Chapter 40: The Tiller with 11 Functions

Chapter 40: Chapter 40: The Tiller with 11 Functions

After some haggling, Xiaqing paid the deposit for the cat and two household machines with thirty spinach leaves. She also managed to openly "exchange" for a tiller and diesel fuel.

Xiaqing brought out the spinach for two reasons. First, she wanted to trade Green Light Spinach Seeds for supplies from other territories. Second, with a handgun and a powerful security team, her territory’s security had jumped two whole levels, so she wasn’t afraid of others coveting a few spinach plants.

If anyone dared to come and steal her vegetables, it would be a perfect opportunity to make an example of them.

After Xiaqing’s successful trade, she lay in bed, listening with amusement as the Lords on the channel fiercely vied for Zhang San’s supplies and the non-existent Evolved kittens.

「Over an hour later.」

Hu Zifeng, having secured one of the kittens, turned off his walkie-talkie, still wanting more. "I never thought coming out here to farm would be this interesting."

A team member beside him muttered, "Brother Feng, that Zhang San from Land No. 7 must be someone special."

In a disaster year when most people couldn’t even get enough to eat, anyone willing to feed a cat fish was, of course, no ordinary person. Hu Zifeng knew who Zhang San was, but he couldn’t reveal it. He only instructed his team member, "No matter who he is, as long as he’s not on good terms with the Tang Family, he won’t be our enemy."

"Yes, sir." The team member gave a cheerful salute. "Brother Feng, what if Zhang San’s cat only has one kitten?"

Hu Zifeng’s eyes widened. "Then you can give birth to one for me!"

Inside the Second Territory, Tang Heng analyzed the information he’d gathered that night. "Luo Pei was sent by Yang Jin for detoxification. Saving his life won’t be a problem, but his abilities are definitely gone. He’ll be ostracized if he stays with the Green Dragon Team. Hu Zifeng is Luo Pei’s trusted man, so it’s perfectly reasonable for him to come out here to secure a path for retreat for Luo Pei. It’s also perfectly reasonable for Xiaqing, a lone woman with an Evolutionary Sheep on the Third Territory, to want a tiller. But the discovery of Green Light Perilla and spinach in the Third Territory’s new Buffer Forest... that’s enough to make anyone’s eyes turn red with envy."

Tang Huai yawned. "You think other territories haven’t made new discoveries? Just you wait. The first one to get into trouble will definitely be the Third Territory, for showing off everywhere."

Tang Heng felt it wasn’t that simple. "No one who has survived this long is a fool. I suspect Xiaqing is trying to use the two Green Light vegetables as a bargaining chip to get protection from Zhang San."

Tang Huai’s yawn stopped midway. "If her spinach also suits that person’s tastes, he might actually send people to protect her."

"If that’s the case, we’d better not touch Xiaqing’s Red Light Evolutionary Sheep. There’s nothing to gain from offending Zhang San. We need to figure out how to placate him as soon as possible." Thinking of the three liang of mutton they had sent over, Tang Heng’s suspicion grew. "It must have been the inspection team! They let the mutton spoil!"

Tang Huai slumped in his chair. "Even if they did, what can we do? The Tang Family stirs up trouble everywhere. When people can’t retaliate against the higher-ups, they just take it out on small fry like us. Let’s just sleep."

After lying down, Tang Heng said quietly, "Brother, let’s search our territory tomorrow. Once we have Green Light plants, I refuse to believe Zhang San still won’t trade. He’s got all the good stuff..."

Tang Huai was not interested. "I have to carry out a mission. Take some men and go yourself."

「Early the next morning.」

Su Ming, driving a fiery-red rotary tiller, PUTT-PUTT-PUTTED to a stop under the Third Territory’s road sign and yelled excitedly, "Sister Qing, this is from No.1 Territory! Two more boxes of accessories are on their way."

The main body of the multi-functional micro-tiller was a small, crawler-type tractor head. Though it was only about 1.6 meters tall, its fiery-red body, black tracks, and two imposing headlights on the front gave it an incredibly cool look.

Xiaqing recognized it at a glance. It was the same type of machine that the dedicated staff at the Safe Area Planting Center drove and maintained in the greenhouses.

When she worked at the Planting Center, she could only look at those machines from a distance, never getting a chance to even touch one. Now, she owned one herself!

