Chapter 189: How did you get in?

Chapter 189: Chapter 189: How did you get in?

While Second Territory and No.1 Territory were cursing each other online and brawling offline over two tamed beasts, Xiaqing was peacefully staying in her own territory, building her cellar, caring for the Sick Wolf, and weeding her vegetable garden.

It took seven days, but Xiaqing also finished building the cellar under the warehouse. Although she had yet to trade for any temperature and humidity control equipment, the cellar’s internal temperature was better for storing food than the outside air. So, Xiaqing stored her wheat and mung beans in the cellar under the tool shed, and her potatoes in the one under the warehouse.

In the exact center of both of these cellar storage rooms, Xiaqing hung a Yi Stone large enough to cover a thirty-cubic-meter area. The cellar in the Deserted Village to the southwest, which was just for show, naturally did not have a Yi Stone. It only had a small exhaust fan installed, and just a dozen or so small potatoes were placed inside.

The Yi Stone could block the vast majority of Harmful Elements, which was equivalent to isolating the evolutionary microbes that became active and destructive under their influence. Now, Xiaqing’s cellar storage rooms met the same storage standards as a pre-Natural Disaster warehouse that lacked temperature and humidity controls.

Xiaqing had heard Qi Fu and Shi Zhong mention that before the Natural Disaster, farmers would store their dried grains in granaries inside or outside their houses. As long as rats didn’t ruin them or rain didn’t soak them, the grain could be stored for a year without getting moldy or spoiling.

Theoretically, even without proper temperature and humidity control, her cellar should be able to store food for about half a year. Once she acquired temperature and humidity control equipment, her storage time would surely exceed a year.

In an era like the Disaster Years, where ordinary food—aside from compressed rations—barely lasted three days, a storage life of one year was a figure most people couldn’t even dare to imagine.

And she was about to make that a reality!

Such a long storage period would greatly enrich the meals for both her and Sheep Leader.

Xiaqing now had over 250 pounds of wheat, over 75 pounds of mung beans, over 480 pounds of potatoes, as well as 17 pounds of sealed compressed rations, over 40 pounds of Green Light Dried Meat, a bag of dried string beans, and a bag of dried eggplant.

The second crop included thirty-five Green Light eggplant plants, fifteen Yellow Light Eggplant plants, and over thirty Yellow Light Long String Bean plants—far more than Xiaqing could eat by herself.

After acquiring the Yi Stones, Xiaqing’s food no longer had to be completely dried and sealed for storage. She built a small, insect-proof net canopy in her yard. Inside, she strung up several iron wires for air-drying food and hung a Yi Stone. Then, following a method she read about in a book, she blanched the string beans before hanging them whole on the wires. She also sliced the eggplants and threaded them onto the wires to air-dry them into dried vegetables.

On sunny, rainless days, both vegetables would be fully dry in five days. Since dried vegetables don’t require high humidity for storage, Xiaqing bagged them and stored them in the food cellar beneath her tool shed.

With every type of food she put away, Xiaqing felt a little more secure. Although the food she had now only took up a small corner of the two cellars, she would have more to add after the autumn harvest. Once the Su Feng Team settled down, she would enter the Evolution Forest to search for chestnuts and pine nuts to further enrich her food supply.

This winter would definitely be the best one she’d had in the ten years since the Natural Disaster.

Xiaqing put the food away and walked into the living room, but the sight of the creature within made the smile vanish from her face.

Hearing the noise, the Sick Wolf, which was lying on Sheep Leader’s personal tatami mat, lifted its head and looked toward Xiaqing. Its eyes, looking a bit larger now that the swelling had gone down, were slowly regaining their sight.

Unlike the Head Wolf’s opulent gold eyes or the Brain Domain Evolution Wolf’s amber ones, this Sick Wolf’s eyes were the color of rust. Its gaze, as it watched Xiaqing, held none of the Head Wolf’s arrogance, the Brain Domain Evolution Wolf’s contemplation, or the broken leg wolf’s ferocity. There was only tranquility.

