Chapter 1057: Bamboo and Tempers in the Devastation Rain

Xia Qing grabbed the longest Black Blade and swung it with practiced ease, felling stalk after stalk of Hardness-Evolved Bamboo. Old Goat clamped the rope in his jaws, dragging the bamboo off to the Western Buffer Forest. Guan Tong stacked the eighteen- to nineteen-meter-long bamboo poles onto makeshift racks, making sure none of the highly active, aggressive bamboo touched the Devastation Rain-soaked soil, or else they’d take root and start growing again.

The Lords’ channel was unusually quiet. Guan Tong listened to Xia Qing’s blade slicing through bamboo faster and faster. He watched Old Goat get rougher and rougher with every bamboo he tossed. The whole thing gave him a very bad feeling.

Sure enough, after Xia Qing hacked through thirty-three stalks, the pair from Section Three—one human, one sheep—charged under the buffer forest, leaped across the raging creek, and immediately came to blows.

Xia Qing grabbed Old Goat by the horns and with a swift motion hurled him a good six meters. Guan Tong took a few steps forward, ready to step in and stop her. This was Devastation Rain season—too much emotion could spiral out of control.

But before he could get close, Old Goat sprang out of a mud pit and barreled into Xia Qing, launching her another four meters. He didn’t stop there, rearing up to smack her with both hooves, hard.

Guan Tong snapped his mouth shut and shuffled back to his bamboo-stacking, minding his own business. He could sometimes calm Xia Qing down, but Old Goat? No chance. Trying to break them up only got you one thing—taking a hit meant for Xia Qing.

“Bang!”

“Crack!”

“Bang!”

“Boom—”

Sounds of fighting, snapping trees, and collapsing houses echoed across Section Three. The commotion was loud enough for night-shift workers in Territories One, Two, and Four to hear, and Tang Huai’s squad, circling from the Northern Barrier into the Western Barrier in their patrol truck, picked up on it too.

The patrol truck rolled to a stop. Like the folks in Territories One and Four, the four inside sat in silence, waiting for the Territory Two acting agent, Tang Huai, to speak up.

Tang Huai was acting strangely tonight. Even after two solid minutes of fighting in Section Three, he still hadn’t logged on. Tan Junjie had heard enough. He pressed the walkie-talkie button. “Section Three, do you need help from the Inspection Team?”

In the monitoring room, Peng Jian replied through his walkie-talkie. “The Evolved Sheep in Section Three are agitated. We’re calming them down, no assistance needed for now.”

“Copy that,” Tan Junjie said, and signaled Yuan Rui to keep moving.

In the back seat, Cao Xianyun, a level-four Auditory Evolutionary, lowered his voice. “Haven’t heard this much ruckus in Section Three for a long time. You think Sister Qing’s sheep finally lost it and went berserk?”

Su Ming didn’t look worried. “Not with Third Brother around. No way.”

Cao Xianyun glanced toward the blood-red North Passage, starting to feel Su Ming was probably right. Xia Qing was good friends with the big boss from Territory Seven. Even if she lost control, that Strength-Evolved Sheep that hauled the plow would never go wild.

Meanwhile, in Territory Four, Zhao Ze stifled a yawn, perfectly at ease. The commotion from Section Three could only mean one thing—Xia Qing, the Northern Section One disaster commander, was finally back on her turf. It was already midnight, but Xia Qing’s strength was still at its peak.

No competition. Not a chance. Just a few hours coordinating ditch-digging across the territories had nearly wiped him out. Zhao Ze yawned again, grabbed the megaphone, and reminded everyone on night watch to stay alert.

Twenty minutes later, the Devastation Rain started coming down again.

Smack in the center of Section Three, Xia Qing sat up from a patch of battered Devastation Grass, opened her Iron Umbrella, and stuck it in the ground beside Old Goat’s head to shield him from the falling rain. Then she sprawled out again, gasping for air.

Over in the little house by the fields, Jing Kuan climbed out of bed for his shift and rubbed his eyes. “What’s going on? Why’d Sister Qing start fighting Old Goat?”

“Beats me.” Peng Jian stretched, yawned, then handed over the surveillance log. “Three aggressive Wild Tung Trees were found in the south zone, and an aggressive Devastation-Evolved Vine in zone 56 of the Western Buffer Forest—already cleared out. Keep an eye out though.”

If you didn’t clean up the roots of those aggressive Devastation-Evolved plants, the Devastation Rain would help them suck up nutrients and sprout fresh, dangerous shoots in no time.

Jing Kuan flipped through the log, then grew curious. “Anything from the Old Wolf in East Zone One?”

A little while back, with credits to spare, Xia Qing had upgraded the territory’s surveillance. Now there were eighty cameras across Section Three—covering the place in crystal clear high-def, every inch. To keep things organized, she numbered the cameras from smallest to largest and split twenty apiece across southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest zones.

East Zone One was where Xia Qing’s home sat, and the surveillance there covered her yard and the surrounding stretch of house ruins.

That patch was Old Wolf’s turf. Anyone except Xia Qing dared to step in and get greeted by a deadly glare or a warning growl from Old Wolf himself.

Peng Jian couldn’t help but laugh. “Soon as the fight broke out, Old Wolf poked his nose out of his den, gave the ruins a look, then ducked right back in.”

Jing Kuan laughed too, then pressed the walkie-talkie to call Xia Qing. “Sister Qing, time to switch shifts. Go get some rest, we’ll take it from here tonight.”

Lying on the Devastation Grass with the rain coming down, Xia Qing pressed her earpiece walkie-talkie. Her voice was as calm as ever. “Roger.”

Xia Qing rolled over, letting the rain wash the mud and grass off the back of her protective suit. She checked in with the Ninth Center and Hill Fifty—both all clear—before standing up and heading to her companion. “Old Goat, let’s go home and sleep.”

Old Goat, still sprawled out panting, didn’t move an inch.

Xia Qing got the message. She pulled the Iron Umbrella from the ground, threw her exhausted companion over her right shoulder, and headed home to rest.

It had been a long day—tracking down and wiping out a Scavenger Squad with the Alpha in the Western Evolved Forest, then organizing defenses against a bird swarm in the Northern Section One, chopping a batch of Hardness-Evolved Red-Leaved Bamboo, plus a good, hard fight with Old Goat. Xia Qing finally felt her exhaustion hit. It was time for a break.

She hadn’t gone far before running into Er Yong, who was patrolling in his rotary tiller.

Er Yong pulled up beside Xia Qing, swung open the rain shield door and jumped out. “Sister Qing, how about I give you two a ride back?”

“Sounds good.”

Not having to haul a three-hundred-pound sheep through the mud was a relief. Xia Qing placed Old Goat on his custom seat and sat herself down in the middle driver’s chair.

Er Yong climbed in beside Xia Qing, taking Wolfdog Number Two’s spot, and asked, “Sister Qing, you sure you’re okay?”

That fight between her and Old Goat earlier had sounded brutal—even Er Yong felt sore just hearing it.

“I’m fine.” Xia Qing looked straight ahead through the rain shield as the road lit up in the headlights. There were far fewer crazed insects attacking the shield tonight compared to the last Devastation Rain. Most of them had been drawn away by the scent of aggressive Devastation Grass on the main path—some gorged themselves to death, some were eaten by other bugs, and some suffocated under the thick blood-red pesticide layer.

Once this round of Devastation Rain was over, catching bugs to feed the fish was going to get a lot harder. Number Four would definitely throw a fit and ditch the task.