Chapter 102: The Price of a Cat and the Cunning of Green-Glow Peanuts

“It’s nothing, but the Princess holds a grudge. Kitten’s off the table for adoption now.”

Like owner, like pet. Zhang San’s a bit petty, so it makes sense their cat’s not too forgiving either. Xia Qing looked helplessly at Boss Sheep, covered in dirt, not sure how to respond.

Zhang San hadn’t seen this coming either. “How about this? I’ll swap the two thousand points for the kitten with Greenlight Chickens. There are seventeen hatchlings in this nest—seven roosters and ten pullets. Once they’ve grown for a month, I’ll send them all over to you. If that’s not enough, I’ll hatch you another batch to make up the difference.”

The mention of Greenlight Chickens perked Xia Qing right up. “Thanks, Third Brother. Seventeen chickens are more than enough—no need for a second batch. Do you have any other evolved animals you’d be willing to trade?”

She’d already paid for ten pullets with two hundred spinach seeds. The seven roosters cost her seven thousand points. That evolved cat would’ve set her back twenty thousand, so Zhang San still owed her thirteen thousand points.

Zhang San’s family had plenty of resources. If he couldn’t trade her the cat, something better would do.

Zhang San went quiet for a few seconds. “Aside from the evolved cat, all I’ve got left is an evolved Greenlight Cow.”

An evolved… Greenlight… Cow?!

Xia Qing’s eyes practically sparkled, right as Zhang San added, “But the calves have all been traded away. Now there’s only an adult bull and a cow left—the cow’s for milk, so I can’t let you have her. Want to take the bull instead? He might not give milk, but at least he’ll give you manure.”

Xia Qing: What?

Idol, do I really look that gullible to you?

“I’m worried I couldn’t take care of the bull and you’d miss out on fresh milk. How about I use the leftover points to trade for milk instead?”

Zhang San rejected her flat out. “I need to keep the milk for myself. Whatever I can’t drink, I’ll turn into powdered milk for when the cow’s not producing.”

…

What kind of idol is this? Doesn’t he care about his fans at all?

Giving up on trading for animals, Xia Qing switched to plants. “Third Brother, can I use the rest of my points to exchange for Greenlight Rice Seeds and some basic medicine?”

Zhang San happily agreed to that deal. “I’ve just raised a batch of high-quality Greenlight rice seedlings. Should be ready to plant in a few days. I’ll give you a hundred—just prep your paddy, all right? They’re a hundred points each, so a hundred will be ten thousand. The extra three thousand will count as compensation since I couldn’t swap you the kitten like promised.”

Afterwards, Zhang San gave Xia Qing a crash course on prepping rice paddies.

“Thank you, Third Brother.” Xia Qing’s eyes shimmered with gratitude.

If Blue Star had a Top Idols list, and Third Brother wasn’t on it, Xia Qing would have plenty to say about that.

The cat might be off the table, but life had to go on. Priority number one—catch that wolf sneaking into her territory for water and sheep, and make it pay for her losses.

In the days that followed, Xia Qing divided her time between prepping rice paddies, harvesting mung beans, and keeping an eye on Boss Sheep’s activities.

After three days she had two acres of rice paddies ready and gathered over fifty pounds of mung beans, but not a single wolf hair for her trouble. She even interrogated Boss Sheep, who just squinted back and stayed silent.

Time for a new tactic. With a false show of friendliness, she handed two small bags of green-glow dried bamboo shoots and a little bag of dried bamboo rat meat to Boss Sheep, nestling them in a tiny basket. She coaxed, “Boss, your friend likes meat, right? Next time they come, pass this dried meat over. Let them use the bamboo shoots as toothpicks after their meal.”

At the sight of snacks, Boss Sheep finally opened his drowsy eyes. Satisfied, Xia Qing left him to it.

The next day, Boss Sheep trotted up the hillside with the tiny basket in tow. Xia Qing grabbed her gear and followed him on tiptoe to the big chinquapin tree, only to watch as the silly thing tore open the vacuum bags and gobbled down all the green-glow bamboo and bamboo rat meat itself!

