Chapter 130: A Taste of the Wild and Preparations for Survival

Before the Cataclysm, egrets were a protected species and Xia Qing had never tasted their meat. She couldn’t tell if egret was always this delicious or if it only became so after it evolved. But after slow-cooking this egret, she decided it easily beat the chicken she once shared with Xu Juan in the Safe Zone cafeteria.

Then again, maybe it was just because that chicken was a yellow-light wild chicken while this egret was green-light quality.

When Xia Qing finished, not even a drop of soup was left. She slumped in her chair, pleasantly full, and told Boss Sheep, “Your friend is pretty amazing.”

Boss Sheep looked just as satisfied, lying on the tatami and closing his eyes for a nap.

Why wasn’t he out there squeezing in with the wolves? Xia Qing figured it was just that the outside was scorching and the inside was cool and comfy.

Once the food coma hit, Xia Qing sent Hu Zifeng a message asking if he could send someone to guard Territory Three in half an hour. She reminded him to keep clear of her courtyard, since there were still wolves there.

After cleaning up the dishes, Xia Qing pulled on her protective suit, grabbed her weapons and hurried off to train at her private ground. With the Alpha Wolf being so powerful and his pack still losing to the snakes and bears, Xia Qing knew it was only a matter of time before she ran into other evolved animal clans. She had to step up her training and get stronger.

Crossing the barrier, Xia Qing ran into the Inspection Team on patrol. She noticed everyone from the team was out today, and Tan Junjie’s daughter, Tan Qi, wasn’t with them.

Normally, the Inspection Team wouldn’t be doing a patrol at this hour. It looked like Luo Pei had already told Tan Junjie about the wolves slipping into Territory Three last night, so patrols got amped up.

She wondered if those three wolves carrying the egret earlier were picked up by one of the team’s olfactory evolvers.

Learning from earlier slip-ups, Xia Qing really scrubbed down her suit and sprayed herself with deodorizer before stepping out. She was squeaky clean, with no trace of wolf scent, and that put her at ease.

When the Inspection Team came up to her and heard Xia Qing was assigned to clean up Mountain Forty-Nine, they told her to meet up with the Squad. Tan Junjie asked, “Nothing unusual in the territory, right?”

Xia Qing didn’t know exactly what Luo Pei had told Tan Junjie. She kept things simple: “Everything’s normal.”

After the Inspection Team left, Xia Qing paused and listened for a while. Once she was sure Su Ming and the others didn’t know anything about wolves being around, she crossed the barrier into Mountain Forty-Nine’s Area Three. She started training while clearing out aggressive evolved creatures.

Two hours later, Xia Qing sat beneath a tree, eyes fixed on the lush green pine cones hanging above.

Her private training field was dotted with pine trees, many of them bearing cones. Xia Qing had checked the pine trees for Xiang element content, marking twenty-eight as yellow-light and four as green-light.

Pine nuts don’t mature until November or December, so there was no rush for those. But wild fruits that ripen this season—those needed picking soon.

“Bzz.”

As her phone vibrated, Xia Qing had the voice assistant read out her messages. Hearing Luo Pei was looking for her, she instructed, “Hey, Dummy, send my location to Luo Ge.”

“Got it!” The voice assistant replied in a sweet, cheerful tone. “Your location’s been sent to Luo Ge.”

Less than ten minutes later, Luo Pei showed up, handing Xia Qing a sack of raw materials for making Yi Stone protective shells. “Had these lying around in my territory’s warehouse, so I packed a bag for you. I’ll send you the instructions for crafting the protective shell in a bit.”

“Thanks, Luo Ge.” Xia Qing took the heavy sack—over thirty pounds—with both hands.

Luo Pei passed her another small bag. “The Squad found some green-light wild native ground-cherries today while clearing the woods. They’re tangy, sweet and the girls—Chang Li and the others—love them. I brought you some, too.”

“Thanks, Luo Ge.” Xia Qing accepted them right away, not wanting to dampen the mood by mentioning Points for trade.

Luo Pei updated Xia Qing. “That speed-evolved wolf got into Area Three of Mountain Forty-Nine by cutting through the valley between Mountains Forty-Nine and Fifty, then slipped into your territory from the valley.”

