Chapter 228: Harvest Under the Xiang Rain

Vroom, vroom, vroom—

As the Xiang Rain poured down, Xia Qing drove her rotary tiller through the fields, mowing down the weeds. She noticed right away that there were way more evolved insects hiding among the Xiang Grass than there had been the past two days—and they’d gotten bolder.

A more than two-meter-long evolved snake shot out from the Xiang Grass, aiming straight for Xia Qing’s eyes. But when she saw it hadn’t grown those dramatic fangs, she didn’t even bother to react.

“Snap!”

The evolved snake slammed into the rotary tiller’s rainproof glass window. As it slid down, unwilling to give up, Xia Qing rolled down the window, reached out, grabbed it by the neck, and stuffed it straight into a sack.

Harvest +1.

“Cluck cluck—”

A mantis over twenty centimeters long raced forward, raising enormous plier-like claws. Xia Qing could tell just from the sound of its wings that its exoskeleton had definitely toughened up. The rotary tiller’s rain shield used the same material as the one on her protective mask—dustproof, waterproof, and pretty sturdy. Even a two-meter snake couldn’t break it, but against a mantis’s blades, that was another story.

Xia Qing gripped the steering wheel with her left hand and raised her gun with the right.

“Bang!”

The mantis lost its head, the body thudding into the Xiang Grass. The tiller’s treads showed no mercy, crushing it into fertilizer for the other creatures.

Destroyed one Evolved Insect; Harvest +0.

“What’s going on in Territory Three? Are there dangerous Xiang-evolved plants again? First the tiller, now gunshots.” The gunfire traveled all the way to Territory Two, where Tang Huai sent an immediate inquiry.

Xia Qing pressed the Lord’s walkie-talkie and gave a simple reply. “Everything’s normal.”

Hearing that, and between the steady drone of the mowing, Tang Huai started cursing in his territory again: Damn it, would it kill this woman to say a couple more words?

“Xia Qing.” Zhang San’s weak voice crackled over the radio. “Need any backup?”

Idol—the top-tier celebrity after Blue Star’s Great Evolution!

Full-blown fan, Xia Qing immediately stopped mowing, pressed the button, and answered with utmost seriousness, “Third Brother, I can handle things for now. If something urgent happens, I’ll reach out to you.”

Different treatment. Plain as day! Tang Huai kept swearing at his end in Territory Two.

Zhang San replied, “Bring me some spinach leaves first as a deposit.”

Did Idol eat poorly again? Xia Qing quickly responded, “No problem. I’m heading toward the fields right now with the tiller, I’ll pick them right away.”

Tang Huai…

Damn it! He wanted to grow spinach too!

Then Li Si’s calm voice came over the Lord’s Channel. “Xia Qing, I’d like to trade for the evolved White-hairy Chicken Manure Vine and spinach in your territory. What supplies do you want in return?”

She’d been waiting for this.

Xia Qing pressed the talk button and replied sincerely, “Fourth Sister, most of the White-hairy Chicken Manure Vine in my territory got killed off by hail. I just traded with Third Brother yesterday. Let’s wait till the Xiang Rain passes—I’ll trade again then, okay? For the Greenlight spinach, do you want the whole plant or just the leaves, like Third Brother?”

Li Si answered, “The Chicken Manure Vine trade can wait. As for the Greenlight spinach, I need ten full plants with roots and soil.”

With that, Li Si went offline, and then the assistant from Territory Nine, Assistant Liu, came on—sticking to the standard business tone—”Ms. Xia, the current exchange price for Greenlight spinach is sixty points per pound. I’m not sure how much five of your plants weigh in total. Would it be alright to settle for fifty points each?”

Fifty points each? Did they really think she’d bite?

Pushing her tiller toward the vegetable greenhouse, Xia Qing’s voice was cold. “No deal. I’ll save them for Third Brother and just trade the leaves.”

“Exactly!” Tang Huai, hearing Xia Qing shutting down Territory Nine, was thrilled. “How can you compare normal Greenlight spinach with the kind Zhang San likes? Plants with roots that can be grown on are worth way more than rootless leaves.”

Tang Heng, just back from Territory Twelve, whispered to his brother, “Xia Qing’s spinach definitely isn’t ordinary. Should we report this?”

Tang Huai nodded, “Of course we need to. Let’s see what price she asks first, then we’ll trade for some too.”

The exchange stalled. Assistant Liu from Territory Nine went offline and Li Si came back. “Xia Qing, what supplies do you need?”

Xia Qing named her price directly. “I want one roll of extra-thick greenhouse plastic, sixty meters long, seven meters wide, and four bags of compost starter.”

Li Si asked carefully, “What do you mean by ‘extra-thick’? How many mil?”

