Chapter 61: Attack of the Evolutionary Wolf

Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Attack of the Evolutionary Wolf

Kuang Qingwei asked, "Old Qi, the main stem of one of my cotton plants forked into two right above the fourth leaf. What should I do about it?"

Xiaqing immediately perked up her ears, as her field also had several of these maverick cotton plants that grew however they pleased.

Qi Fu continued sharing his experience. "In that case, keep both forks. Break off the crazy shoots below them and on them, leaving only the fruit-bearing branches."

Xiaqing thought the name "crazy shoots" was very fitting. Leafy branches that grew wild with foliage but no flower buds—what else would you call them but crazy shoots?

This only worried Kuang Qingwei more. "But no matter how I look at them, it seems like both forks are covered in nothing but crazy shoots."

Qi Fu chuckled. "Then just snap off the lower ones first. Let the smaller shoots on top grow for a bit; we can deal with them later when they’re bigger. Don’t worry, as long as the plant is healthy, it will grow fruit-bearing branches sooner or later. And don’t be afraid of making a mistake. You only need to leave six or seven fruit-bearing branches on the whole plant. Any more than that will have to be topped off anyway. If you leave too many, the plant can’t support the cotton bolls."

Reassured by Old Qi’s words, Xiaqing immediately got to work. SNAP, SNAP. She finished pruning the cotton plant she had been staring at for more than ten minutes.

’There’s something oddly satisfying about snapping the crazy shoots off the main stem, stripping the plant down to a bare stalk.’

A wide smile on her face, Xiaqing squeezed the juice from the shoots she’d just snapped off to test their Harmful Element content.

Red Light.

She kept smiling. ’It’s fine. A Red Light just means the cottonseed isn’t edible. As long as it grows cotton, that’s all that matters. I’ll keep it.’

Yellow Light.

Still smiling. ’Yellow Light is great. That means the cottonseed can be pressed for oil, which can be sold for more points. I’ll mark it with a grass rope.’

Green Light?

It had taken testing over a hundred plants to find just one! ’Of course, I have to mark it with a conspicuous red rope for special protection. I’ll use this one for seed stock.’

Hearing the chittering wings of an Evolved Locust, Xiaqing straightened up. Her hand had just reached for her bag of steel balls when two Evolved Crows swooped down and devoured the locust. She didn’t even have to lift a finger.

Xiaqing gave them a thumbs-up. "Nice!"

"Baa."

Lying in the shade of a tree a dozen meters away and chewing his cud, Sheep Leader thought Xiaqing was praising him and gave a token bleat in response.

Xiaqing chuckled and went back to pruning the crazy shoots.

Pruning the more than eighty-two hundred cotton plants on her two mu of land was a repetitive and tedious farm chore, but for Xiaqing, who had endured the ten-year-long Disaster Years, it was pure bliss. She absolutely loved the feeling of being absorbed in her work, so much so that even the distant, clattering racket of two Evolved Crickets fighting sounded melodic.

Pruning all the crazy shoots took Xiaqing two days. On the first morning, she worked standing up, bent at the waist. For the rest of the time, she switched to sitting. Xiaqing had fashioned a small stool of just the right height and strapped it to herself. She would sit in the path between two rows of cotton, prune the plants within reach, then scoot forward a few feet, sit down again, and continue.

Wearing a large straw hat woven from mosquito-repellent grass, Xiaqing was in her element. The only fly in the ointment was the grating sound of Tang Lu’s voice drifting on the wind from the Second Territory.

Yang Jin had remained in the No.1 Territory to oversee the development of the practical training base on Mountain No. 49. Tang Zheng had stayed on Mountain No. 49 for two days, but flew off after finding nothing of value. Tang Lu, of course, stayed behind in her own territory.

Wherever Yang Jin was, she was sure to be.

It wasn’t just Xiaqing who found Tang Lu a nuisance; the patrol team felt the same way.

Tang Lu couldn’t barge into the No.1 Territory, and the Green Dragon Team members on guard duty refused to pass messages to Yang Jin for her. So, she came up with all sorts of ways to pester the patrol team, since they had a direct line of communication with the No.1 Territory.

