Chapter 120: Raising Chicks and New Challenges on the Territory

Before Xia Qing could even speak, Tang Zhengbo responded in his usual calm way. “Tang Huai, come over for a minute.”

“Okay, Dad, I’m coming.” Tang Huai hadn’t expected his dad to be online and instantly straightened up.

Once Tang Huai was called away by his dad, the channel went silent. Xia Qing kept working the rotary tiller, clearing a big patch of wild grass north of her house, then hitched up Boss Sheep to the three-blade plow and started turning the soil.

Honestly, using the rotary tiller would have been faster, but since she got back from the Produce Trade Fair, Boss Sheep had become extra clingy and eager to help. Eager to prove its worth, it wanted to join in on everything. Forget the rotary tiller—even if Xia Qing only used a shovel for a couple of scoops, Boss Sheep wanted in.

If there’s heavy lifting to be done, or land to plow, you have to use Boss Sheep. At this point, you didn’t even need to bribe it—who knew how long this burst of motivation would last?

As soon as Xia Qing and Boss Sheep got to work, all the birds on the territory flew in from every direction, swooping down to snatch up insects from the freshly turned earth.

After plowing several acres, Xia Qing let Boss Sheep take a break. She started staking posts and fixing up fencing along the edge of the tilled ground. Once the fence was done, she brought some insect netting from home to stretch over the top—and just like that, the chicken enclosure for the Greenlight Chickens was ready.

Turning the soil made it easier for the chicks to dig for bugs in the soft earth. Putting up the netting and fence kept evolved animals and birds of prey from stealing them—exactly what Zhang San had mentioned in the info he sent Xia Qing.

The day after Xia Qing finished setting up the coop, Ji Li dropped off seventeen chickens.

The evolved chickens were a month old, and their feathers were already fully grown. It was easy to spot ten hens and seven roosters at a glance.

Ji Li helped Xia Qing pour the chickens into the big bamboo basket she’d brought, then asked, “Did they ever find that wolf?”

Xia Qing shook her head. “No. I think it went back to the Evolver Forest.”

Ji Li warned her, “The chickens’ clucking can attract evolved wildcats, weasels, foxes, and wolves. Make sure to spray deodorizer around the coop and the area every day. At night, after the chickens go back in the coop, it’s best to bring them indoors and let them out again in the morning.”

Xia Qing took note, then got curious about whether the evolved cats in Territory Seven might snatch a chicken too. “Brother Ji, does Princess Cat eat chickens?”

“She does.” At the mention of Princess Cat, Ji Li’s stern face lit up with affection. “But she doesn’t eat the ones from home. She’ll go to the mountains and hunt wild chickens herself. If Princess Cat or those two little ones come over and steal a chicken, call me right away. Any losses, Plot Seven will pay you double. But don’t worry too much—the wolves in Territory Three leave their scent everywhere. Since Princess Cat is raising her kids, they probably won’t come round.”

“…” Not only did she not end up raising a cat, now Xia Qing had to watch out for feline thieves—her feelings were all over the place.

After sending Ji Li on his way, Xia Qing carried the chicken cage down the mountain. As she released the chickens into the pen, she caught hold of a scruffy little black rooster, reluctant to let go.

Evolving had made the chickens bigger, and at a month old, each weighed over three pounds. If you butchered one, you’d get at least two pounds of meat.

Seven roosters seemed like a lot… maybe she could try one and see how it tasted?

Sensing Xia Qing’s wicked intentions, the black-feathered rooster pecked her hand sharply. She let go fast, and it darted into the enclosure, turning back to cluck at her in outrage—like it was cursing her out.

“The fiercer you curse, the sooner you’ll end up in the pot. I just had chicken stew in the Safe Zone a couple days ago, so I’ll let you grow a bit longer.” Xia Qing muttered, then did a lap around the coop to make sure there weren’t any gaps in the fence or netting that the chickens could escape through. Afterward, she mixed some chopped greens with bran and cornmeal for the chicks, put the feed inside, and then even tried mimicking a mother hen’s clucking.

The chicks rushed over the moment they heard her call. Seeing them eat so eagerly, Xia Qing felt much better. All the greens and feed were mixed with spring water, and their water dispenser was filled with the same. Feeding them like this, the chicks would have no problem making it through the third Xiang Rain this year and should start laying eggs soon.

In at most a month, her second batch of crops would face the toughest challenge of their lives—the Xiang Rain.

Xia Qing planted in such a rush because she wanted her second crop to mature a little before the third Xiang Rain hit. That way they’d have stronger resistance. She also hoped her Greenlight and Yellowlight fish could hold off on spawning until after the third Xiang Rain, otherwise most of the fry would probably be hit with Xiang Evolution.