Area Three of Mountain Forty-Nine was Xia Qing’s private training ground. According to her lease agreement with the Azure Dragon Unit, Area Three wasn’t included in the rental, so she was personally responsible for clearing and guarding the Evolver Forest there.

Xia Qing asked, “Do you know which valley the wolf used, Luo Ge?”

“Valley One,” Luo Pei replied.

There were two narrow valleys in Area Three, shaped like a ‘Y’ and meeting at the Breeding Center. They continued south, passing between Territory Three and Territory Four, with streams flowing into the east-west river cutting through Xia Qing’s territory. Xia Qing had named the valley running northeast to southwest as Valley One, and the one running northwest to southeast as Valley Two.

Both valleys led straight into her territory. If wolves could get in that way, so could any other large evolved beasts.

Xia Qing quickly made up her mind. “Once the wolves are healed, I’ll dig a few traps along Valley One where it leads into my territory. I’ll need your help with the northern passage, Luo Ge.”

After Luo Pei left, Xia Qing tucked away her bags of soil and stones and opened the paper bag holding the ground-cherries. According to her agreement with the Azure Dragon Unit, any green-light plants found on Mountain Forty-Nine had to be reported to her. So a few days ago, Luo Pei had sent her a photo; she knew these spiny wild fruits were green-light and edible.

These little berries also grew wild in Area Three and her own Buffer Forest. They were low-lying creeping shrubs. Xia Qing had noticed their pretty flowers a few months back, but once they morphed into prickly fruits, they looked so unappetizing that she’d never tried picking them.

Unexpectedly, when they ripened they turned purplish-red and looked quite tempting. Xia Qing tried one and found it sweet-tart. Still couldn’t beat the green-light strawberries, but not bad at all. She packed away the fruit, grabbed her bag of soil and dashed to the densest patch of ground-cherries in Area Three. Sure enough, many fruits had ripened deep purple and bright red.

The mature fruit clustered densely among vibrant green leaves. If you ignored the bugs gnawing on them, it was honestly a nice sight.

Insects were nibbling on the berries, but the plants didn’t fight back, so it seemed they hadn’t yet evolved any animal-like traits.

Xia Qing knew better than to let her guard down. She tested a few to be sure the plants weren’t aggressive, then pulled out her Xiang Tester and started measuring their Xiang element levels. Since the shrubs crept so low and their branches could grow over thirty centimeters, it was tough to tell where one ended and another began; the testing took a fair bit of time.

After checking the area, Xia Qing identified two green-light shrubs and six yellow-light ones, each holding ripe, bug-free fruit.

She marked the edible plants with strips of cloth, picked the safe fruit, sealed them up and stuffed them in her pack before heading to the next cluster for more testing and collecting.

After three hours, Xia Qing found six green-light and twenty yellow-light plants in total.

By the rules of plant evolution, ninety-nine percent of fruit on a green-light plant would be green-light, the remaining one percent might be yellow or red. On yellow-light plants, ninety-nine percent were yellow-light, a rare one might be green or red. The same held true for red-light. So, once a plant was confirmed safe, people would gather all the fruit—even that one percent red-light. The tiny bit of extra Xiang element wasn’t enough to weigh a body down.

From over twenty ground-cherry shrubs, Xia Qing picked more than three pounds of fruit. After washing and eating around half a pound at home, she took the already-dried green-light egret from her food dehydrator, cleaned the iron wire rack, spread out all the ground-cherries and set them to dry.

If left out, they’d spoil overnight and be inedible by morning.

Later, Boss Sheep came inside. Xia Qing handed him two saved fruits, but Boss Sheep just gave them a sniff, not even bothering to taste.

“Philistine,” Xia Qing flicked his hard forehead, then thought about giving the rejected fruit to her injured wolf guests. She held back, though—she didn’t want her VIPs getting an upset stomach.

Once the dried egret was sealed up, Xia Qing checked her food box, now nearly bursting. With potatoes in the field about to ripen, sweet potatoes on the way and the mountain rich in wild fruit and pine cones, she made up her mind: it was time to build a root cellar for food storage in her territory.