Chapter 105: Trading Seeds, Gathering Fertilizer

“Thanks for the Chinese cabbage seeds, Third Brother.” Xia Qing was tempted to take both options, but she forced herself to stick with just one, just as Zhang San said. She chose cabbage seeds because compared to sponge gourd, cabbage was easier to store and could be cooked in more ways.

“No problem.” Zhang San agreed cheerfully. “And while you’re at it, prep a set of ingredients for that pickled fish dish I like.”

Xia Qing agreed right away to her idol’s extra request. She put together some fish, a handful of pickled bamboo shoots, a slice of ginger, two small spicy peppers and four cloves of greenlight garlic.

Just a few days earlier, Xia Qing had harvested all forty-four garlic bulbs in her territory—sixteen were greenlight, the other twenty-eight were yellowlight. She broke the bulbs apart, keeping the larger cloves for planting and eating the smaller ones herself.

When you’re prepping side dishes for your idol, only the best will do. Zhang San could be both generous and picky; give him something good and he’d return the favor, but hand him anything subpar and she might just land herself on his blacklist, right alongside Plot Two.

In exchange, Xia Qing received a hundred greenlight cabbage seeds. She tucked them away, delighted—her idol Zhang San really was generous.

After stashing the seeds, Xia Qing made a pot of fish with pickled bamboo shoots, tossed up two plates of greenlight tomatoes and ate them all with steaming rice. Even in the middle of natural disasters, she could eat her fill and eat well—she couldn’t have been happier.

The next day, after finishing her rounds through the territory, Xia Qing grabbed her basket and went to pick vegetables for Zhong Tao and Zheng Kui. She picked a little bit of everything—eggplant, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers—until the basket was full.

Right on time, Zhong Tao and Zheng Kui arrived, dragging over eight hundred pounds of earthworm castings and a thousand pounds of crab shell fertilizer. They unloaded the lot beside Plot Three before taking the heavy basket from Xia Qing. Zhong Tao grinned, “That’s a load of fertilizer. You sure you don’t want us to carry it in for you?”

Xia Qing shook her head. “I’ll just hitch the rotary tiller to the cart and take everything back in one trip. This is all the vegetables I could pick—most are crooked and a little misshapen. Tao, Kui, just make do with what you’ve got.”

It wasn’t until she started growing her own crops that Xia Qing found out not all cucumbers grew straight—some were curved, some twisted, and some were fat at one end, skinny at the other. Tomatoes didn’t always come out smooth and round either; some were oval, some lumpy, even fused together in twos and threes. Sometimes bad weather caused them to split open too. Basically, vegetables grow however they like—their mood and the weather decide everything.

Zhong Tao’s grin widened. “Don’t worry about it—tastes the same no matter what it looks like. Out of the thirty-something plots up here in the north, nobody invests in their land like you do, and yours always grow best. Nobody else can compare.”

But after all these months, Xia Qing had learned to only trust about twenty percent of what Zhong Tao said. There was no way her produce was the best. Just look at other territories—Qi Fu’s and Zhang San’s vegetables had to be better than hers.

Qi Fu had real planting experience and never hesitated to invest; Xia Qing had learned most of her cultivation tricks from him. Back when she went to choose a cat, she’d caught a glimpse of Zhang San’s super tidy Plot Seven—ten standard-sized greenhouses in a row. With how picky Zhang San was, who knew how many rare treasures he was growing inside.

Zheng Kui told Xia Qing, “The produce exchange has been set for mid-July, right inside the Safe Zone’s main hall. The announcements should start soon. That’ll be the time for lords to swap veggies and grains, or buy seeds from the Safe Zone.”

Xia Qing perked up. “Kui, do you know what seeds the Safe Zone will sell?”

Zheng Kui replied, “All I heard was rice, corn, sunflower seeds and a couple other veggies.”

Zhong Tao lowered his voice. “Can’t be just that. Our base took heat from Huicheng Main Base over the potatoes causing that big safety incident. The mayor wants to save face with this event, so they’ll definitely offer something special.”

To save face at the exchange, the event had to be lively. To get the territory lords who’d left the Safe Zone to come back, they’d need to offer goods worth their while. Now, Xia Qing couldn’t help but look forward to Hui San Base’s very first produce exchange.

