Chapter 285: An Afternoon Harvest Under Wild Echoes

When she went to Hill Fifty to gather pine nuts, the bear’s roar she heard was loud but didn’t carry much anger. This time, though, you could hear the fury in the bear’s voice—which is exactly why Old Goat was scared.

Don’t ask how Xia Qing could tell. She didn’t have any scientific argument for it, nor had she been trained to listen for emotional nuance. She just felt the difference. Maybe only people with Evolved Hearing can pick up moods like that?

Since those angry bear calls rattled Old Goat, Xia Qing scrapped her afternoon plan to check wild ginger in Valley One. She sent Chen Zheng back to Territory One and led Old Goat home herself.

She needed to get the promised pine nuts and chestnuts ready for Xin Yu as soon as possible. The chestnuts were already prepared, but the pine nuts were still stuck inside the cones, which were still drying out on the roof.

Pine cones are tough to begin with, and they’re even harder after the Hardness Evolution. The ones she picked had been sun-drying up there for half a month and only just started cracking yesterday. Originally, Xia Qing planned to collect the pine nuts tomorrow, but things changed. She had to adjust and start collecting them this afternoon instead.

Back home, Xia Qing checked the chicken coop through the window—no new eggs. She filled Old Goat’s bowl with pure spring water, waited for him to calm down, then headed up to the warehouse roof. She gathered the green-lamp pine cones into a pile, stuffed them in a bag, and hauled them out into the yard to start knocking them open.

Since every edible pine tree around had gone through Hardness Evolution, Xia Qing didn’t dare crack the cones on the roof. She was worried she’d punch a hole right through it.

After several minutes of hammering, most of the pine nuts had dropped out, but a few still clung tight inside the cones. For those, she had to use a thin screwdriver to pick them out.

It was meticulous work, but at least Xia Qing had plenty of patience to spare.

With bear roars and faint dog barks echoing in the background, Xia Qing chatted idly with Old Goat while picking pine nuts. “With all that noise, the wolves definitely heard. As long as the Queen and the one with the broken tail aren’t stupid, they’ll lead the wolves deeper into the Evolved Forest. Old Goat, do you know where the wolves’ territory is?”

Old Goat lay beside her, chewing his cud with half-closed eyes, quiet as ever.

“It’d be great if we had a talking bird on our side,” Xia Qing mused, plucking another pine nut as she glanced at the row of swallows perched atop the chicken house.

Those little guys were way cuter than crows, but none of them had evolved brains. They didn’t speak human language. Most omnivorous migratory birds flew at dusk or nighttime, and these swallows, lined up watching the northern sky, were probably waiting for the migratory flock so they could follow along.

As Xia Qing tossed the empty cone into the bamboo basket and grabbed another to check, she heard the little swallows all take off at once.

She thought they were setting out, but when she looked up, the swallows circled the yard twice and landed on the old bamboo pole where she’d once hung dried vegetables.

Now that the swallows had flown, a small head that almost blended in with the color of the plastic roof poked out from where they’d been. Behind the little head was a fluffy, bushy tail swaying back and forth.

Wasn’t this the one who always tried to snag a free meal? It must’ve heard the pine cone smashing and come running for another handout.

Xia Qing rolled her eyes and kept picking pine nuts, ignoring it.

Not getting attention, Red Squirrel hopped from the chicken coop to the goat shed, then down into the yard. It rubbed its tiny paws together, staring longingly at the pile of pine cones.

Xia Qing picked up a cone, checked that it was empty, and tossed it to Red Squirrel. “Here, knock yourself out.”

Red Squirrel shot up to catch it, fiddled with it like treasure for a while, then tossed it aside when it found not a single nut inside. Still, it kept swaying its tail and rubbing its little paws, trying to win her over with cuteness.

It really was charming, but Xia Qing was unmoved. She popped a pine nut in her own mouth and found another for Old Goat.

Old Goat watched Red Squirrel with sleepy eyes, nibbling his pine nut contentedly.

