Chapter 32: Human-Powered Water Bike

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: Human-Powered Water Bike

The next morning, Xiaqing woke up early. After gnawing on two ration bars for breakfast, she headed straight for her potato and sweet potato fields. She squatted by the edge of the patch and listened for a moment. Once she had pinpointed the location of the pests in the soil, her small shovel rose and fell in a swift motion, unearthing the creature most damaging to plant roots—an Evolutionary Grub.

Xiaqing used her shovel to scoop up the Evolutionary Grub, which was struggling desperately to burrow back into the earth, and flung it into the air.

Four Evolutionary Magpies circling overhead streaked past like four black lines, squabbling over the grub. A few feathers drifted down, landing at Xiaqing’s feet. These four Magpies were the avian overlords of her territory. Fortunately, their diet hadn’t changed after evolving, so they hadn’t turned their sharp beaks and claws on Xiaqing, allowing them to coexist peacefully.

Grubs are the larvae of chafer beetles. The more beautiful a chafer beetle’s colors became after evolving, the stronger its bite. A chafer beetle with Level 3 evolved bite strength could sever a finger-thick electrical wire or plastic pipe in a single bite. If its larva, an Evolutionary Grub, latched onto the main root of a young seedling, the plant was doomed.

The Evolutionary Grubs had developed a resistance to the Insect Repellent and insecticide Xiaqing had received, so they had to be eliminated by hand. Thus, after hearing the broadcast, Xiaqing added a new task to her daily routine: grub removal.

Every sweet potato seedling in the field, every sprouting potato, was one of Xiaqing’s treasures, so this was her first stop for daily pest control. If a grub dared to touch her treasures, she would take its life.

The Evolutionary Grubs had stronger bites, but they didn’t move quickly through the soil. After clearing the hundred square meters of land around her sweet potato and potato patch, Xiaqing was confident that even if the grubs burrowed with all their might, they wouldn’t reach her seedlings before the next morning. Only then did she move on to clear her grain fields.

By the end of her clearing, the four Evolutionary Magpies were full and had flown off, leaving only two large White Egrets waiting for grubs. These two egrets had flown into her territory a few days ago and had taken up residence in a small Fir Forest next to the reservoir.

Last winter, while clearing the Evolution Forest, the tallest fir in that same Fir Forest had evolved a terrifying attack. When provoked, it would spray extremely hard leaf-needles in all directions. If Luo Pei hadn’t noticed something was wrong with that fir back then, Xiaqing would have been turned into a pincushion. If these two White Egrets had arrived last winter, not even their bones would be left.

After making a round through her farmland, Xiaqing began to test the Harmful Element content in her seedlings. She discovered that among seedlings grown from seeds soaked in filtered water, those irrigated with mountain spring water had a Harmful Element content that was over 0.1% lower than those irrigated with water from the reservoir.

The lower a plant’s internal Harmful Element content, the lower its chances of undergoing harmful mutation during a Harmful Rain. A lower mutation rate meant she could harvest more grain!

The possibility that spring water could lower the Harmful Element content in seeds and seedlings was a delightful surprise for Xiaqing. Unfortunately, her spring was too small to irrigate all her farmland.

Xiaqing ambled over to the northern slope of the reservoir to check on the Soybean sprouts, garlic shoots, and spinach she had recently discovered. The Soybean sprouts and garlic shoots were inedible, but the spinach leaves could be picked and eaten.

Edible Green Light plants were always targeted by the Sheep Leader. After coaxing the Sheep Leader to the North Hillside to eat Perilla, Xiaqing sprayed Evolution Camphor Leaf Water around the spinach and then began testing the Harmful Element content of the plants in the area.

Most of the small weeds around the Soybean sprouts and garlic shoots showed up as Yellow Light; more than half of the weeds around the spinach seedlings showed up as Green Light.

