about my sister first. You’d better find me a brother-in-law who’s a Brain Domain Evolver. Any kid they have would be a guaranteed Brain Domain Evolver." Tang Huai hated this topic and immediately deflected to his sister. "She’s already thirty-five this year."

Tang Zhengpo had actually considered this. "What do you think of Xie Yu?"

’Xie Yu? The second-in-command of the Green Dragon Team?’

Tang Huai immediately shook his head. "No way. He’s bald. I don’t want my future nephew going bald before he’s even grown up."

Tang Zhengpo laughed in exasperation, rolling up his book and tapping his son on the head. "You rotten kid. In times like these, you’re still worried about looks?"

Tang Huai clutched his head, grinning cheekily. "Looks always matter. Otherwise, why would Yang Jin be so popular?"

Speaking of Yang Jin, Tang Zhengpo asked, "Yang Jin is popular mainly because he’s a Top Level Evolver who also happens to be smart. Isn’t he at the No. 1 Territory right now? How do you have time to come running over here?"

At the mention of this, Tang Huai huffed in annoyance. "He came straight here the moment he got back to the base, without even stopping by the Safe Zone. I thought something big was happening, but there’s been no movement at all from No. 1 Territory. I heard from Wei Chengdong that Yang Jin hasn’t been sleeping well and is just holed up catching up on rest."

"Yang Jin isn’t the type to lift a finger unless there’s a profit in it. He teamed up with Fire Phoenix to explore the sea near Gui City Base, so he must have made a huge score," Tang Zhengpo mused, twirling a pen in his hand.

Tang Huai continued, "Luo Pei is permanently stationed at No. 1 Territory and has even brought people to cultivate over a hundred and sixty acres of farmland. This time, Yang Jin didn’t return to the Safe Zone, he came straight here. I think the Green Dragon Team is genuinely planning to shift its center of operations from the Safe Zone to this area. Dad, what secret do you think Mountain No. 49 is hiding that would make the Green Dragon Team invest so much?"