“Want one?” Xia Qing held up a pine nut in her left hand, then pulled a peanut from her protective suit’s pocket, making her offer clear. “You want a pine nut, you’ll have to trade me a peanut. No peanut, no pine nut.”

Red Squirrel watched as Xia Qing stuffed the pine nuts into a bag. It scampered up and down, chittering away with obvious protest.

But Xia Qing didn’t care about the squirrel’s complaints. There were pine trees everywhere in the Evolved Forest—no way Red Squirrel couldn’t find them itself.

Besides, on the yellow-lamp pine trees of Section Three on Hill Forty-Nine alone, she’d left more than enough pine cones to get Red Squirrel through the winter. If it wanted to eat, it could harvest them itself.

Red Squirrel put on a good show for a while, but when it finally realized Xia Qing wouldn’t give it anything for free, it grumbled and stormed off with its empty cone.

Xia Qing kept working at her own pace. By a little after five, she had all the pine nuts gathered.

From the four green-lamp pine trees in Section Three of Hill Forty-Nine, she harvested cones that yielded forty-three jin of pine nuts. The yellow-lamp cones gave sixty-six jin, and the cones from Hill Fifty delivered twenty-four jin.

This year, Xia Qing’s total yield of edible pine nuts came to 133 jin—plenty for roasted snacks, porridge, or stir-fry all year.

She happily weighed out two jin of pine nuts harvested from Hill Fifty, packed them into a sealable bag.

The pine nuts from Hill Fifty were lower in harmful elements and tasted better than those from Hill Forty-Nine. To show her thanks to Xin Yu, of course she’d pick the best ones to gift.

Then she tucked three bags of pine nuts into the underground food storage room in the utility shed and grabbed ten jin of yellow-lamp chestnuts from the vegetable storage room under the garage.

Xia Qing never stored chestnuts and pine nuts together because their ideal temperature and humidity levels were different.

Pine nuts kept best at the same temperature and humidity as wheat, so she kept them in the food storage room. Chestnuts, on the other hand, needed the same storage conditions as potatoes and other vegetables and were kept in the vegetable storage room.

With all the nuts sealed up, and no more bear calls or barking from Hill Fifty, Xia Qing set off for the Northern Barrier with her goods for the trade. As soon as she headed out, Old Goat hurried after her.

They hadn’t even reached the Northern Barrier when loud barking echoed nearby. Xia Qing’s first instinct was to block the aggressive Old Goat. Except this time, Old Goat nudged her back into their territory, urging her to run.

That reaction told Xia Qing the two barking Evolved Dogs had some serious bite. She rushed Old Goat to a shed at the edge of the fields, made him stay inside, then ran up to the high Buffer Forest, climbed a tall toon tree, and checked the situation.

A wolf-tracking team with two Evolved Dogs found themselves blocked at the border between Section Three and Section Four of the Northern Barrier. Captain Tan Junjie was leading the Inspection Team, keeping them from moving further. From there, following the stream north, you’d reach the now-abandoned Wild Boar Breeding Center. The caves there? Now a wolf den.

Among the barking, Blind Jiang—with one eye—was arguing with Tan Junjie: “Captain Tan, our Scent-Evolved Dogs picked up a wolf scent here. That’s why they sounded the alarm.”

Tan Junjie was stern as he warned, “This is a territory barrier. Tell your trained beasts to stop making noise that could attract an Evolved Bear, immediately.”

But Blind Jiang didn’t order the dogs to stop. He just spread his hands, explaining, “There really is a wolf scent here, so the Evolved Dogs are bound to react. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“This is your second warning! Jiang Xiong Squad, make your beasts stop this dangerous behavior right now, or the Inspection Team will shoot them immediately.”

Right after the second warning, Inspection Team members raised their guns, aiming at Jiang Xiong Squad’s Evolved Dogs.

Before Tan Junjie could even issue the third warning, Blind Jiang quickly ordered the dogs to hush.

Perched high in the toon tree, Xia Qing—her sight sharpened by Level Nine Vision Evolution—could see the frustration flashing in Blind Jiang’s single eye.