Chapter 189: A Winter of Plenty

While the lords of Territory Two and Plot One were busy cursing each other in the chat over two tamed beasts—and even brawling in real life—Xia Qing stayed peacefully on her own land, digging out the cellar, tending to the sick wolf, and weeding the garden.

After seven days of hard work, Xia Qing finished the cellar beneath the storeroom. She still hadn’t traded for climate control equipment, but the cellar was already cooler than outside, making it perfect for storing food. She placed the wheat and mung beans in the cellar under the tool shed, while the potatoes went under the storeroom.

In the center of each storage room, Xia Qing hung a chunk of Yi Stone, big enough to protect a thirty-cubic-meter space. As for the cellar in the abandoned southwest village, which was just for show, she only installed a small exhaust fan and tossed in about ten small potatoes.

Yi Stone could block out most of the Xiang element, which meant it kept destructive, evolution-driven microbes at bay. Now her cellars matched the pre-disaster warehouses—no fancy equipment, yet still safe for storage.

She remembered Qi Fu and Shi Chong mentioning that, before the calamity, farmers would just keep sun-dried grain in sheds or granaries. If it wasn’t chewed up by rats or soaked by rain, it’d last a whole year without getting moldy or rotten.

So, even without perfect temperature or humidity, her food should keep for around half a year. Once she got the climate-control equipment, it could last over a year.

In a disaster year, when even compressed rations barely lasted three days, being able to store food for a year was more than most people dared dream.

And she was about to pull it off!

Such a long storage period meant Xia Qing and Boss Sheep were about to enjoy a wildly improved menu.

Currently, Xia Qing had over 230 jin of wheat, 70 jin of mung beans, 440 jin of potatoes, fifteen jin of sealed compressed rations, more than forty jin of Greenlight dried meat, plus bags of dried beans and dried eggplant.

In the second round of planting, she’d grown thirty-five Greenlight eggplants, fifteen more after that, and over thirty Yellowlight long beans—way more than she could ever eat alone.

Thanks to the Yi Stone, Xia Qing no longer had to dry and seal every bit of food. She built a small insect netting in the courtyard, strung up iron wires for drying food, and added another chunk of Yi Stone. Following a guidebook, she blanched whole beans and hung them up to dry, sliced eggplant straight onto the wires, turning them both into dried veggies.

With good weather, both types of veggies would dry in five days. Once dehydrated, they didn’t require strict humidity, so Xia Qing bagged them and stored them in the food cellar below the tool room.

Every time she stashed away a new food, she felt more secure. At the moment, all her stores took up just a small corner of two cellars—but after the autumn harvest, there’d be so much more. Once the Sufeng Squad calmed down, she’d head into the Evolver Forest for chestnuts and pine nuts to really spice up her supplies.

This winter would be her best in the ten years since disaster struck.

After putting away the food, she stepped into the living room—only to lose her smile at the sight before her.

Hearing the commotion, the sick wolf lifted its head from Boss Sheep’s custom tatami and looked her way. Its eyes, now less swollen and a bit bigger, were slowly regaining sight.

Unlike the Alpha Wolf’s flashy gold eyes or the brain-evolved wolf’s amber ones, this wolf had an iron-rust hue. Looking at Xia Qing, its gaze held none of the Alpha’s arrogance, the brain-evolved wolf’s pondering, or the aggression of the wolf with the broken leg—just serene calm.

It reminded her of a regular dog from before the disaster.

After staring at each other for a moment, Xia Qing finally spoke. “How did you get in here?”

Hearing her, the sick wolf got up from the tatami and ambled outside. Thanks to Xia Qing’s nine days and nights of care, the wolf’s stomach troubles were finally gone. Still weak, but at least it no longer stumbled when it walked. Unlike Boss Sheep’s hooves, the wolf’s paws had soft pads and made no sound.

It padded over to the security door, slowly raised a paw to pull down the handle, then pushed outward—after Xia Qing’s modifications, the front door could open both ways. The wolf slipped out.

Watching it head out so decisively, Xia Qing felt she hadn’t shown this SSVIP guest nearly enough respect. She patted her pocket, thinking about giving it some dried meat.

Before she could dig it out, the wolf pushed the door open from outside and walked back in, standing in front of her, looking up expectantly.

Xia Qing…

When I asked how you got in, I didn’t mean how you literally came through the door…

Never mind…

The fact that it could understand her words at all was already impressive.

Xia Qing checked the time. “Time for lunch. You must be hungry. I’ll get cooking.”

This wolf, nearly killed by parasites, still couldn’t handle raw meat without throwing up. Xia Qing had to cook its food every day.

Thankfully, all the meat came from the Alpha Wolf. A sick wolf didn’t need much—otherwise, Xia Qing would’ve felt guilty using so much.

While the wolf’s meat was boiling and her own buns steamed, Xia Qing stir-fried some beans with shredded meat. Then she called over, “Go get Boss Sheep for lunch, all right? Boss Sheep—your friend—the white sheep, the one that eats grass. Got it?”

The sick wolf, waiting at the kitchen door, watched her and only stood up to leave after she finished. Moving slowly, it took ten minutes to bring Boss Sheep back.

Wolf and sheep both rinsed hooves and paws in the basin by the door, stepped over Xia Qing’s pile of dried grass, and then finally entered, standing at the kitchen doorway and looking at her.

Mixing up special feed for Boss Sheep, Xia Qing chuckled and said, “Good job, Boss! Hooves are nice and clean. Wolf, you too—well done getting those paws washed. Food’s ready—let’s eat.”

Wolf followed Boss Sheep inside, and Xia Qing let them both eat at the table this time. Wolf got a bowl of cooled shredded meat and innards, Boss Sheep got a bowl of special feed.

Watching a wolf and sheep lined up happily eating together, Xia Qing couldn’t help but sigh—Evolved Blue Star was just downright nuts.

She washed up, opened the steamer for hot buns, set her dish out, and turned on her walkie-talkie to catch up on Lord’s Channel news.

These days, lords had stopped talking about storing potatoes and moved on to cotton.

The cotton seeds planted at the end of March had finally produced fluffy white bolls after four months of growing—the very first batch was ready.

Xia Qing had already picked ten jin of cotton and set them to dry on the second-floor balcony. Every time she saw those cloudlike tufts, she couldn’t help but smile for real.

She thanked the heavens and earth. Even if the Yellowlight and Redlight cotton leaves looked a bit odd, every cotton boll was pure white.