One minute, she’d claim her pet white rabbit had run off and demand the patrol team negotiate with the No.1 Territory to let her go search for it. The next, she’d accuse the patrol team of incompetence, insisting the Second Territory was teeming with large, dangerous Evolved Insects and threatening to file a complaint.

Su Ming wished he could stuff a sock in the mouth of this woman who was giving him a splitting headache. "This is only because her father is Tang Zhengsu!"

If it weren’t for Tang Zhengsu, a woman with no skills who dared to throw such tantrums during the Disaster Years would have been dead countless times over by now.

Hu Zi complained, "The more of a scene she makes, the less likely Brother Jin will ever like her. What’s her endgame? She should just go for someone else. Hasn’t Xu Pin always been into her?"

Su Ming chuckled. "Haven’t you heard the saying? You always want what you can’t have."

Yuan Rui, the team’s smell-specialist Evolver who rarely joined in on their gossip, suddenly spoke up. "Tang Lu is actually pretty smart."

Huh? What?

Hu Zi and Su Ming’s eyes went wide. "You’ve got a... unique perspective, Brother Rui."

Yuan Rui was a few years older than them; he’d seen more and thought more deeply. "Tang Lu is just a normal person, unable to evolve. If she wants to keep living her comfortable, respectable life, she has two options: either help the Tang Family take down their number one rival, the Green Dragon Team, or pair up with a High Level Evolver and produce a superior next generation. For either option, Yang Jin is her number one target."

They walked on in silence for some time before Su Ming spoke up again. "Her logic might be sound, but it’s useless if she can’t actually win him over."

Yuan Rui countered, "How would you know if you don’t try? She’s still young, and Yang Jin doesn’t have a girlfriend. If she pulls it off, she’ll be set for the next hundred years."

’How do you know if you don’t try?’ Hu Zi seemed lost in thought.

Su Ming glanced at Captain Tan up ahead, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "I heard... and this is just a rumor, you can’t tell anyone... but I heard Brother Jin doesn’t like women."

The group was silent.

Without turning his head, Tan Junjie called out, "Su Ming."

"...Here."

"Fifty weighted laps when we get back."

"SCREEE—"

Before Su Ming could even reply, a bloodcurdling, despair-filled squeal suddenly erupted from the Wild Boar Breeding Center. The patrol team, having just passed the center, immediately wheeled around and sprinted toward the sound, weapons drawn.

The boar’s shriek also startled Xiaqing, who was on a high slope in the Third Territory. The sound was too unusual. Xiaqing immediately bolted north, scrambling up a large tree inside her territory near the breeding center to get a look at the valley where the boars were kept.

Shortly after the breeding center was established, a dozen or so researchers in pure white, fully-sealed airtight protective suits had gone inside. Since then, there had been no sign of activity, and it had been so quiet that Xiaqing had almost forgotten about the people and pigs there. That scream was truly out of the ordinary.

Thanks to her excellent vision, Xiaqing saw two people in camouflage Protective Suits carrying an adult wild boar as they sprinted toward a row of white buildings. Two technicians in the pure-white, fully-sealed airtight protective suits rushed out of one of the buildings to meet them.

Xiaqing couldn’t make out the technicians’ words, but she could hear the shouts of the personnel in the camouflage suits. "Its neck was bitten! ... It’s an Evolutionary Wolf, it’s incredibly fast! Researchers, return to the safe house!"

Wolves!!!

Xiaqing tensed up. The terror of an Evolution Wolf Group was a memory seared deep into her mind. ’Weren’t all the large, high-risk Evolutionary Animals around the territory supposed to have been cleared out? Where did the wolf that attacked the boar come from?’

"Baaa—"

Hearing Sheep Leader’s call, Xiaqing immediately scrambled down from the tree and rushed down the slope to meet him. "Sheep Leader, did you hear that pig’s scream, too?"

Sheep Leader rubbed his head against Xiaqing and anxiously nudged her down the slope. He was so agitated that he nearly pushed her over, so Xiaqing immediately started leading him in a run down the hill.

’Evolutionary Wolves hunt even thick-skinned boars, let alone a plump, tasty meal like Sheep Leader!’