Once she saw off Zhong Tao and Zheng Kui, Xia Qing didn’t actually need the tiller. She carried the fertilizer inside her territory’s grass walls, then called for Boss Sheep; together, they each carried a load, hauling all eighteen hundred pounds of fertilizer home in two trips. If there hadn’t been so many bags, the two of them could have finished in one go.

“Boss, you and I are born for farming,” Xia Qing told Boss Sheep as she unloaded six sacks from his back, reaching for his carrier baskets. Boss Sheep grumbled and wriggled away.

“Got tangled again?” Xia Qing checked the baskets she’d made for him—sure enough, the strap between them had caught his wool again.

She gently removed the basket and coaxed, “Want me to trim your wool?”

Boss Sheep didn’t know what a trim was, but when Xia Qing pulled out her big scissors and started snipping in the air, he tensed up and fixed her with an unhappy glare.

“I’m not about to butcher you, it’s just a haircut,” Xia Qing promised. “Trim up your wool, you’ll be cooler and look even sharper. Next time your wolf buddy drops by, you’ll knock him dead with style.” She shoved a few pieces of dried bamboo shoot into his mouth to sweeten the deal.

Xia Qing only trimmed Boss Sheep’s back and neck—he didn’t need it on his belly, the wool was short there anyway. Still, by the time she finished, they had well over three pounds of fleece.

That’s enough to make a good-sized wool mat! Xia Qing happily packed away the wool and praised the newly-shorn, seriously scruffy-looking Boss Sheep. “Now you’re not just cooler and lighter, you’re even more handsome—better looking than Yang Jin from the Azure Dragon Unit. No matter how you measure it, you’re the one and only Boss Sheep. Let’s go try that bath tub I made for you!”

Boss Sheep, his fleece a patchwork of highs and lows, strutted into his herbal soak, eating greenlight grass and looking about ready to sigh with satisfaction.

After his bath, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat of the rotary tiller with the breeze in his face, Boss Sheep felt great. He bumped his head against Xia Qing, clearly pleased.

Xia Qing nearly got knocked onto the tracks by his enthusiastic headbutt. Laughing, she rubbed his head, then drove the tiller over near the fish pond to get started digging a new one.

There weren’t many greenlight fish, but she’d decided the new pond should still be two acres—no point crowding her precious fish when there was plenty of space.

While Xia Qing was busy in her own territory, in Plot Two, Tang Huai slapped at some mutant mosquitoes buzzing around him and scowled. “She just hauled back a ton of fertilizer and she’s already tilling again? Can’t she ever take a break?!”

Zhou Xun, clutching his bug jar, suddenly had a bright idea. “Let’s sneak into her fields tonight and steal her veggies while she’s asleep—let her wear herself out for nothing!”

Tang Huai shot him a look. “You think the two olfactory evolvers in the Mad Squad are just here for show? If you want to try your luck, go alone and don’t drag me down.”

Seeing Tang Huai get up to leave, Zhou Xun hurriedly asked, “Boss, where you heading?”

“Going to Plot Twelve to dig up cicada larvae,” Tang Huai answered over his shoulder.

Watching his boss walk off so casually, Zhou Xun muttered quietly, “So we’re not watching Plot One and Plot Three anymore?”

“Of course we’re watching,” Tang Huai called back, not missing a step. “But it’s too noisy here. My ability’s useless with all this racket. Stay here and keep an eye out. If anything happens, report straight to my brother.”

Vision Evolver, Zhou Xun…

It took Xia Qing three days to dig the new fish pond. She’d learned from Qi Fu’s example and made a round pit over two meters deep and two meters wide at the bottom, then lined the walls with broken brick.

Digging that pit made it way easier to scoop up pond mud.

Pond mud was a fantastic natural fertilizer. When she drained the pond or let it dry out, the fish would gather in the pit, making it simple to catch them and grab the mud at the same time.

Once the new pond was ready, Xia Qing ran a channel from her old fish pond to fill it up. Along the way, she used a fine-mesh fishing net and managed to catch five yellowlight fish and two greenlight fish.

Xia Qing hadn’t expected to net any more greenlight fish, but counting the ones from her last catch, she now had three—one male and two females. She decided on the spot: one pond for greenlight fish, the other for yellowlight fish.

As for redlight fish?

She didn’t even have a cat. What was the point in raising redlight fish, anyway?