Chapter 1110: Chestnut Grove Danger and New Discoveries

“Captain Yang, you’re awake?”

Early the next morning, as Xia Qing made her rounds, she spotted Yang Jin stepping out of the small house near the fields, looking refreshed. She greeted him first.

Even though Xia Qing’s face was emotionless and her tone hardly changed, her meaning was crystal clear to Yang Jin. “Yeah, I’m up. Sorry for disturbing you last night, Sister Qing. What can I do to make up for the room and board?”

Xia Qing hired extra hands to build the new lab, paying everyone according to Section One’s public rates—that meant no food or lodging included. Yang Jin came to help too, so Xia Qing paid him like she did Hu Zifeng’s Squad: fair wages, no meals or sleeping arrangements.

The lab had been finished by yesterday evening, so their working relationship was officially over. Since Yang Jin had ‘stayed the night’ in Section Three after getting ‘drunk’, he owed her for lodging.

At least Yang Jin was tactful—it saved Xia Qing some hassle. “There is something you can do. Captain Yang, want to come to the chestnut grove with me to haul a couple of bags of chestnuts?”

“Sure thing.” Yang Jin agreed without hesitation. “Should I get Er Yong to watch the territory while we’re out?”

“No need. The chestnut grove’s close enough for walkie-talkies, and we’ll be back in under an hour. Old Goat and Er can cover things here.”

Yang Jin glanced at the evolved wolf dog far off in the distance, a little basket dangling from its mouth as it hunted bugs. The same-sized basket swung from Little Monkey’s hand as it followed right behind. Yang Jin grinned and nodded.

People kept speculating about whether Section Three had unpolluted spring water or some other high-value resources. But seeing how thinly guarded the area really was made them start to doubt their own suspicions all over again.

Xia Qing’s approach was bold and risky, but it worked—it protected the Pure Spring, and let Yang Jin reason that she probably had a source of good water stashed somewhere else. It had to be in either Fire Mountain’s hidden valley or the Northern Wolf Pack’s core territory.

Or maybe both.

Once they entered Section Three of Hill Forty-Nine, Yang Jin shared the latest update from the night before. “Hui One Base confirmed Fire Mountain’s spring is totally destroyed—no fixing it. Yi Element Content has dropped to one, and Devastation Element shot up to sixteen.”

Devastation Element: sixteen per mille. Yi Element: one? That quality was no better than the water from Fire Mountain’s hidden valley. Sure, it was still decent drinkable water once filtered, but with so little Yi Element it was nearly useless for medicine or breeding programs. It wasn’t unpolluted spring water anymore.

Xia Qing asked, “What’s Fire Phoenix planning to do?”

Yang Jin knew exactly what she was worried about. “Fire Phoenix is putting up a lot of premium supplies and patents, trying to negotiate with the Hui One officials to buy a third of the water output from one of Hui One’s springs. Liao Wendong and Qu Fangzhou are also talking to both bases in Lan City, hoping to purchase spring water from there so Fire Phoenix can keep making medicine and growing high-quality crops.”

Lan City’s water is the best in Huaguo, and it’s the most likely source that could sell large quantities of unpolluted spring water to Fire Phoenix long-term.

Relieved that Fire Phoenix wasn’t targeting her own spring, Xia Qing felt at ease again.

She tossed a piece of jerky to Flathead, who’d tried to block her path, then sprinted up the steep slope above the chestnut grove, dodging his chase. Once safe, she called down, “Where was Qu Fangzhou hiding back then?”

“She was inside Fire Mountain the whole time. No surprise, since she specializes in intelligence work—her hiding skills are top notch.” When Fire Phoenix and Apocalypse clashed, Qinglong made three priority targets: Dan Ying, Zhou Jin, and Qu Fangzhou. The first two were eliminated by Qinglong, but Qu Fangzhou stayed hidden. Yang Jin had begun to think she wasn’t even at Hui One Base.

