Chapter 1116: Harvest of Evolution: Spinach, Squirrels, and Savvy Wolves

While Huo Zhun and his two friends bounced down the bumpy dirt road outside the Safe Zone in Tang Huai’s luxury car—their sights set on scamming some fat sheep—Xia Qing was busy in Section Three, inside Greenhouse Two, harvesting a new crop of high-evolution spinach.

Eager to improve the spinach’s quality as quickly as possible, Xia Qing had started a new batch every two weeks since March, constantly adjusting the ratios of fertilizer and water, totally absorbed in the process.

Of course, since Section Three only had a limited amount of high evolution element soil, each round of spinach was kept to one hundred plants, taking up about six square meters. Up to now, she’d planted thirteen rounds, using up one and a half terraces.

The spring-to-summer transition in Hui Three gave perfect conditions for spinach to thrive. The batch Xia Qing started at the beginning of March was ready for harvest by late May. With the rising temperature, the time for the plants to mature and set seed got longer. The batch Xia Qing harvested today was planted in late May and had been growing for an impressive 115 days.

In this crop, sixty-six spinach seeds sprouted. Of these, forty turned out to be female plants, twenty-three were male, making sixty-three mature plants. Thanks to constant protection from her Yi Stone, every spinach plant reached Green Lantern quality, with an evolution element content between 7.5 and 7.9.

Because spinach left to ripen naturally would send seeds flying everywhere, all three thousand seeds got mixed together. There’s no way to distinguish their quality just by looking.

Even though she didn’t have any high-tech selection equipment, Xia Qing actually had a much more cost-effective way to pick seeds.

She reached into her pocket for Employee No. 001 of Section Three—Little Fei Mao—and placed the fluffy squirrel on the dustpan piled with 3,824 seeds. Her voice gentle, she coaxed, “Little Fei Mao, pick out the very best seeds from this batch. Do a good job and I’ll reward you with high-evolution spinach.”

Surrounded by delicious food, Little Fei Mao’s fluffy tail swayed back and forth like seaweed. He sniffed one seed after another, selecting the tastiest of the bunch, and hid them in Xia Qing’s pocket for safekeeping.

These seeds were the optimized ones—packed with the highest evolution element—from today’s harvest.

Full of anticipation, Xia Qing took out the twelve selected seeds and slid them into a small, breathable bag. Then she grabbed a pen and scribbled a line on the sticky note attached to the bag:

Disaster Year 11 0523–0914: Fei Mao’s Premium Spinach Seeds.

This string of numbers meant that inside were spinach seeds sown on May 23rd and harvested on September 14th of Disaster Year Eleven, all personally handpicked and optimized by Little Fei Mao.

The evolution content of these seeds had to be at least 8. Next spring, when she planted these, she’d be one step closer to reaching the cultivation goal her Idol set!

Brimming with hope, Xia Qing carefully put away the twelve precious seeds and stored the rest. She fished a chunk of spinach root out of a bag to reward her hardworking, debt-paying little squirrel. “Little Fei Mao, you’re amazing—the best seed selector on all of Blue Star. This spinach is a reward for you. Eat it, and you’ll be even stronger than Qiang Zai!”

Thank goodness, Qiang Zai had finally cleared out all the Devastation Grass seeds stuck in his gut today! Now he and his mother were crouched just outside the greenhouse, tails wagging and little paws rubbing together, both waiting for a free meal.

Spinach stalks were fine and all, but Little Fei Mao still preferred the seeds tucked away in Xia Qing’s pocket. Being a squirrel always on the lookout for hard times, he’d rather stash every treat in his nest and only dig them out when there was nothing else to eat.

So, happily swishing his fluffy tail, he cradled the stalk Xia Qing gave him and started gnawing away with gusto.

“Baa~~~”

“Ah—”

Outside the thorn fence, Old Goat and Monkey hurriedly called out, reminding Xia Qing that they still hadn’t gotten any spinach.

Xia Qing glanced back at the two with spinach stains on their mouths, then gathered up some broken stems and leaves from seeds that had burst out of their pods. She laid the pile at their feet. “This is high-evolution spinach. If you eat too much, your body won’t even absorb it. This is the last bit for today.”

