Chapter 122: The Potato Harvest and the Wolf’s Arrival

After returning to her territory Xia Qing sprayed deodorizer and insecticide around the borders then checked all her traps. Still, she couldn’t shake her unease.

Just to be safe, she decided she wouldn’t sleep tonight. She was going to guard her territory no matter what.

Now more than ever, it was crucial to keep her energy up. Xia Qing decided to dig up a potato for a good, filling meal.

She’d planted six jin of seed potatoes in March, which had sprouted into 102 plants. But after losses from Xiang Rain and other causes, just sixty remained. Out of those, ten had red strings tied around them.

Most crops with red strings in Territory Three now glowed green, except for those ten yellow-light potato seedlings. Even though they’re marked as yellow-light, they actually had the lowest Xiang element levels in the patch. Xia Qing planned to save those ten as seed potatoes for next year.

Potatoes have a high risk of mutating dangerously under Xiang Rain, but she just couldn’t give up on growing them. First, potatoes tasted great. Second, with her marksmanship significantly improved, she was confident she could shoot any dancing potato sprout before it became a threat.

Harvesting potatoes always felt like a treasure hunt to her. She chose a plant with the limpest leaves, chopped the stem with her knife, and started digging with extra care.

Not wanting to damage any potatoes, Xia Qing jabbed her shovel a good thirty centimeters from the base. After the first scoop, she switched to a small transplanting trowel, digging bit by bit.

When she uncovered the first potato, she couldn’t help but cheer. Boss Sheep heard her excitement outside and squeezed inside. Xia Qing held up her first big potato to him. “Boss, look at this—a potato!”

Boss Sheep sniffed at it and squinted, clearly unimpressed.

Fine by her if Boss Sheep didn’t care—she could eat it all herself! She set the fist-sized potato aside and kept digging, calling out in excitement from the shed. “This one’s got to weigh half a jin.”

“It’s noticeably bigger than the seed potato I planted; this one has to be at least three liang.”

This plant had produced nine potatoes of all sizes. Xia Qing wasn’t sure if that’s a high yield or not, but she was pretty satisfied.

She gently placed them in her basket and let Boss Sheep carry it back for her. Passing the chicken coop, Xia Qing grabbed the chicken already snuggled inside its cage. Girl and sheep, both heading home.

Back home, she put the chicken in the sheep shed she’d originally built for Boss Sheep. The ground and walls were all cemented, and with the sturdy iron door locked, she didn’t have to worry about evolved animals stealing her chicken at night.

Inside, Xia Qing weighed her potatoes. All nine together were eight and a half jin. If all else was similar, her sixty plants might yield five hundred jin of potatoes.

Five hundred jin!

Humming a little tune, Xia Qing set rice to steam and cleaned two potatoes. After slicing, she tested their juice for Xiang element content. The results matched the seedlings’ sap—eight per thousand, yellow-light, perfectly edible.

She peeled and julienned the potatoes with glee, tossed in a dried red chili, stir-fried it all, and splashed in some vinegar. The sharp, spicy aroma filled the kitchen and had her sneezing nonstop.

The scent drifted into the living room too. Even Boss Sheep sniffled and let out a sneeze. “Baa!”

Boss Sheep might not have enjoyed it, but Xia Qing was basking in the warmth of home cooking. Once everything was done, she mixed up some special feed for Boss Sheep. “Dinner time, Boss!”

She and Boss Sheep ate at separate tables. Xia Qing took a bite of the stir-fried potato slivers and nearly melted in bliss. Even with basic cooking skills, you couldn’t go wrong with this spicy, tangy dish.

The potatoes she made tonight—absolutely delicious!

Next year, she’s going to grow even more. Potatoes every day!

But if she’s going to eat potatoes daily, she’ll need to find a way to store them long-term. As she washed the dishes, Xia Qing couldn’t stop thinking about solutions for potato storage.

Based on what she’d heard in the Lord’s Group, her territory had kept more potatoes than Territories Three, Four, Five, Six, or Ten. Others had lost theirs when their rain shelters were damaged during dangerous Xiang evolutions.

So, among those lords, she was probably the only one who needed a potato storage plan.

Asking in the group would only spark jealousy and invite trouble. That left her with two options for help: her idol Zhang San or her mentor Luo Pei.

This time, she decided to ask Luo Pei. After all, the Azure Dragon Unit had turned Plot One into a thousand-mu farming zone. They had to have vegetable storage methods.

She planned to use points to store her potatoes in Plot One’s warehouse and take them as needed.

Just as she made up her mind, Luo Pei messaged her. The recon on Mountain 55 was done: a massive fight had broken out among wolves, snakes, and bears. Now the fight was over, and Mountain 49 wouldn’t get dragged into it.

Xia Qing couldn’t even picture wolves, snakes, and bears duking it out, let alone guess why they fought in the first place.

Territory wars? Fighting over resources? And who came out on top?

She, for one, was rooting for the wolf pack. If they’d won, she wouldn’t have to worry about stray wolves slipping into her territory and stealing her land.

She finished her night training, then took another careful tour around the territory. Only after checking every noise-making trap did she head home, wriggle into her protective suit, and lay down to rest.

In the dead of night, she heard Boss Sheep moving downstairs and the squeak of the security door opening: “Creak-grind—bang.”

Boss Sheep never snacked at night but would ruminate and take bathroom breaks. He always kept a strict schedule, so Xia Qing was used to the sound.

Right as she drifted off, there was a crisp “ding.” Something had tripped the tripwire trap outside the courtyard!

Xia Qing jolted awake, grabbed her gun, and dashed into the second-floor living room, peeking out from behind the blackout curtain. She heard a wolf’s quiet call.

“Awoo—”

Finally. Xia Qing actually felt the tension in her chest drop like a stone.

“Baa!”

Boss Sheep, just done with his business in the yard, gave an excited reply, dashed over, and pressed the gate latch with his hoof. Slam—the wooden gate swung open before Xia Qing could stop him.

Not knowing how many wolves might have come, Xia Qing armed herself with two guns, more than two hundred rounds of ammo, and three knives. When she left the house and got a clear view, she stopped dead in her tracks.

What on earth… is happening here?

Out in the dark, snow-white Boss Sheep was rubbing affectionately against a wolf whose left ear had a notch in it. Xia Qing had half expected this much. The wolf and sheep reunion was even more eye-searing than spicy potato slivers but not entirely surprising.

The four glowing green wolf eyes behind the lead wolf didn’t faze her either—she’d already figured the pack would show up and try to steal her territory.

But why were there two wolves carrying two more on their backs?

Were those… jackals? As in, literally a wolf-jackal alliance?

Staring down six sets of glowing green wolf eyes, Xia Qing gripped her weapons and calmly stepped forward. If the pack made any move, she’d immediately take the high ground and unleash her guns, determined to wipe them out.