Chapter 327: Rainy Day Invader

Chapter 327: Chapter 327: Rainy Day Invader

Xiaqing didn’t know much about companies, shares, or anything like that. But just based on the three-story villa in Xin Yu’s territory, the equipment she used for her Evolutionary Eagle, and the rare Green Light plants she offered in trade, Xiaqing felt that Xin Yu’s shares must be worth a lot of points. Moreover, Xin Yu definitely held a significant position within the Reunion Group.

’No wonder Xin Yu said Tang Huai wasn’t qualified to negotiate with her!’

’Tang Huai wasn’t even on the same level as her.’

’A notorious tough guy? Hah. Who wasn’t tough, among those who’d survived this long?’

Xiaqing carried the thresher home, placed it on the roof of her stilt house, connected it to the storage battery, and began threshing.

The thresher’s principle and structure were very simple. The cobs were fed into the machine’s inlet, where high-speed rotating iron blades would rub and strike them. This separated the corn kernels from the cobs, which then flowed out of different outlets.

The machine was extremely noisy when it was running. Sick Wolf and Sheep Leader hid far away, and Xiaqing, with her sensitive hearing, had to stuff two balls of cotton in her ears. Even after she finished, her ears were still ringing.

Xiaqing spread the corn kernels out to dry, covering them with a net. She simply threw the rainproof cloth over the pile of cobs, planning to deal with them after she delivered the thresher to the Tenth Territory. ℯℯ𝑙.

As she carried the thresher downstairs, Xiaqing heard Mrs. Zhao ask over the walkie-talkie, "Xiaqing, how’s the thresher working out?"

The thresher’s noise was so loud that even an ordinary person without enhanced hearing could hear it from two or three kilometers away.

"It works great," Xiaqing replied. "Very few broken kernels, and it gets most of them off the cobs. Shi Du, are you there? I’m bringing the thresher to the Tenth Territory’s road sign now."

"It gets most of them off, but there are still some left on the cobs that you have to go over by hand." Qi Fu chimed in, "Threshers were like that before the Natural Disasters too. The drier the corn, the cleaner it threshes."

Xiaqing was halfway there, carrying the thresher, when she ran into Shi Du, who had come to meet her. She handed the machine to him and asked, "Did those snakes make it?"

"Only one Yellow Light one died. The rest all survived." Of course, the dead Qishan Snake wouldn’t go to waste; it had been prepared as medicine for his father. Shi Du asked cheerfully, "Sister Qing, is that rabbit still alive?"

Xiaqing paused for a moment before replying, "It’s eating and drinking, so it should live. Where exactly did you catch it? I want to go see if I can find a mate for it when I have time."

’If I could make a pair, they could have baby rabbits.’

Shi Du immediately told Xiaqing the location where he had dug the trap to catch the rabbit, and he also gave her a detailed account of all the dangers in that area. Xiaqing listened carefully before returning to her territory.

As expected, she didn’t see Tang Huai at the Second Territory’s signpost again. Without even thinking, Xiaqing knew where he was now: by the Wild Grass Wall between the Second Territory and No. 9 Territory.

Tang Huai was eavesdropping on the activity inside No. 9 Territory. The reason Xiaqing had just asked Shi Du about the rabbit was to give herself a legitimate reason to stand north of No. 9 Territory and eavesdrop with her divided attention.

Inside No. 9 Territory, Li Si was in a heated argument with a man. Because they weren’t shouting, Shi Du couldn’t hear them, but Xiaqing heard every word clearly.

This unintentional eavesdropping provided Xiaqing with two important pieces of information:

The two price hikes for No. 9 Territory’s high-efficiency compost starter were both decisions made by Vice Captain Liao of the Fiery Fire Team.

The person researching chemical agents inside No. 9 Territory wasn’t Li Si, but the man arguing with her.

This wasn’t the first time Xiaqing had heard this man’s voice. Three months ago, when Zhang San and Tan Junjie led people into No. 9 Territory to search for hazardous chemicals, this man had shouted and vehemently tried to stop Tan Junjie’s search. Afterward, he even cursed out the assistant, Little Liu.

’That makes sense!’

’As an expert specializing in plant cultivation, Li Si would surely understand how destructive synthetic chemical agents were to the physiological balance of plants and animals after Blue Star’s great biological evolution. So, she wouldn’t waste her energy researching chemical agents.’