After feeding her friends, Xia Qing messaged her Idol, asking if he needed fresh, top-quality spinach stalks or seeds.

Although the price of seeds and plants had dropped a lot after X-2 went on the market, the ones from Xia Qing’s fields weren’t your everyday X-2. These had evolution element content above 7, making them X-3.

Marketplace X-2 spinach, with 5–6 points of evolution content, sold for eight credits per seed and two hundred credits per pound. Xia Qing’s X-3 fetches one hundred thirty credits per seed and two hundred eighty per pound of stalks.

So today, the total value of Xia Qing’s spinach harvest and plants came to 277,000 credits!

Now, she could harvest two spinach crops every month, selling for over half a million credits monthly. After subtracting the cost of Yi Stones and premium fertilizer, her net profit was still more than four hundred grand.

Once her spinach crossed eight points of evolution content, prices would only climb. With every calculation, Xia Qing felt even happier and started humming a little tune.

Zhang San replied soon after: thirty pounds of spinach with the highest quality, a hundred seeds. Zheng Chen will pick them up in fifteen minutes.

Her Idol, true to form, still didn’t want to see her. Xia Qing sighed and started portioning out the spinach.

The best spinach and seeds she kept for herself—to breed and eat. The next best batch she set aside for Idol’s guy, Zheng Chen, for research. The third batch she’d sell to the Azure Dragon Squad, for their internal use only: they could breed it, turn it into nutrient shakes, whatever, but no way could they sell any outside.

Since X-2 had only been in the market half a year, its spinach quality and stability were perfect. There was no need to push X-3 out so soon—it’d just rattle the already jittery nerves of other bases and research institutes.

Still humming, Xia Qing went home, packed the spinach stalks into her big double-door fridge, and was about to spread out the seeds to dry when the rarely-seen Handsome Huge Wolf nudged open the door. He trotted in, paws thumping, making a beeline for the door of the first-floor bathroom—demanding his medicinal bath.

Xia Qing came downstairs and eyed his filthy fur with concern. “Big Wolf, did you fall in a mud pit or get into another fight?”

Handsome Huge Wolf kept his stare locked on the bathroom door, refusing to budge.

He could be as stubborn as a mule, so Xia Qing just led him into the bathroom, sprayed off all the mud and dead grass from his pelt, then grabbed those big paws for a thorough wash before letting him into the bath barrel, filling it with warm water and adding the medicine.

As the water rose higher, the thick silver fur of the Handsome Huge Wolf spread out, making him look even bigger and more impressive.

Sitting by the edge of the bath barrel, Xia Qing gave him a quick report, “This is your last bag of medicine for the bath. Once it’s gone, that’s it.”

After he finally looked her way, she lifted the empty medicine bag before his striking ice-blue eyes. “That’s all there is. No more,” she spelled out.

Xia Qing had bartered for fifteen bags of medicine by delivering evolution element magnetic field organisms to her Idol. But the wolf had gone through his whole supply in just ten days, except for the day they both shared the same medicated bath. Now, he was out.

Handsome Huge Wolf gave the medicine bag a brief glance, shut his eyes, and sank his head under the water.

No medicine? He didn’t care anymore.

Xia Qing heaved a sigh. “Fine, I’ll find a way to trade for more.”

“Ding.”

No sooner had Xia Qing finished scrubbing wolf paw prints from the floor and stepped out of the bathroom than her phone chimed—once, twice, three times.

After a good while, an Evolved Wolf appeared in front of Xia Qing, her paws freshly washed in the water basin by the door.

The moment she saw what he was carrying in his mouth, Xia Qing broke into a huge grin. “Handsome Wolf, you got the Yi Stone back from the Western Wolf King? Wow, you’re incredible—the brightest, cleverest wolf on all of Blue Star! Blue Star shines even brighter thanks to you!”

Crippled Wolf dodged Xia Qing’s extended paw, lifted one big paw, and pointed to the automatic door at the entrance.

Xia Qing immediately nodded. “The door’s been delivered—I’ll go over and install it for you tomorrow morning.”

Only then did Crippled Wolf hand over the Yi Stone Necklace, baring his gleaming white, adorably sharp little fangs.