Chapter 254: The Freeloading Red Squirrel

Chapter 254: Chapter 254: The Freeloading Red Squirrel

Then, after walking for less than six minutes, Xiaqing saw another Red Squirrel in a tree up ahead, wagging its tail and rubbing its little paws.

This time, Xiaqing didn’t find it cute at all.

’Damn it, is this never-ending?!’

’Fucking Yang Jin, handsome as he was, only tried to use his looks on me for a discount. But this thing thinks it can use its cuteness to freeload off me again and again?’

’No way!’

Carrying the sapling on her back, Xiaqing stormed past the tree.

She didn’t get far before she saw another cute Red Squirrel in a tree, wagging its tail and rubbing its little paws at her. A little further, there was another one.

Xiaqing gave in. "Tomorrow, okay? When you come to my windowsill for water tomorrow morning, I’ll leave a Yellow Light Chestnut for you."

With that said, Xiaqing charged forward with the sapling on her back, passing several more trees with Red Squirrels. After trying time and again, the Red Squirrels realized they wouldn’t get any Chestnuts from Xiaqing and began to scramble up and down the trees, shredding leaves in frustration.

After handing the sapling to Ji Li, Xiaqing heard a loud BANG from within the territory. She rushed back to find Guan Tong fighting the Sheep Leader, and it looked like the Sheep Leader was winning.

This wasn’t to say Guan Tong couldn’t beat the Sheep Leader. It was just that in a pure contest of strength, he, a Level 4 Strength Evolution user, was no match for it.

"Sister Qing, the three fertilized fields have been watered," Da Jiang explained to Xiaqing. "We were weeding when the Sheep Leader suddenly stopped working the waterwheel and rushed over to provoke Guan Tong. Guan Tong then went to spar with it."

Xiaqing took off her Protective Mask and explained why the Sheep Leader was acting up. "I’ve been too busy to spar with it these last few days. It’s itching for a fight."

Da Jiang...

Little Jiang...

Seeing that Xiaqing had returned, the Sheep Leader immediately ignored Guan Tong and charged toward her. Having trained with Xiaqing for over a month, the Sheep Leader was noticeably faster.

Xiaqing put down her backpack and Protective Mask and charged toward the Sheep Leader.

"BANG!"

The person and the sheep collided with a tremendous crash, making Guan Tong wince. Anyone who hadn’t fought the Sheep Leader wouldn’t know, but getting rammed by it really hurt.

Xiaqing wasn’t as strong as the Sheep Leader, either. After being sent flying, she used her core to quickly right herself in mid-air, landing steadily on both feet before charging at the Sheep Leader once more.

This time, she didn’t meet it head-on. Instead, she grabbed its two spiral horns and threw it forcefully aside.

THUD! The Sheep Leader slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"MOO!"

The Sheep Leader sprang up and, covered in dirt, charged at Xiaqing again. The fight between the person and the sheep was incredibly fierce.

As expected, Tang Huai’s voice came over the Lord’s walkie-talkie. "Xiaqing, what’s going on? Is your sheep going crazy again?"

Xiaqing hadn’t even turned on her walkie-talkie. Tang Zhengpo chided his son, "Focus on your own work. Stop prying into other people’s territories."

In the Third Territory, after the person and the sheep had a good, long fight, they lay sprawled on the ground.

Little Jiang asked his older brother, who was squatting and weeding in the greenhouse, "Bro, Sister Qing’s done fighting. Shouldn’t we go check on her?"

Da Jiang shook his head. "Let’s wait. I’m afraid if we go over now, the Sheep Leader will jump up and ram us into the air."

After resting for a while, Xiaqing and the Sheep Leader got up. One went home for a drink of water, while the other dusted itself off and headed toward the farmland.

Only then did Da Jiang approach. "Sister Qing, can I buy ten kilograms of Yellow Light Chestnuts?"

Little Jiang chimed in, "The Chestnuts are delicious. We want to trade for some to take home. My brother wants to give some to my sister-in-law, too."

"Don’t worry, Sister Qing," Da Jiang assured her. "We definitely won’t say where the Chestnuts were picked."

Although Guan Tong didn’t have any family, he had someone he liked, so he also asked to buy five kilograms. The main combatants of the Green Dragon Team, who frequently went on missions, were not people who were short on points.

After successfully trading for the Chestnuts, the three of them returned cheerfully to No.1 Territory.

Watching them leave, Xiaqing would be lying if she said she wasn’t envious. Anyone who still had family after ten years of Natural Disasters was to be envied. Xiaqing had no family left, but she had the Sheep Leader and the Wolf Group to share the joy of her harvests with.

Xiaqing sat by the reservoir, opening the spiky chestnut burrs she had just gathered. Over twenty burrs yielded a kilogram of Green Light Chestnuts, worth eight hundred points. For Xiaqing, who once had to toil all day in the Safe Zone just to earn five points, this was a very satisfying haul.

She put the Chestnuts in her cabin first, then took off her Ghillie Suit, grabbed a sack, and went to pick cotton.

During the third Harmful Rain, the cotton plants in their late growth stage had suffered the lowest proportion of losses in Xiaqing’s territory, aside from the Green Light plants protected by the Yi Stone.

Even so, over seven hundred plants still underwent Qiang Evolution, leaving 6,400 remaining. Xiaqing didn’t throw out the seven hundred-plus cleared plants. Instead, just as she had with the plants from the second Harmful Rain, she planted them in a tilled field far from the greenhouses to observe their subsequent growth.

The weather had been sunny for the past few days, and many cotton bolls had split open. Cotton with a low Harmful Element content was pure white, while cotton with a high content was yellow. The shade of yellow depended on the concentration of the Harmful Element; the lower the content, the paler the yellow.

The yellow cotton was quite beautiful, but it gave off a foul, fishy odor. The smell of plant fruits and flowers with excessively high Harmful Element content would always change, with a foul, fishy stench being a common result.

When sent to the processing center in the Safe Zone, the foul odor could be removed, and the cotton could be manufactured into clothing to be sold. Xiaqing separated the white and yellow cotton into different sacks.

After picking the cotton, Xiaqing went to check on the Qiang Evolution cotton plants she had cleared out after the third Harmful Rain. These plants had shot up to over three meters tall, but the bolls on the lower branches hadn’t opened yet, so it was impossible to tell what color their cotton would be.

When Xiaqing returned home with the cotton and Chestnuts, she put the Chestnuts in the storage room. The pure white cotton was laid out to dry on the second-floor balcony, while the pale yellow cotton was placed on the warehouse roof, covered by an insect-proof net.

Aside from solar panels, the warehouse roof also held over three hundred cotton plants that Xiaqing had pulled up before the third Harmful Rain. Many of the bolls on these plants had also split open, revealing both white and pale yellow cotton.

There was still some time before noon, so Xiaqing sat on the roof and continued picking cotton from the bolls. If she could ignore its faint, foul smell, she actually quite enjoyed the work.

In short, she loved harvesting. Gathering all kinds of supplies made her feel happy and secure.

The exhausted Sheep Leader lay resting in the courtyard. Sick Wolf had followed Xiaqing onto the roof and was now lying beside her, watching quietly. The concrete was warm from the sun, which probably felt very comforting to Sick Wolf, who had been suffering from diarrhea.

Suddenly, Sick Wolf’s head shot up as it looked to the side. Xiaqing followed its gaze and saw the Red Squirrel with the locator on its back. It had appeared on a large, distant tree, where it was rubbing its little forepaws together, wagging its big tail, and staring pleadingly at Xiaqing.