’Just... like a dog from before the Natural Disaster.’

The woman and the wolf stared at each other for a moment before Xiaqing spoke first. "How did you get in here?"

Hearing Xiaqing’s words, the Sick Wolf stood up from the tatami mat and walked outside. After nine days and nights of Xiaqing’s care, the Sick Wolf’s diarrhea had finally stopped. Though still weak, it no longer stumbled when it walked. Unlike Sheep Leader’s hooves, the pads on the wolf’s paws allowed it to walk in silence.

It walked to the security door, slowly raised a paw to pull down the handle, and then pushed outward. The entrance door, which Xiaqing had modified to be pushed open from either side, swung open, and the Sick Wolf walked out.

Watching it leave so readily, Xiaqing felt she wasn’t being respectful enough to this SSVIP of a guest. She fumbled in her pocket, intending to find a piece of dried meat to give it.

Before she could find any, the Sick Wolf pushed the door open from the outside, walked back in, and stood before Xiaqing, looking up at her.

Xiaqing...

’I was asking *how* you got inside, not... asking you to go out and come back in.’

’Never mind...’

’For it to understand human language to this degree is already incredible.’

Xiaqing checked the time. "It’s time for lunch. You must be hungry. I’ll go make us some food."

This Sick Wolf had nearly been tortured to death by parasites, and its digestive system hadn’t recovered yet. It vomited whenever it ate raw meat, so Xiaqing had to cook its meat every day.

Fortunately, the Head Wolf had delivered all this meat. A single sick wolf couldn’t eat that much—otherwise, it would have broken Xiaqing’s heart to use up her own supply.

After putting the wolf’s meat on to boil, steaming the buns for herself, and stir-frying shredded pork with string beans, Xiaqing said to the Sick Wolf, "Go get Sheep Leader. It’s time for us to eat. Sheep Leader... your friend? The white sheep that sleeps over there and eats grass. Understand?"

The Sick Wolf crouched in the kitchen doorway, watching Xiaqing. When she finished speaking, it slowly stood up and walked out. The wolf moved sluggishly, only returning with Sheep Leader ten minutes later.

The wolf and the sheep rinsed their paws and hooves in the water basin by the door. They wiped them on the dry grass Xiaqing had placed beside it before opening the door and coming inside. Then, they stood at the kitchen entrance, watching Xiaqing.

Xiaqing, who was mixing Sheep Leader’s special feed, felt the corner of her mouth twitch. She immediately offered praise. "Good boy, Leader, your hooves are so clean! You too, wolf, very clean paws. The food’s ready. Let’s eat."

Since the Sick Wolf had followed Sheep Leader into the house, Xiaqing didn’t make it eat outside. Instead, she placed both of their food bowls on Sheep Leader’s table. The Sick Wolf had a bowl of cooled shredded meat and organs, and Sheep Leader had a bowl of special feed.

Watching the wolf and the sheep standing side-by-side, chowing down, Xiaqing couldn’t help but marvel once again. ’The evolved Blue Star is so damn crazy.’

She washed her hands, opened the steamer to take out the steaming hot buns, placed the dishes on her own dining table, and turned on the walkie-talkie to listen to the Lords exchange information.

These past few days, the topic of conversation on the Lord channel was no longer how to store potatoes, but cotton.

After four months of growth, the cotton they had planted at the end of March was finally ready. The bolls on the lowest branches of the plants had split open, revealing the cotton inside.

Xiaqing had already picked eleven pounds of cotton and was drying it on the second-floor balcony. Every time she went upstairs and saw the cotton, which looked like little clouds, a genuine smile would spread across her face.

’Thank heavens. The leaves on the Yellow Light and Red Light cotton plants weren’t a normal green, but the cotton they produced was pure, snow-white.’