Chapter 69: Planting Sweet Potato Cuttings

Chapter 69: Chapter 69: Planting Sweet Potato Cuttings

After seeing Zhong Tao off, Xiaqing and Sheep Leader carried the earthworm castings straight to the terraced plots reserved in the planting zone.

Xiaqing loved sweet potatoes, so she had reserved terraced plots with deep soil for the cuttings. One was in the high-slope planting area, and the other was in the low-slope area.

Following the method Tan Junjie had sent her, Xiaqing first fertilized the terraces, then tilled them and piled up long ridges. Once the ground was prepared, Xiaqing cut the long vines of the Green Light sweet potatoes into twenty-centimeter-long sections and planted two hundred of them as cuttings.

Once the cuttings were planted, Xiaqing felt a mix of joy and anxiety.

Of course, she was happy to have two hundred more sweet potato plants. But she was also worried. She feared the cuttings might not survive. Worse, she worried the process might have disrupted the elemental balance within the original sixteen plants—which were now pruned down to just two or three vines each—causing them to degrade from Green Light to Yellow Light.

’If that happened, it would be a devastating loss.’

Xiaqing had even indirectly confirmed this propagation method with Qi Fu. Since the method was sound and she had her spring water, she figured that even if only half of the two hundred cuttings survived, and each survivor produced just three sweet potatoes, she would still harvest three hundred of them. ’Three hundred!’

Xiaqing cheerfully watered the sweet potato cuttings with filtered water mixed with a little spring water—with so many new plants, she didn’t have enough pure spring water to go around.

Then, Xiaqing used the remaining earthworm castings to top-dress her other plots.

The vegetables, currently flowering and bearing fruit, needed top-dressing. The wheat, mung beans, and cotton, all about to bloom, needed it too. So did the flowering jujube trees.

The original Green Light sweet potato and Yellow Light Potato plots had already received plenty of fermented sheep manure, so they didn’t need more fertilizer. The pumpkin vines, which were growing but not flowering, wouldn’t be getting any either.

She had thought four hundred pounds of earthworm castings would be a lot, but after she started spreading it, she realized it wasn’t enough for even one full application. So, Xiaqing sent a message to Sun Zhe and ordered another eight hundred pounds, with delivery scheduled for twenty days from now.

For this trade, Xiaqing was paying with soon-to-be-mature spinach seeds. By the time Zhong Tao delivered the next batch of earthworm castings, the seeds should be fully mature.

In other words, Sun Zhe could produce at least eight hundred pounds of earthworm castings in twenty days, exchangeable for four hundred points. Raising earthworms for their castings was more profitable than working on a construction team. Of course, the risks were greater too. Since he operated outside the established territory, he had to be prepared to take risks.

Xiaqing took the last few pounds of earthworm castings home and mixed them into four large earthen pots. These pots were prepared for her strawberries. The Planting Guide said that strawberry plants would grow runners, and new strawberry seedlings would grow from these runners.

’It looks fake,’ Xiaqing thought, looking at the diagrams in the Planting Guide.

But! Her two strawberry plants really had grown two runners. Though the stems were still too short to sprout new plants, they were there. ’If the runners have appeared, can the new seedlings be far behind?’

Xiaqing had already prepared the pots and soil, ready to welcome the new seedlings.

Just like the newly transplanted vegetable seedlings, the sweet potato cuttings all wilted after being exposed to the sun the next day. However, it was the leaves that wilted; the vines themselves were still upright. Xiaqing was experienced now and didn’t show the same panic she had during the last transplant.

’Let them wilt,’ she thought. ’They’ll perk up when they’re ready.’ She went about her day as usual.

She had gone to learn from Luo Pei twice more in the past few days. Every night, she diligently practiced disassembling and assembling the gun. Now, Xiaqing could quickly take apart and reassemble the weapon even with her eyes closed.

Today, she would be practicing the fundamentals of shooting.

Wearing her Protective Suit, Xiaqing lay prone in the grass. Following the method Luo Pei had taught her, she pressed the stock of the gun tightly against her shoulder. Her eye moved slowly behind the scope to find the optimal eye relief, she controlled her breathing, and her finger rested lightly on the trigger.

To shoot accurately, the gun must be steady. For the gun to be steady, the person must be steady. For the person to be steady, their mindset, Strength, and breathing must all be steady. Xiaqing had no problem with her mindset or Strength. What she needed to practice now was breath control and the follow-through after each trigger pull. She couldn’t afford to waste time re-finding her eye relief after every shot; an opponent could kill her ten times over in that interval.