When Hu Zi and Cao Xianyun arrived, carrying two massive accessory boxes, and assembled everything according to the instruction manual, Xiaqing was stunned again.

Because the tiller’s "multi-functional" capabilities went far beyond the tilling plow, trenching blade, rotary tiller, ridger, backfill blade, weeding wheel, and air-blast sprayer that Yang Jin had mentioned. It also had a bulldozer blade for leveling roads, an excavator shovel for digging pits, a potato harvester, and a seeder!

Eleven functions in total—even more than the one she had seen at the Planting Center. As long as she had enough diesel, this one machine was worth ten strong laborers. Xiaqing’s eyes gleamed; she was itching to take it for a test drive.

It wasn’t just Xiaqing whose eyes were shining; Su Ming and the other two were the same. Su Ming grinned and proposed to Xiaqing, "Sister Qing, why don’t we have Hu Zi install the attachments and we can test them out one by one?"

"Okay, I’ll have to trouble you then." Xiaqing only knew how to drive a car, and that was with unlicensed and reckless driving. Even though the tiller came with a manual, she didn’t think she could master its operation just by reading it.

"No trouble, no trouble at all." Su Ming claimed the driver’s seat and eagerly called out, "Hu Zi, quick, put on the excavator shovel!"

Driving an excavator is a childhood dream for almost everyone.

"Since the bulldozer blade and rotary tiller blades are already attached, let’s test those first," Cao Xianyun reminded Xiaqing. "Sister Qing, your sheep is charging over."

Xiaqing had already heard the commotion. It was just that the Sheep Leader’s position and the sounds it was making were beyond the range of normal human hearing, so she had pretended not to notice. After Cao Xianyun’s warning, Xiaqing turned and rushed toward the Sheep Leader. Then, the woman and the sheep had a cordial and friendly exchange about the new machine and the three intruders on the territory.

Su Ming was astonished to see that the short-tempered Sheep Leader didn’t fight with Xiaqing but instead just swaggered off. "Old Cao, what did Sister Qing say? How did that stubborn sheep become so obedient?"

Cao Xianyun couldn’t bring himself to repeat Xiaqing’s words. He simply put on a stern face and urged Su Ming, "What are you dawdling for? If you don’t know how to drive it, get down. I’ll do it."

"Did you forget who drove it here? I’m better than you with my eyes closed." Su Ming couldn’t be bothered to watch the odd pair of Xiaqing and the Sheep Leader anymore. He immediately turned the key and started the micro-tiller.

After the PUTT-PUTT sound of the tiller echoed through the Third Territory, Zhou Xun, a Level 5 Visual Evolver spying from within the Second Territory, quietly reported to Tang Huai beside him, "The inspection team delivered a micro-tiller and two large boxes to the Third Territory. I can’t see what’s happening inside because of the grass wall."

The Second and Third Territories were separated by a ten-meter-wide, straight, east-west dirt road. Both sides of the road’s southern edge were lined with dense grass walls, taller than a person and over three meters wide, to block prying eyes from the outside.

Thus, Xiaqing, who held the geographical advantage on the northern slope of the Buffer Forest, could observe the situation in the Second Territory from afar, but Tang Huai and the others, being at a lower elevation, couldn’t see past the grass wall into the Third Territory.

Reconnaissance isn’t just about sight.

Tang Huai, a Level 5 Hearing Evolver, had heard every conversation on the Third Territory, including how Xiaqing had coaxed the Sheep Leader. "Nothing abnormal. Let’s wrap it up."

Hiding in a large tree in No.1 Territory’s Buffer Forest, the Visual Evolver Hu Zifeng, who had been watching Tang Huai and Zhou Xun, took out his phone and sent a message to Wei Chengdong.

Wei Chengdong put his phone away. "Brother Luo, Tang Huai and his group have left their territory and are heading east. They’re probably going to hunt in the Evolution Mountain Forest to the east."

Lying on the surgical bed, Luo Pei calmly ordered, "Begin."

Within the Third Territory, the generator in the second-level basement of the southwest Deserted Village began to run. Its noise was completely masked by the PUTT-PUTT of the tiller, and the four people gathered around the machine heard nothing.

Once the operating room’s lighting reached the required intensity, the team doctor began the critical phase of Luo Pei’s treatment for the Qiang Synthesized Poison—the organ stripping surgery.