Chapter 294: Nightmare

Chapter 294: Chapter 294: Nightmare

During the thunderstorm last night, while Zhao Ze was telling Xiaqing about fish floating into Territory No. 4, Kuang Qingwei also discovered dead fish in the river channel of his own territory. Although the quantity couldn’t compare to the Third Territory’s, it was still over a hundred pounds.

Because the amount was small, Kuang Qingwei had his workers dry the fish directly to use as feed for the edible fish in his pond.

There were over forty edible fish of various sizes in the fishpond of No. 6 Territory. Kuang Qingwei had long since discovered that compared to grass and Evolved Insects, the fish preferred to eat aquatic life from the river.

Therefore, he had always been scooping things like nematodes, Red Light fish, and shrimp from the river to feed them. Of course, most of these Red Light fish and shrimp had swum over from the reservoir in the Third Territory. Now that a lightning strike had wiped out the reservoir, it definitely wouldn’t recover this year. He had to stock up on more food for his precious fish.

Kuang Qingwei tapped away on his phone’s calculator, figuring out how many points the fish in his pond could sell for this fall, and after raising the few female fish to spawn next year, how large a pond and how much fish food he would need.

’The fishpond needs to be farther from the river channel, or it’ll get washed out by the river water just like Xiaqing’s. That would be a huge loss...’

Zhu Li finished the last piece of braised eel, still wanting more. "This is delicious! Honey, can’t we find a wild pond and go electrofishing? If we find a big one, we could haul in tens of thousands of points’ worth of goods in one go."

Kuang Qingwei immediately shook his head. "Where are we supposed to get a power source with hundreds of millions of volts? Even if we got one, the stench from the electrocuted fish would spread quickly and attract Evolved Fierce Beasts. Forget earning points, we’d be lucky to get out with our lives. Xiaqing only got this windfall because it happened at night and the reservoir is inside her territory, so it didn’t attract any beasts."

That made sense. Zhu Li sighed, "Xiaqing is so lucky."

Kuang Qingwei, still doing his calculations, nodded. "Who among us who’ve survived this long hasn’t had a few strokes of good luck? If that lightning had struck a hundred meters to the south, both of Xiaqing’s greenhouses would’ve been blown to bits."

Within the Third Territory, Xiaqing was having a nightmare.

She dreamed that the Pollution-free Spring in her territory was destroyed by lightning, leaving not a single drop of water. She could only drink filtered water, and the planting terraces in the Buffer Forest, deprived of the spring’s nourishment, could no longer benefit from increased germination rates or a lower probability of plant Qiang Evolution.

Because the spring was gone, the Green Dragon Team no longer rented Mountain No. 49, and the evolved brown bears from the north ran down the valley into her territory to steal corn. Neither Xiaqing nor Sheep Leader were a match for an Evolution Bear, so she was forced to pull out her last resort—the Grenade Launcher—and blast the brown bear into the sky.

But before Xiaqing could even catch her breath, two incredibly formidable Brain Domain Evolutionary Bears appeared before her, leading dozens of brown bears with an overwhelming, oppressive presence...

"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO—"

Startled awake from her nightmare by the rooster’s crow, Xiaqing threw on her clothes and ran outside, not even bothering to check if the little squirrel had visited her windowsill last night.

Sheep Leader, seeing Xiaqing run out from the first-floor living room, thought something terrible had happened. It scrambled up and dashed out after her, startling the little swallows resting under the eaves into a flurry of flight.

Xiaqing burst into the low-slope greenhouse and moved the stone blocking the spring’s grotto. When she saw the spring source was still silently flowing, she could finally breathe a little easier.

She washed her hands, cupped some of the spring water, and took a drink. The nightmare was just a nightmare, after all. The water was still refreshingly cold and sweet.

"Meeh."

Sheep Leader, who had followed her in, let out a bleat.

"Okay, you can have some." Xiaqing filled a bucket with some water and offered it to Sheep Leader, her heart still pounding with fear. "Leader, I dreamed the spring was destroyed by lightning last night. It was terrifying."