Toting her hoe, Xia Qing went to weed her corn and mung bean fields. It had rained a fair bit a few days back, and now new weeds had sprouted everywhere—she needed to clear them out quickly.

Boss Sheep was hanging out by the chicken coop, chewing a blade of grass and watching the fun. When Xia Qing left for the fields, Boss Sheep trotted after her. While she went to weed the corn, Boss Sheep sprawled under a nearby tree and started ruminating.

Now that Xia Qing understood the germination rate for Yellowlight Seeds, she would sow them closer together. For example, with corn, where the row spacing was forty centimeters and plant spacing should be thirty to forty, she would drop seeds at intervals of twenty centimeters. About sixty percent would sprout, so that’d ensure an average of thirty to forty centimeters between healthy plants.

Of course, sometimes two or three seeds in a row all sprouted, or none at all. Whenever this happened, she’d just use a seedling trowel to move extra seedlings from clustered spots to empty ones.

With this method, the corn and mung beans in her fields looked neat and uniform. There was something deeply satisfying about it.

Xia Qing was strong, and she’d modified her hoe to be wider and heavier, making it perfect for weeding. She worked fast and wrapped things up by noon. Gathering up the bigger weeds she’d pulled, she dumped them into a bamboo basket, slung her hoe over one shoulder and the basket over the other, and called out to Boss Sheep, “Hey, lunchtime! I’ll go pick some greens, and you can go catch some bugs for the fish.”

Boss Sheep squinted at Xia Qing but didn’t budge.

Catching bugs wasn’t exactly hard labor—Boss Sheep wasn’t a fan. Neither was Xia Qing.

She walked over and slipped a piece of compressed ration into Boss Sheep’s bag. “Go on now. Feed the fish, come home, and I’ll cook you something good. You’re the best, Boss Sheep. If you didn’t feed them, all our fish would just starve!”

Only after soaking up all of Xia Qing’s sweet talk did Boss Sheep finally get up, shake out its badly shorn coat, and set off with a little basket to do its job.

Xia Qing left her hoe and basket under a tree, wandering off to check on her farmland.

All the rice seedlings she’d bought from the Safe Zone were alive, though they were shorter than the Greenlight rice seedlings she got from Zhang San, and the leaves weren’t the same vibrant green. Yellowlight plants contained more Xiang element than Greenlight ones—so the color difference was normal.

After checking the rice fields, Xia Qing stopped by the potatoes and noticed their leaves looked off. She pressed her walkie-talkie. “Qi Ge, are you there?”

Qi Fu replied right away. “Yep, what’s up?”

Everyone was used to Xia Qing staying quiet during the day—if she asked something, it meant it was important.

“My potato plants are wilting and the leaves look dry. Have yours changed at all?” Xia Qing asked.

Qi Fu chuckled. “Yeah, we were just talking about it this morning. When the potato leaves wilt a bit more, it means it’s time to dig them up.”

Fantastic! Xia Qing’s mood soared as she kept walking.

Kuang Qingwei called out, “Xia Qing, haven’t heard a peep from you all morning. What’re you busy with?”

Xia Qing answered, “Weeding the corn and mung beans—if I leave the weeds, they’ll be taller than the corn soon.”

Kuang Qingwei chimed in with a complaint, “We’re swamped with the same thing. Can’t use herbicides anymore, so farming’s way harder than before the disasters.”

Using pre-disaster herbicides on crops now increases the chance of Xiang Evolution. You couldn’t rely on plastic mulch for weeding, either—that would keep the Xiang element trapped in the soil after the Xiang Rain, upping the risk as well.

Zhao Ze joined in, grumbling about stubborn weeds, then asked, “You’ve still got potatoes in your territory, right? If you dig them up, can you trade me ten pounds?”

Ten pounds—what a bold ask. Xia Qing replied coolly, “I barely have any left myself.”

While Shi Chong and Qi Fu were discussing weeding, Assistant Liu from Plot Nine chimed in, “Our lord just developed a plant-based enzyme herbicide—made from enzymes produced by the plants themselves. It’s non-toxic, non-polluting, safe for the environment, and currently in trial use. If any lords want to try it out, you can apply for a free trial.”

No need to ask—if there were problems with the trials, lords would have to take responsibility themselves, and Territory Nine wouldn’t cover it. No one wanted to risk hard-earned seedlings just for a test run.

Weeding may be tough, but with Fourth Sister’s weedkiller, you might lose your crops along with the weeds. Who would you even blame if that happened?

Nobody in the Lord’s Channel responded; Xia Qing wasn’t interested either. She walked past the sweet potato patch, now swelling with new growth, and stopped by the pumpkin field. Her eyes went wide. “Everyone, my pumpkins are finally budding!”