Turns out, she’d been hiding in Fire Mountain all along.

To put it simply, if Dan Ying was Fire Phoenix’s scalpel, then Qu Fangzhou was its eyes and ears. Getting a new scalpel isn’t hard, but replacing your eyes and ears is. Not killing Qu Fangzhou was a huge regret for Yang Jin—even though half his plan succeeded, it still felt incomplete.

“Maybe she’s got special tricks or some evolved ability.” Xia Qing pointed down and laid out Yang Jin’s task. “After I carry up the two bags of chestnuts tied down there, just bring up the one that rolled to the edge of the thorn fence. Giant evolved wasps have shown up in the grove—they’re vicious. If you’re not fast enough and get their pheromones on your protective suit, the whole swarm will chase you back to Section Three.”

The fallen black bag had rolled out of reach of the robotic arms, so it couldn’t be hooked onto the rope. Someone had to go down and haul it up by hand. This job was tailor-made for a top speed evolver.

Yang Jin asked, “So we can’t kill the giant wasp?”

With Xia Qing’s marksmanship, shooting giant wasps would be effortless.

“Absolutely not. Those wasps are Third Brother’s pride and joy,” she explained. “They have a symbiotic relationship with the grove. Kill them, and it’ll mess up the ecosystem.”

“Got it.” After spraying on Zhang San’s custom insect repellent, Yang Jin silently crept into the valley, stopping at the safe spot Xia Qing pointed out. He watched her slowly drag two huge bags of chestnuts up the hill.

The evolved hornets in the grove aren’t too bright, but their sense of smell is ultra-sharp—they sniff out any outsiders who enter their territory.

The robotic arms picking chestnuts don’t have a biological scent, so the swarm ignores them. It’s actually a clever setup. But those robotic arms are clearly high-end equipment. Did Zhang San trade something so valuable to Xia Qing just for some chestnuts, or was there real research value in the evolved hornets and the grove itself?

Another question: Who exactly is controlling the robotic arms?

Xia Qing wasn’t volunteering any information, and Yang Jin knew better than to pry.

Once Xia Qing finally tugged both bags out of the danger zone, Yang Jin dashed in at top speed, grabbed the last sack, and escaped the grove before the hornets went wild. By the time the giant wasps burst from their nest, their target was long gone. The angry swarm circled the grove’s edge, searching in vain.

Yang Jin caught up, chestnuts spilling out of one bag slung on his back while he carried the other in hand. Just as Xia Qing reached out to help, she heard him say, “We found some surprises at Fire Phoenix this time.”

Feigning ignorance of her unspoken offer, Yang Jin hefted the sack and walked beside her back to Section Three. Then he continued, “We found a photo in Qu Fangzhou’s bedroom—her with a little girl, maybe four years old. Xie Yu saw that same girl at the underground lab. She was one of the test subjects and died after a failed experiment, before the lab was exposed.”

So Qu Fangzhou and Liao Wendong both joined Fire Mountain for the same reason—their loved ones died in the underground experiments, giving them a shared grudge against Fire Phoenix.

Xia Qing reasoned calmly, “Could Qu Fangzhou have left that photo there on purpose?”

Qu Fangzhou was a pro at gathering and analyzing intel; she would never knowingly let something that important slip.

“It’s very likely. But for now, it’s hard to say why,” Yang Jin replied, setting down the sack and handing Xia Qing a USB drive. “I found a field guide for new minerals that appeared after the disaster. If you want to sell ore blocks, just let me know—I only charge a one-tenth commission.”

Goofball had already brought over two bags of ore from Monk-faced Monkey’s territory for Xia Qing. Other than the Red Vein Stone, she didn’t know what the others were, so she’d asked Yang Jin to help look into it.

Last year, Xia Qing made a deal with Yang Jin: seventy pounds of Green Lantern pecans in exchange for whatever intel he could share. These mineral details were outside her usual circle, but not difficult for Yang Jin to get. She had him do the research—no extra fee required.