Chapter 103: The Ferocious Greenlight Peanuts and a Day of Harvest

Ask Zhang San and Li Si for advice?

Not happening. Xia Qing had no intention of exposing the original plants in her territory to outsiders. She’d tackle both at once—organic fertilizer and insects together.

Cautiously, Xia Qing fertilized the peanut field first, then watered with her filtered water mixed with spring water. After that, she went to her private Evolver Forest and grabbed dozens of evolved insects, big and small, plus a snake, then headed back to the terraced plot to “feed” her peanuts.

Each insect was devoured instantly, but as for the evolved snake—when thrown over, it twisted its body mid-air in a way you wouldn’t believe and dodged the Green-glow Peanuts. Xia Qing caught the escaping snake and pinned it right on top of the peanut vines.

The snake rolled desperately, trying to escape after the peanut’s leaf vein pierced its skin.

Xia Qing just killed the snake outright. The third time she tossed it over, the vein-needle from the peanut leaves stabbed straight into the snake, sucking out its fluids.

As the evolved snake shriveled away, bloom after bloom of golden-yellow flowers burst from the Green-glow Peanuts. By the time the sixtieth flower had blossomed, each one sent down a thick, white stem—much fatter than any leaf vein—straight into the soil.

Here’s why peanuts are called ‘groundnuts’: the flowers bloom above ground, and then a special growth called the peg pushes downward from the flower into the soil, where the nut develops.

Those thick white stems poking out from the flowers? Those were the Green-glow Peanuts’ pegs.

Xia Qing used a wooden stake to gently dig into the dirt and found that the first few pegs that had pushed into the soil were already swelling at their tips.

After surviving ten years of disasters, Xia Qing thought she’d seen every way a plant could hunt animals, but the way these Green-glow Peanuts went about it still shook her.

If she fed them more snakes, could she get fresh boiled peanuts before the day was through?

Xia Qing kept feeding them bugs, watching as the Green-glow Peanuts absorbed more ‘nutrients.’ When the tip of every peg swelled to the size of a soybean, they stopped there—instead, the plants put energy into growing new branches, leaves, and root systems.

With a knife, Xia Qing sliced off a peanut leaf; sure enough, after blooming the leaves were noticeably tougher and stronger than before.

A plant this savage shouldn’t be allowed to grow too big—or else, forget Boss Sheep, even Xia Qing herself might end up as fertilizer.

No wonder the Safe Zone’s Planting Center grew peanuts yet never handed out seeds to the lords. Even in their normal state, they’re terrifying enough. If they ever underwent Xiangification they’d turn monstrous—way worse than those dancing potato vines, and nothing like those prickly jujube trees she’d planted on the hilltop.

But what about before flowering—how do peanut plants defend themselves? Xia Qing decided to experiment.

She pinched off a small piece from an unflowered Green-glow Peanut vine and offered it to Boss Sheep, who was lounging in the shade. “You’ve worked hard today, Boss. Here—just for you, a couple leaves from the Green-glow Peanut.”

Boss Sheep just turned its head away, not interested in the slightest.

So, it’s not that the terraced plot with the peanuts is too steep for Boss Sheep to climb—it simply refuses to eat peanut leaves.

Xia Qing sniffed the juice from a peanut leaf as she sat next to Boss Sheep, then pulled out her phone and messaged Luo Pei: Luo Ge, does our repellent have peanut leaf juice in it?

A few minutes later, Luo Pei replied: Only juice from edible peanuts works as repellent. You got edible peanuts growing in your territory?

Since Hu Zifeng’s Squad, as the security for Territory Three, weren’t allowed to reveal any details about what grew there, it was perfectly normal that Luo Pei didn’t know Xia Qing had peanuts in her territory.

Xia Qing responded: Got a few. Has your territory’s peanuts started flowering yet, Luo Ge? My Green-glow Peanuts get pretty aggressive when they bloom, so be careful.

Luo Pei answered: Not yet. Thanks for the heads-up.