Not until Boss Sheep polished off every bite did the wolf show.

Seriously? The sheep snacking on bamboo shoots was one thing… but it ate the meat too?

Boiling with anger, Xia Qing squared off with Boss Sheep in a heated standoff—afterward, she gave up on using the sheep to catch the wolf.

Her main focus shifted away from that wolf mostly because she’d been too busy these past few days.

Ji Li had brought over a hundred rice seedlings. After soaking them overnight in clean spring water, Xia Qing planted them in her paddies. She used the spring water to soak both yellow-glow and green-glow mung beans, sowing an acre and two terraced plots respectively.

After planting the two pounds of yellow-glow corn Luo Pei had gifted her, Xia Qing got right to topdressing her crops.

Late June had plants of every kind blossoming—not just cotton, but wheat, peanuts, alfalfa, and potatoes too. Flowering was a crucial growth phase, so she had to fertilize now.

She hauled all the crab shell fertilizer and earthworm castings left at home to the fields, started by digging ditches for the wheat and burying the fertilizer before irrigating.

Boss Sheep saw the waterwheel as his personal exercise equipment, so for Xia Qing, irrigation was a breeze. All she had to do was close off the channel leading to the fish pond and open up the one for the wheat field.

After watering the wheat, Xia Qing praised Boss Sheep for several minutes, then fertilized and watered the potatoes before moving on to the alfalfa.

She only had eighteen green-glow alfalfa plants, so fertilizing and watering them took just a few minutes. Next, she hurried over to her three peanut terraces. Technically, there were only two hundred and ten peanut plants—thirty-five green-glow, a hundred seventy yellow-glow, and fifteen red-glow peanuts. Fertilizing them was quick work.

But when Xia Qing stepped up to the edge of the first peanut terrace, she realized things weren’t so simple. She couldn’t quite say why, but something felt off about the green-glow peanut sprout with the red thread tied to it.

The portable toxic gas tester strapped to her arm didn’t light up—so peanut flowers hadn’t released any toxins.

The peanut roots, stems, and leaves hadn’t grown out of control or sprouted spikes either—so no sign of Xiang Evolution. Still, she didn’t dare let her guard down; after all, any green-glow plant that survived ten years of disaster in the wild must have some ways of protecting itself.

Could green-glow peanuts fire their leaves as projectiles, just like the green-glow bamboo in the Evolver Forest?

Now that the weather had warmed up and she’d thoroughly cleared her territory a few times, Xia Qing no longer wore a protective suit while working. But to be safe, she headed home, suited up, and returned to the peanut terraces.

First, she prodded the peanut’s branches and leaves with a shovel—nothing happened. Then she dug a little beside the peanut and buried fertilizer—still nothing.

Was she just being paranoid? She stared at the green-glow peanut swaying gently in the breeze for a moment, then ran off to her private training ground and grabbed a palm-sized evolved mantis. She tossed it onto the peanut sprout. The mantis immediately gripped the peanut stem.

Then the nightmare began: the instant that evolved mantis touched the peanut, every leaf it brushed cracked open and its veins stabbed deep into the insect’s body.

The mantis shuddered twice and went still. Five minutes later, the peanut’s veins had drained its fluids dry. They slid free from the corpse, stretched out, and regrew flesh and skin at a visible rate—rebuilding themselves into leaves that looked perfectly ordinary again.

If not for the little mantis corpse lying beneath the sprout, Xia Qing would have doubted her own eyes—wondering if she had just imagined the whole thing.

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Evolved green-glow peanuts turned out to be even deadlier than evolved green-glow bamboo—they could precisely hunt down any living thing that got too close!

No wonder, after ten years of disaster, green-glow peanuts were still around. With a skill like that, how could anything wipe them out?

The real question: was it even safe to eat harvested peanuts from a plant like this? Or would eating them be her last meal?

So, should she fertilize these green-glow peanuts with crab shell fertilizer and earthworm castings… or just feed them bugs?