After the human and goat finished drinking, Xiaqing blocked the opening again and straightened up. A flash of green shot toward her face—a snake!

Xiaqing scrambled backward. The small, emerald-green snake missed its strike and slithered away quickly upon landing, trying to squeeze into a crack in the rocks. It was fast, but Xiaqing and Sheep Leader were faster. The human and goat simultaneously stomped on the snake’s body.

Sheep Leader shot Xiaqing a dissatisfied glance. Xiaqing immediately pulled her foot back, letting Sheep Leader have the spotlight.

As soon as Xiaqing lifted her foot, the little snake twisted its head to bite Sheep Leader, but the goat flicked it against the stone wall with its hoof. Then, Sheep Leader pinned its head with another stomp.

Game over.

Sheep Leader puffed out its chest, held its head high, and narrowed its eyes, looking incredibly smug.

Xiaqing immediately applauded. "Leader, you’re amazing! You truly are the leader of our territory! You’re the bane of all pests, the guardian deity of our land, the goat at the top of Blue Star’s food chain! I’m so proud to have a companion like you! What do you want for breakfast, Leader? I’ll make it for you!"

Hearing the word "eat," Sheep Leader’s eyes immediately lit up. It ignored the little thing writhing on the ground and bolted out of the low-slope greenhouse, running all the way to the corn shelter. It turned its head and, seeing Xiaqing hadn’t followed, bleated for her to hurry up.

Xiaqing, who had put the small snake into a cloth bag, walked over, amused. "Leader wants to eat corn?"

"Meeeh~" Sheep Leader’s bleat was long and drawn out in a cute, high-pitched tone, fully expressing its love for corn.

Sheep Leader really wanted to eat the corn, but it still abided by the rules Xiaqing had set, refraining from rushing into the shelter to chow down. What an adorable goat. Xiaqing ruffled the fur on its head. "Alright, I’ll make some for you in a bit."

"Meeeh—"

Pleased, Sheep Leader voluntarily ran back to the house, came out with a small basket in its mouth, and started catching bugs to feed the fish.

Meanwhile, Xiaqing returned to the North Buffer Forest to check the spot that had been struck by lightning.

To ensure the vegetables on the terraces could grow safely, Xiaqing had gradually cleared all the trees within ten meters of the east and west sides of the terraces. Otherwise, last night’s lightning would have certainly struck a large tree, and that would have been the end of that.

Because Xiaqing had cleared the trees here and dug a drainage ditch for the greenhouse, the lightning had struck the ditch. It blasted a pit more than a meter deep before the charge traveled along the water flow into the reservoir, wiping out all the aquatic life inside.

The flying debris from the lightning strike had also punched more than a dozen holes of various sizes into the greenhouse’s rainproof cloth and insect net, and smashed one of its support frames.

Fortunately, the northwesterly wind had died down considerably by the time the lightning struck, so the greenhouse’s rainproof cloth wasn’t torn apart by the wind. Xiaqing had just used strong glue to patch the holes before going to collect the fish.

Xiaqing carefully inspected the insect net and found that the tape covering the holes was intact. ’Did the little snake get in before I patched the holes, or did it get in from somewhere else?’

Xiaqing walked directly uphill and, sure enough, found a fist-sized hole in the insect net near the spring source. The snake that Sheep Leader had killed didn’t have evolved sharp teeth; it couldn’t have torn through the insect net. It must have been another animal.

Ever since Xiaqing had extended the greenhouse uphill to enclose and protect the spring source, the section of insect net near the spring was getting chewed through every now and then.

This was easy to understand. Although the Pollution-free Spring Water was colorless, odorless, and flowed silently, the Evolutionary Animals that had drunk from it before knew there was good water here. When they got thirsty, they would try to find a way in to drink.

Xiaqing didn’t find it a bother. She repaired and replaced this section of the insect net time and again. Only then did she enter the greenhouse to search for whether that critter was still inside.