Xiaqing stuck wooden sticks of varying lengths into the ground as markers, then continued her testing up the slope. From a tiny blade of grass just a few centimeters tall to a tree over ten meters high, she didn’t miss a single plant.

Her hard work paid off. After an exhaustive search, she discovered a gently sloped strip of land, over five meters wide and more than a hundred and thirty meters long, that curved upward all the way to the spring. While most of the plants within this strip weren’t on the human menu, many of them registered as Yellow Light. Even the Red Light plants in this zone didn’t have very high Harmful Element content, generally between 1.5% and 2.5%. If there were no other food options, these plants could be eaten in a pinch. They wouldn’t kill a person, at least not in the short term.

The number of Green Light plants increased noticeably near the spring, which was why the Sheep Leader liked to graze there. But the area above the spring didn’t share these characteristics; it was filled with Red Light plants high in Harmful Elements. She crossed the buffer zone between her old and new territory and found another strip. It stretched from the patch of Evolved Perilla up to the Ailanthus trees on the High Slope. This steeper strip, over five meters wide and one hundred twenty meters long, was also surprisingly dominated by Yellow Light plants, followed by Red Light, with Green Light being the rarest.

The plant survey took two days, but the results made Xiaqing so excited she felt like she could float and sway like seaweed in the ocean. She now possessed two sloped strips of land with a total area of nearly a third of an acre. Xiaqing named them the "Planting Zones."

After clearing all the inedible plants from the two Planting Zones, she planned to turn the entire area into terraced fields. The vegetable seedlings she was currently nurturing, the ones she would trade for, and any future sweet potato vines she could propagate by cuttings—all of them would be planted in these two zones.

Beyond that, Xiaqing’s gaze turned to her sweet potato seedlings and potato field.

’I really want to dig up all the sweet potatoes and potatoes and transplant them here...’

’But they say moving helps a person thrive, while moving kills a tree. What if I dig them up and mess with them, and the sweet potato seedlings die? What if the potatoes get indignant and refuse to sprout?’

Lacking planting experience, Xiaqing didn’t dare to act rashly. She gave up on the idea of transplanting the sweet potatoes and potatoes and began clearing the Planting Zones with gusto.

Injurious Grass? Pull it up, dry it out, and burn it.

Red Light shrubs? Chop them down, dig up the roots, dry them out, and burn them.

Red Light trees? Saw them down, dig up the roots, dry them out, and burn them.

All kinds of harmful Evolved Insects? Exterminate them.

Evolutionary Snakes, evolved frogs, evolved centipedes? Catch them alive. She’d wait for Zhong Tao to arrive and trade them for testing-kit reagents; she had run out.

Clear away all the rocks, large and small. What if the topsoil layer wasn’t thick enough? Dig up more soil to supplement it.

While Xiaqing was working feverishly in her territory, she received a call from Zhong Tao. "Hey, you there? Hu Zi and I are heading over to install the water pump for you."

"I’m here." Xiaqing nodded. ’So Hu Zi the Strength Evolver doesn’t just install solar panels, he does water pumps too. He’s the technician; I’m just the manual laborer.’

Xiaqing emptied the soil from her back basket onto a newly cleared terrace in the Planting Zone. Not long after she carried the captured Evolutionary Animals to the edge of the reservoir, Hu Zi and Zhong Tao arrived.

When Xiaqing saw the old bicycle Hu Zi was carrying on his shoulder, she froze.

’So this is the man-powered water pump Tan Junjie mentioned? Made from a bicycle? How are those two things even related? Am I going to have to ride a bike by the reservoir?’

The danger level was relatively low by the reservoir, so no one was wearing a Protective Mask. This meant the surprise on Xiaqing’s face was plain for Zhong Tao and Hu Zi to see, and they both couldn’t help but laugh.

Zhong Tao chuckled. "Can’t picture what the water pump looks like, sis?"

A far cry from her usual calm and sharp demeanor, Xiaqing was truly dumbfounded now. "I really can’t."