Chapter 239: Cultivating Mushrooms?

Chapter 239: Chapter 239: Cultivating Mushrooms?

’That damn woman!’

Tang Huai’s voice was sullen. "The plastic sheeting for the greenhouse will be delivered tomorrow morning. How about we make the trade at eleven AM tomorrow, under the road sign?"

Xiaqing replied, "Sounds good."

She had a mission tomorrow, but members of Hu Zifeng’s team would be guarding her territory.

"Then it’s a deal. I want ten of the sturdiest ones." Tang Huai added, still uneasy. "By the way, have any mushrooms sprouted on your hillside? Can I come over and pick some? Or you could pick them, and if any are edible, I’ll trade you points for them."

After four days of Harmful Rain, of course there would be mushrooms. But no one dared to eat the ones that grew after the Harmful Rain, not even if they registered as Yellow Light.

Actually, no one dared to eat mushrooms even if they grew after a normal rain. Since the great biological evolution, humanity had all but given up on fungi as a food source.

They had no choice. The risk of eating mushrooms was just too high. Even if all sorts of tests showed they were non-toxic, people could still drop dead after eating them.

Xiaqing pressed the button and gave a crisp, clean refusal. "None grew."

Tang Huai was speechless.

’Damn it!’

Kuang Qingwei replied, "Brother Huai, I’ve got a lot of mushrooms over here. You want them? Is it okay as long as they register as Green Light or Yellow Light?"

"Yep," Tang Huai added. "And not just the mushrooms. I also want the soil or wood they’re growing on. I’ll take as much as you can get."

"Okay, okay, I’ll go gather them right now."

After Kuang Qingwei’s reply, Zhao Ze and Qi Fu also chimed in with questions before they all went off to gather mushrooms.

Li Si suddenly asked, "Tang Huai, are you planning to cultivate mushrooms?"

Tang Huai immediately explained, "Yes, Fourth Sister. After I got to my territory, I discovered that the termite mushrooms around here are safe to eat and taste pretty good. I was thinking of getting some mycelium to try and cultivate them."

Li Si pressed, "Were you the only one who ate them and was fine, or have many people tried them without issue?"

Tang Huai chuckled. "Just me. The others were too chicken to try. Oh, right! When I first got here, Brother San traded for some termite mushrooms from me. He ate them too."

Zhang San replied lazily, "I’m a coward. I had someone else eat them."

Everyone was speechless.

Li Si proposed a trade. "Tang Huai, could you spare me a few of each variety of edible mushroom found in Territories Four, Five, and Six? And do you still have any of those termite mushrooms you ate in the spring? I’d like to trade for them."

Tang Huai responded immediately, "Fourth Sister, I only managed to find termite mushrooms that one time. As for the mushrooms from the other territories, you can have first pick. Take as many as you want."

Li Si asked again, "Do you remember the location where you found the termite mushrooms? Could you trade me the soil from there?"

Before Tang Huai could answer, Zhang San cut in, "I have that mushroom soil. It’s not for trade."

In the Second Territory, Tang Huai was confused. ’Brother San never asked me for any soil.’

Tang Heng’s brows furrowed deeply as he signaled for his brother to keep quiet.

Li Si asked Zhang San, "Brother San, since when have you been researching fungi?"

Zhang San replied lazily, "None of your business."

The conversation on the Lord channel died down. Xiaqing stroked the fur of the wolfhound beside her, feeling that the day’s events were rather unusual. She immediately called Qi Fu to ask if Zhang San had ever used the Lord channel to trade with Tang Huai for the soil the termite mushrooms grew in.

Qi Fu, who was online every day except for the time he was injured, answered with certainty. "No. And besides, I don’t think Brother San would make a private deal with the Second Territory."

Xiaqing agreed. "Knowing Brother San’s personality, you’re right, he wouldn’t. Brother Qi, from now on, don’t trade any of our territory’s valuable resources with Li Si, other than what’s already been publicly offered. Li Si is from the Fiery Fire Team at Hui Yi Base One. If Brother San is this guarded against her, he must have a good reason."

Between Zhang San and Li Si, Xiaqing sided with Zhang San without a moment’s hesitation.

Qi Fu responded at once, "I’ve been keeping my guard up around her. You have to be careful, Sis. She’s got her eye on your territory’s resources more than anyone’s. I’m not going to bother looking for mushrooms anymore. I’ll just say they all registered as Red Light."

After hanging up, Xiaqing picked up a bamboo basket and began clearing stones from her land, mulling over why Zhang San had prevented the trade between Tang Huai and Li Si.

When Tang Huai had traded Green Light insects with Li Si before, Zhang San hadn’t interfered. If he wasn’t just in a bad mood today, then the reason had to be the items being traded: fungi and mushroom soil.

’Zhang San can’t be interested in the termite mushrooms or the soil himself,’ she thought. ’After he traded for them with Tang Huai, he never brought it up again. So what’s the real reason?’

Trusting her intuition that this was important, Xiaqing sent a message to Luo Pei.

Luo Pei replied quickly:

Zhang San might be protecting Tang Huai, or he might be trying to increase his own leverage. Delete after reading.

「Inside Territory No. 12」

Tang Zhengpo hung up the phone and calmly explained the situation to his two sons. "According to the rules, anyone whose parent or child is already a Lord cannot apply for a new territory. Ah Huai, you’ll come back to the Safe Zone with me tomorrow to process the territory transfer. Ah Heng, you will stay here, guard the territory, and continue clearing the land."

"No," Tang Huai objected firmly. "You’re the one in our family who needs the protection of the Lord Law the most! All I did was eat a few mushrooms and not die. It’s not that big of a deal..."

Tang Zhengpo raised a hand to stop his son. "This matter is not as simple as it seems. Due to certain concerns, I’ve never told you two about the backgrounds of Zhang San and Li Si."

Tang Huai cut in, "Dad, we already know that. Zhang San is that brilliant traditional Chinese medicine researcher from the institute, and Li Si is from the Fiery Fire Team."

"Before joining the Fiery Fire Team, Li Si was also a researcher at the Hui Yi General Research Institute." Seeing that both of his sons were listening intently, Tang Zhengpo continued, "In the fifth year of the Natural Disaster, I made a trip to Hui Yi Base. The official reason was to handle business matters."

Tang Heng replied, "My guess is that your trip to Hui Yi had something to do with Tang Feng. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been gone for so long."

Tang Feng was Tang Zhengpo’s niece. She was a Dual System Evolver with Speed and vision enhancements, possessing immense potential. In the Su Feng Team, she was the most powerful ability enhancer after Tang Zhengsu himself. In fact, she was the ’Feng’ in ’Su Feng.’

In the fourth year of the Natural Disaster, Tang Feng, then the vice-captain of the Su Feng Team, went missing while on a mission outside the Safe Zone. ℯ

Tang Zhengpo nodded. "I received a reliable tip, so I went to Hui Yi Base One to pull some strings, hoping to rescue Ah Feng from the research institute. But I was too late. By the time I saw her, she had been tortured beyond human recognition."

Tang Huai’s eyes widened. "How could they? Tang Feng was a rare Dual System Evolver!"

"She had already been poisoned and her eyes destroyed by the time she was sent there. Once she lost her sight, she couldn’t leverage the advantages of her Speed evolution."

Tang Zhengpo paused, choosing not to describe the horrific state his niece had been in. He went on, "The research institute secretly conducted many illegal experimental projects. Since the laboratories were built underground, these projects became known as the ’underground experiments.’ The younger brother of Shen Yongdong, the Three Systems Evolver from our own base, died on an operating table in one of those underground labs."