Chapter 1148: First Experiments in the Lab

After leaving Territory Seven, Xia Qing delivered the skins of two giant pythons—already soaked in pesticide—to Territory Eleven.

With the skins, she made protective suits for two huge wolves, two adolescent wolves, complete sets of protective gear for both herself and Yan Long, and three pairs of gloves for the Azure Dragon Squad leaders. She set aside the remaining top-grade Hardness Evolution python skin, not quite sure what to do with it yet.

Most of the other python skin was traded to allies, but inspired by Zhu Li, Xia Qing decided to use the rest to make two snakeskin medicine packets and two snakeskin bags for herself.

Of course, all of it was handed over to Huo Lei for crafting, and she paid him with a bit of the leftover skin.

Once back in her own territory, Xia Qing changed her shoes at the lab door, entered the password with a series of beeps, walked in, washed her hands, put on a white lab coat and mask, then stepped into the testing room. There, she carefully placed the palm-sized cardboard box Da Ya had given her onto the workbench.

Then Xia Qing paused. She’d forgotten to disinfect the cardboard box…

Oh well, her Idol wasn’t around and the box looked clean enough—no point taking it back out just to disinfect it. She weighed the box right away, then snipped open the tape, took out the small bag inside, dumped all the giant wasp droppings into a glass vial, and weighed the empty box and bag to get the precise weight of the droppings.

After confirming the weight, Xia Qing mixed in the right amount of compost starter powder, gave the bottle a good shake, and placed the tiny vial of giant wasp droppings in the smallest compartment of the environmental control room, setting the temperature to 55°C.

Hands clasped behind her back, she leaned in to study the 37.2 grams of giant wasp droppings inside the bottle—each piece about the size and shape of a mung bean.

Honestly, she had no idea how many times Idol had complained about her collecting this tiny pile of droppings, but Xia Qing never minded. She thought they looked perfectly fine. She was convinced: once these high Evolution Element giant wasp droppings finished fermenting, they would make exceptionally rich fertilizer. Mixing them with Yi Stone granules to raise X-3 would definitely boost the Evolution Element content in her spinach crop!

The only problem was…there wasn’t nearly enough. This tiny bit didn’t even fill a single compartment—what a waste of equipment and electricity.

So, Xia Qing headed for the breeding greenhouse, scooped up bug droppings and debris from the breadworm tray buckets, packed it all into a clear plastic bottle, then gathered Green Lantern chicken manure, sheep manure, and cow manure. After adding compost powder by weight, she stashed them all in their slots inside the environmental control room, set up for fermenting animal manure.

She labeled each of the five samples—four big, one small—and wrote a thorough entry in the control room’s experiment journal.

Wearing her lab coat and mask, hands clasped behind her back, Xia Qing stood surveying her work from every angle, completely satisfied. Finally, her eighty-thousand-credit lab was being put to use. Once the migratory bird season ended, she planned to use this precise climate room to grow a batch of X-3, plant some fresh winter vegetables, and bring in strawberry pots. That way, she could have fresh fruit this winter.

Of course, cultivating X-3 meant only the best high Evolution Element soil would do.

But she wasn’t planning to dig up her own terraces. Instead, Xia Qing wanted to go to Hill Fifty-Five. She’d already mapped the flow of pure spring water there—it was just like what Section Three had, all hidden deep within the mountain.

The difference was, Section Three’s spring was tucked in a small stone cave on a slope, while Hill Fifty-Five’s was buried inside a mountain peak—making it even harder for people to find.

There wasn’t any soil inside the mountain fissures or in the wolf dens, but one small branch of the pure spring trickled into a fissure at the edge of Python Pond on Hill Fifty-Five.

Years of rain had deposited a layer of soil, more than twenty centimeters thick, inside the crack. Xia Qing had sampled and tested it herself—the selenium content wasn’t high, but it still counted as high Evolution Element soil.

Better still, it was packed full of animal droppings—super fertile soil!

She only found out from the Crippled Wolf that every Devastation Rain and Snow season, animals would crowd into the mountain fissure to hide, so the manure had piled up over time.

Wolves were carnivores and didn’t care about soil or plants, so when Xia Qing asked to dig up the soil there for her crops, the Crippled Wolf agreed easily—for the price of a pink little mirror with decorative lace.

As for how the atmospheric Devastation Element there stayed low during Devastation Rain, Xia Qing didn’t even have to ask—clearly, it had something to do with the Yi Stone.

She planned to make several trips with tools to bring the soil back and fill the slots in her environmental chamber, where she’d grow top-notch crops. While she was at it, she’d recover the Black Blade she’d left behind in another pond on Hill Fifty-Five.

But all that would have to wait until the end of migratory bird season.

The next day, flocks of birds soared over Section Three, though not enough to block out the sky just yet. After Xia Qing checked air defense arrangements at the Ninth Center, she napped in her territory. At five, she and the top sniper ‘Night Heron’ of the Azure Dragon Squad boarded a helicopter, ready for the night’s mission—tracking to a bird habitat fifty miles south of the Hui Three Safe Zone.

This place, deep in Hui Three’s Evolved Forest, served as a critical stopover for migrating birds—a seasonal refueling station. Every year, huge flocks would gather, and Hui Three dispatched both military and battle squads to hunt the large and medium-sized birds, keeping the Safe Zone’s meat stocks up.

Tonight, Xia Qing and Zhang Ling’s task was to keep an eye on the skies—making sure no speed-evolved raptors or raiders from other territories swooped in to snatch humanity’s ‘prey.’

Xia Qing also had another mission: to show off her top-tier sniping skills during the operation so everyone at Huicheng Base would know—besides Luo Pei, Hui Three now had another elite sniper in their ranks.

So, on this mission, Xia Qing ditched the codename Night Heron and went by her real title: Hui Three’s dual-system senior evolutionary and Lord of Section Three, Xia Qing.

Tonight, Night Heron was actually Zhang Ling.

The moment Xia Qing and Zhang Ling jumped off the helicopter with their sniper rifles, every eye snapped to them. Some gazes were friendly, others curious, a few skeptical, and some tinged with jealousy. Xia Qing acted as if she didn’t notice at all—expression calm, she strode to the front and greeted the tall figure in front with serious respect: “Luo.”

Luo Pei nodded warmly. “All set back in your territory?”

Xia Qing nodded. “All taken care of, Luo. Thank you for your hard work. Go get some rest, Night Heron and I have it covered here.”

“Alright.” Luo Pei patted his two apprentices on the shoulder, then walked toward the helicopter to head back to Territory One. He rarely lingered there except when recovering from injury, but even so, Luo Pei had come to feel a special sense of belonging to that land.

After all, nothing else could match the warmth and hope he felt there.