The Mung Bean Cultivation Guide from No. 9 Territory was written by Li Si, and the high-efficiency compost starter was her research. But the chemical bird repellent and the deadly poison that could "silence anything that breathes"—although they were all attributed to Li Si—were not her research achievements. They belonged to the man who was arguing with her.

’The Fiery Fire Team had sent two groups of people to No. 9 Territory, and there was a major rift between the two factions.’

’Previously, it was highly likely that Li Si and her assistant, Little Liu, had deliberately exposed the fact that No. 9 Territory had hazardous chemicals, allowing Zhang San and the inspection team to enter and take the danger away.’

’That was why I, with my sharp hearing, had felt that Li Si’s fierce verbal resistance on the day the hazardous chemicals were confiscated had seemed intentional.’

’And what about this time?’

’Was Zhang San’s intervention in the compost starter production also related to No. 9 Territory, or the Fiery Fire Team behind it?’

’The more I think about it, the more complicated it all seems.’

Xiaqing shook her head. No matter how complicated it was, her strategy remained the same: stay far away from No. 9 Territory, keep her identity under wraps, and lay low while building up her strength.

Xiaqing hurried home and went to the roof to clean the corn cobs, twisting off the kernels that hadn’t been stripped by the machine.

These remaining kernels were mostly broken or were the smaller ones from the tip of the cob. Xiaqing twisted them off and put them in a separate small bag to feed her chickens.

’That’s right, she was just that extravagant. The good Yellow Light Corn she harvested was for her, and the subpar stuff was for the chickens!’

Before she had even finished with the cobs, Xiaqing heard the thresher’s noise from the Tenth Territory stop. Based on how long the Tenth Territory used the machine, Xiaqing could tell that their early-sown corn yield was about the same as hers.

Over the next two days, Xiaqing continued to use the sound of the thresher to gauge the early-sown corn yields of the nearby territories. They had all planted the same two pounds of corn kernels given by Luo Pei. Territory No.5 had the highest yield, followed by Xiaqing and the Tenth Territory, then No. 6 Territory and Territory No. 4, and finally, the slacker Second Territory.

Territory No. 12 and No.1 Territory were in a different weight class from their territories, and since No. 8 Territory and No. 9 Territory didn’t use the thresher, their yields couldn’t be determined.

It wasn’t just Xiaqing who figured this out; the other Lords had heard it too. Xiaqing heard Mrs. Zhao’s voice from the neighboring territory rise by several dozen decibels as she scolded her son.

After everyone had finished threshing, the clear sky turned to rain. According to the weather forecast, this rain would drizzle for three days. Since it wasn’t a thunderstorm, the chance of it turning into Harmful Rain was low.

This rain made the Lords both happy and frustrated.

They were happy because three days of normal rain would thoroughly soak the farmland. After harvesting the crops, they could directly spread fertilizer, till the soil, and plant the next batch without the hard work of diverting river water for irrigation.

They were frustrated because the early-sown corn they had just harvested hadn’t finished drying and wasn’t in storage yet.

For Xiaqing, who had already dried her corn to about eighty percent, there was only frustration and no happiness. Irrigating her farmland wasn’t a chore for her at all, because it was a task that Sheep Leader enjoyed.

Xiaqing lowered the rainproof cloth to prevent the rain from beating down on the crops in her fields that were in their late growth stage. She moved the undried corn kernels into her grain storage room, planning to take them out to continue drying when the weather cleared up.

She couldn’t be idle on a rainy day. Xiaqing went into her field to pick the mung bean pods that had already turned black. The rain wasn’t heavy at the moment, but from inside the shelter, the sound of raindrops pattering on the rainproof cloth was quite clear.

The sound wasn’t irritating, not to her or to the wolf and sheep. With a bundle tied around her waist, Xiaqing moved through the mung bean field, picking pods. Sheep Leader and Sick Wolf lay inside the shelter, one dozing with its eyes narrowed, the other chewing its cud with its eyes closed.

Suddenly, Sick Wolf’s eyes snapped open. It lifted its head and looked toward the Buffer Forest.

A few seconds later, Xiaqing heard the security camera’s alarm.

An intruder had been spotted by the High Slope camera.