“Mil” here means measurement—100 mil equals 1 millimeter.

Xia Qing had checked—Safe Zone Planting Center used greenhouse plastic at 100 mil. Because greenhouse film wasn’t available for public trade in the Safe Zone, she didn’t know if that counted as “extra-thick.” She humbly asked, “Fourth Sister, I’m planning to use it for planting. How thick do you think is best?”

Li Si didn’t care why she was here in this territory, or what went on between her and Zhang San, or why she’d bothered collecting native plants. When it came to planting, she was all pro. “100 mil. Any thicker and you lose sunlight, which isn’t good for the plants. Let’s meet under the Territory Three signpost in twenty minutes to make the trade?”

Xia Qing was just as decisive. “Deal. I’ll dig up the plants right now.”

All the lords…

Tang Huai’s eyes spun and he immediately called Xu Pin. “Zhang San and Li Si are both super interested in Territory Three’s spinach. Yeah, that’s right, they’re willing to trade for it at a high price… I don’t know. They didn’t mention it… Okay, got it.”

After hanging up, Tang Huai pressed the talk button proudly. “Xia Qing, I want to trade for ten rooted Greenlight spinach plants too. Name your price.”

Whenever the Sufeng Squad bought something, they always got milked for all they were worth. Xia Qing replied, “Four rolls of greenhouse plastic, each sixty meters by seven meters, and thickness needs to be 100 mil.”

He knew this woman drove a hard bargain, but this was something else. Still, Tang Huai didn’t hesitate—after all, it wasn’t his points he was spending. “Deal. Once the roads open up, we’ll send the greenhouse film over and get in touch again.”

“Deal.” Xia Qing’s answer was uncharacteristically cheerful. Looked like Tang Huai was growing distant from the Sufeng Squad—and that made Xia Qing very happy.

Parking the rotary tiller outside the farm shed, Xia Qing grabbed her tools and headed inside to join Hu Zifeng. Together, they went to dig up spinach.

In the Lord’s Channel, Kuang Qingwei’s voice came through. “Xia Qing, are you building a greenhouse? Not heading back to the Safe Zone for winter?”

With that much greenhouse film, her intentions were clear. Xia Qing replied, “That’s right. There’s no place for me to stay inside the Safe Zone anymore, so I’ll stay here to look after the winter wheat—and make some points planting veggies.”

Five rolls of extra-thick film—no way was that ‘just’ for a bit of casual planting. While the rest of them were being tormented by the Xiang Rain, Xia Qing was already planning a greenhouse. Kuang Qingwei was genuinely impressed.

Shi Chong chimed in, “We’ll stay in our territory through winter too. Having company makes me feel a lot more secure. Let’s share experiences when the time comes.”

“I’ll be learning from you.” When it came to farming, Shi Chong and Qi Fu were the real experts. Xia Qing had never built a greenhouse, so she definitely had to pick up some tips from them.

“Great.” Even though Shi Chong ached all over, he sounded more energetic than ever, encouraging everyone, “Hang in there, everyone—one last half day and then we can harvest our grain!”

Zhao Ze, completely dejected, groaned, “Less than half of my corn is left. After the third round of red Xiang Rain, I doubt even a quarter will survive.”

With the seedlings gone, how were they supposed to get any harvest?

Kuang Qingwei started lamenting over his ruined Green-glow Mung Beans. “There were two thousand of them—if they hadn’t been destroyed, I’d have picked at least sixty pounds. Sixty pounds!”

Everyone who came out to farm had their own calculations. Of the six pounds of Yellowlight Mung Beans they’d received from the Base, the odds of finding Green-glow beans were less than 1 in a thousand. Every lord treated each one like a treasure—no one ate a single bean, all of them got planted.

Watching those Green-glow seedlings grow, which lord wasn’t secretly counting out how many pounds of beans they’d harvest, how many points they could get for them, and how much critical supplies they could buy?

Everyone could feel Kuang Qingwei’s pain. Xia Qing parked the tiller outside the greenhouse, and when she stepped inside, she didn’t even want to look at the patchy, mostly bare veggie patch. She picked a huge handful of spinach leaves, dropped them in a basket, and handed it to Hu Zifeng. “Captain Hu, please take these to the North Barrier and give them to the folks from Territory Seven.”

Xia Qing had three patches of spinach. She left the lush Greenlight spinach in the highland terraced plot untouched, and instead went for the sparsest patch in the greenhouse—cutting hard, plant after plant. Hu Zifeng didn’t understand what she was doing, but he didn’t ask, just took the basket and headed out to deliver.

After Hu Zifeng left, Xia Qing dug up ten full spinach plants from the ordinary Greenlight spinach field, then mowed her way over with the rotary tiller to the signpost at the edge of the territory.