Chapter 199: A Wolf, a Sheep, and the Fields Under the Sun

Even though they ranked second to last, Xia Qing and Boss Sheep were the only ones in Territory Three who could open up eight acres of land and manage to farm it decently. Xia Qing was already more than satisfied.

As long as she could enrich a few plots and grow them well, the grains and vegetables produced would be enough for Xia Qing to eat. From now on, she planned to slow down the pace of land clearing, opening only two new acres a year. After all, the Base required territory lords to add at least two acres of edible plantings each year for the first five years.

Of course, even in the areas she wasn’t farming, Xia Qing kept clearing and patrolling daily, determined not to let rodents, hares, rats or yellow weasels settle on her territory and damage her fields.

Weeding was delicate work and exhausting too.

You had to keep the hoeing depth between two and four centimeters. Too shallow and you wouldn’t get the roots. Too deep and you’d hurt the seedlings. If your grip was weak or unsteady, you could break or damage them.

The edible plant seedlings were all incredibly fragile. A weed could survive being chopped down, but a seedling nicked just a little could die on the spot.

Unlike Zhao Ze and Kuang Qingwei who complained nonstop, Xia Qing had grown to love weeding. It helped her hone the precision of her grip, and when she finished, seeing the neat, soft earth made her inexplicably content.

Strength Evolvers like her had an edge in farming that ordinary people and other powered types couldn’t hope to match.

Others weeded with both hands on one hoe—Xia Qing took a hoe in each. While their hoe blades ran twenty to thirty centimeters wide, hers were forty. Others might struggle to clear an acre in a day—she did it in half.

So, for Xia Qing, who’d already recovered from the injury at her thumb joint, clearing weeds across over six acres was simply no sweat.

She’d modified her hoes herself. The crop rows in her fields were spaced forty-five centimeters apart. With a hoe in each hand, she controlled the depth and direction perfectly, walking from one end of the greenhouse to the other. In no time, two long furrows were weeded.

The sick wolf, now fully awake after the anesthesia wore off, wandered with Boss Sheep to the shade near the edge of the fields, tailing behind at a lazy pace.

Once Xia Qing finished hoeing the long furrows, she tackled the weeds between each plant in the same row. With that, one greenhouse was done. After polishing off the mung bean plot, she headed to the shade for a break and a drink.

With the hot sun and the stuffiness inside the greenhouse, only covered by insect netting, Xia Qing wore cool, breathable blue pants and a white long-sleeve T-shirt, topping it off with the wide-brimmed straw hat she’d woven herself.

She slipped off her gloves and hat under the tree and took a long swig from her water bottle. On her left was snowy white Boss Sheep. On the sheep’s left, lying on the ground, was the sick wolf, dark along the spine and brown-yellow everywhere else.

Right now, the sick wolf was staring at her. Not proud like the Alpha, not thoughtful like the brain-evolved wounded wolf, nor fierce like the wolf with the broken leg. Ever since nearly going blind after being pricked by evolution grass seeds, the rusty-colored eyes of this sick wolf now carried a kind of clarity that didn’t belong to any evolved predator.

Xia Qing figured maybe during the time it was blind, it was her constant, tireless care that pulled it back from the edge of death. Maybe that’s why its eyes held no suspicion or fear around her.

With that gaze and its gaunt face, it almost—strangely—looked like a dog. That gentle look and mild temperament suddenly made Xia Qing think she could maybe build a long-term friendship with this frail old wolf.

She took a few gulps of water, leaned against the tree and said to the sick wolf, “You’re going to need three months to recover here. Can’t keep calling you wolf, wolf all the time. How about I give you a name? You’ll be Wolf Two.”

Here in Territory Three, she was the lord, Boss Sheep was number one, and now this wolf was number two.

The sick wolf cocked its head, looking oddly blank. It was a lot more pleasant than the always-annoying Boss Sheep. When Xia Qing picked a Greenlight cucumber from the terraced plot, Boss Sheep wasn’t annoying anymore—the huge shimmering eyes were downright cute. Wolf Two, meanwhile, stayed stern, looking much more dignified than Boss Sheep.

After rinsing the cucumber with spring water, Xia Qing took the biggest chunk, Boss Sheep got a generous chunk and Wolf Two had a little bite. “Eat up.”

Under the blue sky and white clouds in the dappled shade, a girl, a sheep and a wolf happily crunched on cucumber together. But over in the North Buffer Forest, a fiery red figure hid behind a branch, staring hungrily at the peanut patch inside the highland insect net greenhouse, rubbing its little claws together.

Boss Sheep finished first, and as soon as he did, he turned to watch Xia Qing. She popped the last bit in her mouth, stood up and called, “Alright, back to work.”

Boss Sheep looked over at his wolf friend. Though the sick wolf ate slow, he’d gotten the smallest portion of cucumber, so he also finished. Still clearly starving, Boss Sheep set off for some pasture grass, while the wolf followed a couple steps and then flopped back down in the shade, watching Xia Qing weed among the rows.

Next up was weeding the corn field. The corn had already grown a meter high—but at Xia Qing’s height of nearly 1.7 meters, it barely reached her thighs. She marched along steadily with a hoe in each hand.

Just as she reached the far end, her phone rang. It was Hu Zifeng.

“Xia Qing, get to the abandoned cave in Area Three, quick. There’s a wolf that’s gone berserk. If you can’t stop it, we’ll have to use force.”

Gone berserk? Which one?

The Sufeng Squad guys still hadn’t left this sector. If they found out there were wolves on Mountain 49, they’d never let her hear the end of it.

“I’m on my way.” Xia Qing dropped her hoes, sprinted back to the shed, threw on her protective suit and mask, and dashed north.

“Baa—” Boss Sheep saw her running, darted over from the pasture, and even the sick wolf stood up to follow.

As she ran, Xia Qing shouted, “Boss, Two, watch the territory! I’ll be right back!”

“Baa—”

Boss Sheep answered and stopped. But the sick wolf kept going, slowly trailing after Xia Qing along the riverside from the valley toward the reservoir.

Boss Sheep followed for a bit, but when he saw the sick wolf heading out of Territory Three and towards the North Barrier, he rushed to block him, nudging him back with his head.

Racing along the river, Xia Qing burst into the Breeding Center’s mountain valley. Right then, she saw a brown-gray evolved wolf fly over twenty meters in a blink. Stones crunched under its paws and tumbled down the slope into the pond below, sending up a spray of water.

Xia Qing stared, dumbfounded. Was it running so fast it overshot by accident? Or had its jumping ability evolved?

Either way, she couldn’t let it keep rampaging. With a shout, she barked, “Broken Leg! You better behave for me!”

That’s right—the crazed, leaping brown-gray evolved wolf was none other than the wolf with the broken leg, the one hauled into Territory Three by the pack a month ago with both hind legs snapped.

“Whoosh—” The brown-gray wolf pounced straight at Xia Qing, fixing her with a menacing glare.