After a short wait, Luo Pei sent another long message: I checked with the planting team. Green-glow Peanuts release a scent to attract insects when they flower, then use vein-needles that can numb animal nerves to absorb fluids from the prey for growth. You can keep feeding insects until the plant reaches its full height. Harvest only after the plant withers and loses its attack power—be careful, the roots can still lash out.

So that’s it. Even after the Green-glow Peanut plant withers, the roots keep defending the peanuts until next spring. Only when the roots completely die off and new shoots sprout do you get those leaves with repellent properties.

Xia Qing marveled, “No wonder the Green-glow Peanut survived this long—it’s not luck, it’s skill.”

But then, how did the Green-glow Perilla and Chinese Toon Tree—both favorites of Boss Sheep—manage to survive ten years of disasters?

She’d have to wait for them to flower and bear fruit to find out.

Leaning against Boss Sheep, Xia Qing asked, “Boss, will the Chinese Toon Tree bloom someday?”

Of course Boss Sheep ignored her, happily chewing away with its eyes closed.

The thought of blooming flowers made Xia Qing glance at the pumpkin vines that kept growing like crazy. The only crop in her territory that should’ve bloomed but hadn’t yet was the pumpkin.

Back in May, Xia Qing posted that if her pumpkin vines didn’t bloom in June, she’d cut them down and feed them to the sheep.

Now, with June almost over and still no flowers, not only did she hold back, she’d even extended the insect netting another twenty meters just to give those vines more room.

She still hoped the pumpkins would live up to what Qi Fu and Shi Chong liked to claim: once they bloomed, the vines would be loaded with fruit.

“Coo coo, coo coo…”

High up in the water metasequoia by the reservoir, the egrets called in low, joyful notes.

Don’t ask how Xia Qing could pick out happiness from bird calls. Listen often enough and you’ll get it too. These two birds sounded even more cheerful than the time they left droppings all over her window.

Xia Qing sat up and looked toward the nest in the water metasequoia.

Two night herons had moved in as neighbors to the egrets, their nests close together. One night heron had stayed behind in the nest for several days now; Xia Qing figured the pair must be incubating eggs.

Now that she was raising Greenlight Chickens, Xia Qing had lost interest in eating other birds’ eggs, but she still kept daily watch over the heron couples.

Even though the night herons and egrets were friendly neighbors, the ones nesting never seemed to chat or while away time together—not that Xia Qing ever overheard, anyway.

But today, both egrets stood by their nest, looking downright happy. No need to ask—either their chicks were hatching or had just hatched.

That was something to celebrate.

Xia Qing got to her feet, brushed the dirt off herself, grabbed her homemade iron-ring fishing net from the little shed, and fished a dozen fierce evolved fish—each the length of a hand—from the pond, their teeth snapping at the net.

Qi Fu had said these long-bodied, black-backed, golden-bellied fish were local spring water fish and were highly nutritious. Xia Qing had grilled a Yellowlight one before and it tasted pretty good.

Unfortunately, edible fish were rare in her pond. Odds were you’d need to catch a hundred fish just to find one that was safe to eat. Xia Qing didn’t mind the effort, but she needed to save the fish for her kittens.

But now the cats were gone—what was the point of keeping all those fish?

Fishing done, Xia Qing wasn’t just surrounded by egrets and night herons; magpies, crows, all sorts of bigger evolved birds showed up and lined up for their share.

“Egret family welcomes a new chick today—everyone gets some!” Xia Qing dug out the fiercest, hand-long fish from the net, pinned it down, smacked it dizzy, and checked its Xiang element levels.

Redlight.

She tossed it to the waiting egret. “First one’s for you—congrats! How about we call a truce and go back to being good neighbors?”

Grinning, Xia Qing tossed over another fish. “Raise your baby well, and please, no more window vandalism at my place.”

For the egret, swallowing a hand-sized fish took all of a second.

Next, Xia Qing stunned another Redlight fish and handed it to the night heron with the long white head feathers. “Here’s one for your mate too. Sitting on eggs all day can’t be easy.”

The night heron quickly grabbed it and gulped it down itself.

So Xia Qing handed over a second one. It craned its neck and gulped that down too. Irritated, Xia Qing waved her machete and snapped, “Get out of here!”