Chapter 208: The Darkening of Peanut

Chapter 208: Chapter 208: The Darkening of Peanut

Xiaqing left the Safe Zone for her territory in mid-February. After discovering peanut seedlings in the terraced fields of the High Slope in mid-March, she had been treating them like treasure, caring for them meticulously.

She invested dozens of times more effort into the peanuts than the twenty-odd Soybean plants on the lower slope. This was especially true after the thirty-five Green Light Peanut seedlings began to flower. Besides watering, fertilizing, loosening the soil, and weeding, Xiaqing also had to catch insects daily to feed the seedlings, all in the hope that the peanuts would grow large and plentiful.

However, these peanut seedlings, much like the Soybean seedlings on the lower slope, were a plant species that had gone undiscovered when the team cleared this territory last winter.

’If those Soybeans were food collected by a small animal for the winter, only to be abandoned and left to sprout after it found them too tough to eat, then could these peanuts be the same...?’

’Seriously, that would be just awful!’

Seeing Xiaqing squatting in the shelter without moving for a long while, Sheep Leader walked in from outside. Sick Wolf followed, curious about what was going on.

With the sheep and the wolf watching her, Xiaqing stared intently at the peanut plants. "Leader, Second, want some peanuts? How about we pull one up and have a taste?"

’I can’t figure out if they’re edible just by thinking about it. The only way to know for sure is to pull one up and taste it.’

The peanut plants were dangerous. Sheep Leader, a herbivore, had no interest in them. Sick Wolf, a carnivore, was equally uninterested in the plants Xiaqing had repeatedly forbidden it from approaching.

Although she got no response from her companions, Xiaqing still fetched a shovel, picked a Yellow Light Peanut plant furthest from the Green Light Peanut plants, and started digging.

The leaves on the lower parts of the plants were already starting to turn yellow. Xiaqing had been planning to harvest them at the end of this month or the beginning of next anyway. Digging up a few now to test would either set her mind at ease or crush her hopes for good.

Unlike the joy she felt when harvesting potatoes, Xiaqing was full of anxiety this time. She dug slowly, and even seeing peanut pods in the soil as big as her thumb didn’t bring her any excitement.

She tested it repeatedly. She confirmed that while this plant had evolved some animal-like characteristics, it only trembled a little when she tugged at its pods; it couldn’t attack like the Green Light Peanut plants. Reassured, Xiaqing reached out and plucked a peanut pod.

On Blue Star, there was a riddle for peanuts that went: ’A pockmarked house, red curtains, with a little white fatty living inside.’

After the Great Biological Evolution, Xiaqing had left the Safe Zone for many gathering missions, but she had never once found peanuts in the Evolution Forest. So, seeing such a normal-looking pod for the first time in ten years, she started to get excited again.

She squeezed the pod. It was much harder than the peanut pods from before the evolution, but it was still softer than an evolved Iron Soybean pod. The fact that she could crack it open with her bare hands made her even more excited.

To be on the safe side, Xiaqing decided to open the pod with her knife.

But once it was open, her fluttering heart sank.

When the evolved ’pockmarked house’ was opened, there were two peanuts inside. But they weren’t wearing ’red curtains’—they were wearing black ones.

The color of these black ’curtains’ was only a shade lighter than the Black Feathered Rooster. The rooster was a pure, glossy black, while this evolved peanut was purplish-black and looked somewhat moist.

’But no matter how moist it is, it’s still black!’ Xiaqing’s eyes welled up.

Sheep Leader, watching from the side, didn’t understand Xiaqing’s complex emotions. It lowered its head, sniffed the peanut pod on the ground, and ate it in one gulp. Then, it nudged Xiaqing with its large, spiral-horned head, gesturing for her to dig faster.

’No way I’m digging more.’

Xiaqing saw that although the peanuts’ color was strange, the ’fatty’ inside was still white, and its hardness was acceptable. She immediately filled the hole back in, letting the Yellow Light Peanut plant continue to grow.

She took the peanuts back to her house and used the Yi Element Detector to check their elemental composition.

The results were the same as the test on the Yellow Light Peanut plant itself: the peanut’s Yi Element content was 0.008%, and its Harmful Element content was 0.8%. The levels of several other harmful substances were also low, placing it within the standard range for an optional plant.

It might be black, but it wasn’t poisonous. Xiaqing could finally breathe a sigh of relief. She popped the remaining peanut into her mouth.

Even though it was a Yellow Light Peanut and a bit hard, its astringency was mixed with a hint of sweetness, and the texture was surprisingly good. Now completely at ease, Xiaqing went to her underground storage room to install the interior wall panels that had arrived from Territory Land No. 7.

Installing the interior wall panels was meticulous work; it took Xiaqing five days to finish the job. Once they were installed, the two storage rooms became the most secure hidden spaces on her territory.

Xiaqing moved the Grenade Launcher, shells, and Bullets into the grain storage room beneath the tool shed. The temperature and humidity requirements for preserving weapons were similar to those for storing wheat, so keeping them in the storage room would extend the firearms’ service life.

’The basement under the Deserted Village doesn’t have any climate control equipment, suspended Yi Stones, or interior wall panels. Even with the exhaust fan, the temperature and humidity control is still subpar. I wonder how the cellars in the other territories are doing.’

"Old Qi, Xiaqing, are you there? How are your cellars?" Just as Xiaqing was thinking about the other territories, Shi Zhong’s voice came through the walkie-talkie.

Xiaqing pressed the button on her walkie-talkie. "Uncle Shi, I was just coming over to check on my cellar. The humidity here is 60%, and the temperature is 24."

Qi Fu replied, "I checked mine this morning. It’s about the same as Xiaqing’s. This isn’t good."

Shi Zhong sounded worried too. "Cellar storage isn’t working. We have to think of something else."

’If they can’t store things on their own territory, the only options are to sell them or spend points to use the storage warehouses in the Safe Zone. None of the Lords want to do either.’

Xiaqing could feel their anxiety, but she remained silent. She would never reveal the existence of the food storage rooms she’d spent a fortune on, not just to ease the other Lords’ worries.

A clear voice came over the Lord channel. It was Zhu Li, the wife of the Sixth Lord, Kuang Qingwei. "Time to make dinner again. What’s everyone having tonight? If you ask me, since our grain and potatoes won’t keep for long, we might as well just eat them sooner rather than later."

Qi Fu’s wife, Yuan Yan, chimed in. "We have too many mouths to feed, so we can’t be reckless with our grain. We’re having vegetable congee tonight. What about you, Xiaqing and Sister-in-law Shi?"

Mother Shi replied cheerfully, "We’re having dumplings with pumpkin filling tonight."

After successfully dealing with the rampant vine growth, everyone’s territories had produced a good number of pumpkins, which were now making their way onto the Lords’ dinner tables.

Hearing about pumpkin-filled dumplings, Xiaqing’s mouth watered too. "I haven’t decided what to eat yet. Aunt Shi, how do you make the pumpkin filling?"

Mother Shi explained the process in detail. "Wash the pumpkin. If you have a grater, shred it. If not, slice it into two-millimeter-thick pieces, then cut the slices into strips and dice them. Add salt to draw out the excess water, then squeeze it dry. Mince a few green onions, season with Sichuan peppercorn oil, salt, soy sauce, and sesame oil, and it’s ready for the dumpling wrappers."

"Okay, thank you so much, Aunt Shi," Xiaqing said, having decided she would also be having pumpkin-filled dumplings for dinner.

’However, she wasn’t going to make a pumpkin and green onion filling. She was going to make pumpkin and pork.’