After holding the gun steady for thirty minutes, Xiaqing fired her first Bullet since getting the weapon, right as she heard a loud hawk’s cry. Masked by the cry and the suppressor, the gunshot didn’t alert anyone in the nearby territories.

On Territory No. 4, Zhao Ze was still leading people to fetch water for the wheat. On Territory No. 2, Tang Huai was still sitting in the fields digging for pests. On Territory No. 1, Hu Zifeng was still leading his team on patrol along the isolation zone between Mountain No. 49 and the territory.

After confirming through the scope that she had accurately hit a fist-sized clod of earth placed a thousand meters away, Xiaqing walked over, placed another clod of the same size in the same spot, and returned to her position to aim again.

After aiming for half an hour, Xiaqing removed the scope from the sniper rifle. Maintaining the same aiming posture, she continued to aim at the clod of earth.

The scope was to help her find the correct aiming posture and build muscle memory. Xiaqing was a Level 9 Visual Evolver, capable of aiming with her naked eye at a chicken-sized target from fifteen hundred meters away. Within a hundred meters, no target larger than a mung bean could escape her naked-eye tracking.

This was a capability second only to the Level 10 Visual Evolver, Luo Pei.

In Luo Pei’s second-level basement testing room, when Luo Pei used standard testing equipment and found that Xiaqing’s Visual Evolution had reached Level 9, not only was he astonished, but Xiaqing was as well.

She knew her vision was a form of High Level Evolution, but she never imagined it had actually reached Level 9.

Not only her vision, but her hearing had also reached an astonishing Level 7 Evolution, one level higher than Luo Pei’s!

After the test, Luo Pei—thirty-four years old and who considered himself mature and steady—was too excited to speak. He clapped Xiaqing forcefully on both shoulders and then said to her with great solemnity, "With your physical qualities, as long as you’re willing to work hard, you can definitely kick Nie Hong off his pedestal!"

No wonder Yang Jin had such high hopes for Xiaqing. No wonder!

PAT, PAT, PAT! PAT, PAT, PAT! Luo Pei grew more and more excited, unable to stop himself from clapping her on the shoulder again and again.

Xiaqing, who had been floating on air after learning her true Evolution Level, was patted back down to earth by Luo Pei. She asked humbly, "Brother Luo, who is Nie Hong?"

Luo Pei, who had been so happy he was on the verge of tears...

"...Our Hua Country’s number one Sharpshooter."

Xiaqing had no interest in kicking Hua Country’s number one Sharpshooter off his throne and taking his place. She just wanted to be an ordinary Strength Evolver, lying low and farming on her territory.

The Head Wolf that had broken into the wild boar breeding area hadn’t reappeared, and there was no major disturbance from the breeding center. Xiaqing still diligently patrolled her territory every day, using deodorizer to remove the smell of sheep. After a few days, Sheep Leader gave up hope and stopped staring and bleating outside the wire mesh fence. Every day, besides eating grass, it just followed Xiaqing around.

When Xiaqing was busy, Sheep Leader would watch from a distance, or "help out" after some coaxing from Xiaqing.

When Xiaqing rested, Sheep Leader would cozy up beside her and rest too.

Right now, as Xiaqing lay on the ground practicing her shooting, Sheep Leader was lying beside her, chewing its cud.

When the loud cry of a hawk echoed through the sky again, Xiaqing fired her second shot.

This time, the bullet missed the target by more than ten meters, hitting a nearby tree trunk. The large tree shook, and a few yellow leaves fluttered down.

There was a difference between shooting with the naked eye and shooting with a scope; it was only reasonable that she would miss. Xiaqing put the shell casing in her pocket, got up, and shouldered her rifle. She went over and dug the bullet head, which was deeply embedded in the tree trunk, out and put it in her pocket as well, before returning to her spot to aim again.

Under the scorching sun, Xiaqing remained motionless.

Having finished chewing its cud, Sheep Leader’s half-lidded eyes gradually closed. Its head slowly drooped, coming to rest on Xiaqing’s back. The heavy weight made the corners of Xiaqing’s mouth curl up high, but her grip on the rifle didn’t change one bit.

In three hours, Xiaqing fired a total of ten bullets, two of which hit the target. She was very satisfied with this result. She packed up and went home to eat.