Chapter 302: Satellite Eyes and Harvested Gains

“Er Gou, did you dig this up?” Xia Qing pulled a bundle of herbs from the pocket of the protective suit she’d just taken off Er Gou. The leaves looked just like the kind Zhang San had the wolf pack search for last time, so she excitedly waved it in front of Er Gou’s eyes.

Why so excited? Because Zhang San once said—this herb is worth ten thousand per stalk!

Maybe the water was a bit too warm, because Er Gou lay in the tub with his tongue hanging out, panting, looking anything but clever next to Old Goat who lounged nearby, grazing content as always.

Xia Qing didn’t press it further. She checked the water temperature, stepped out, and called Zhang San. “Third Brother, the wolf who got infected with the parasite just came back—he even brought a bundle of herbs. Do you still want it?”

“Of course,” Zhang San sounded interested in the wolf’s return. “Only one made it back?”

“Yeah, just one,” Xia Qing replied. “I also picked forty pounds of Green Lantern torreya nuts. The Tj element content is 2.6 per thousand. Do you want both the seed and the flesh?”

“Absolutely.” Zhang San’s foodie instincts kicked in. “I’ll take all the torreya flesh. As for the seeds, just leave me a quarter.”

“No problem.” Xia Qing agreed, then hurried to the bathroom to consult with Er Gou and Old Goat. “Old Goat, Er Gou, I’m making a run to the Northern Barrier to drop stuff off. If you two don’t feel like soaking anymore, climb out yourself, shake off the water, and lounge on the dry straw under the eaves. Don’t track water all over the house, got it?”

Old Goat pretended not to hear, using his front hoof to pull his food dish back across the water and kept munching. Er Gou looked at Xia Qing and just kept panting happily—no response at all.

Old Goat was stubborn as ever, so Xia Qing had given up on him. But maybe she could still save the obedient Er Gou. She crouched beside Er Gou’s tub, demonstrating as she spoke, “Er Gou, from now on when I talk, nod if you understand and shake your head if you don’t.”

Er Gou pulled his tongue in, mouth closed, staring at Xia Qing calmly. But just as she watched with hope, he grinned and started panting again.

Xia Qing… Forget it. The guy just got back today and couldn’t keep from grinning. She’d teach him another day.

“I’m heading out for a bit. You two hold down the fort.” With that, Xia Qing grabbed her haul of torreya nuts and hurried toward the Northern Barrier.

Spotting Da Ya—the only one there for the pickup, lugging a huge backpack—Xia Qing’s eyes lit up.

Cameras? Herbs?

Da Ya ambled over, grinning. “Third Brother sent me to see how you planned to set up the surveillance, so I brought the cameras too.”

Xia Qing immediately invited Da Ya onto the territory. “I’d like to put cameras in the two greenhouses in the Buffer Forest, the five greenhouses south of the reservoir, and those two on the east side—plus the three-acre plot south of them near my home. How many do you think I need, Da Ya?”

She’d intended to expand just one acre of farmland next year, but after crunching the numbers, even that wasn’t enough for her seeds.

She had three and a half pounds of first-generation M-11 Green Lantern wheat she could use as seed, plus five pounds of M-14 Green Lantern wheat and forty pounds of M-14 Yellow Lantern wheat (traded for peanuts and chestnuts from Zhang San), forty pounds of D-21 Yellow Lantern rice, 97 stalks of Green Lantern rice from her own field, and half a pound of rapeseed awarded by the Territory Management Department. Just planting all these would take over five acres of farmland.

Besides wheat, rice, and rapeseed, come spring she’d also need to plant mung beans, cotton, potatoes, sunflowers, and sweet potatoes—so at minimum, she’d have to add three more acres.

“Those three areas aren’t too large. Four should cover it.” Da Ya surveyed the land from a high spot, then pulled brand-new cameras from his backpack and explained, “These are made with new materials. They’re waterproof, super tough, even rodents and bugs can’t chew through them.”

Xia Qing was no stranger to these things—even though she hadn’t been in charge of installing surveillance with the Construction Team, she’d learned the basics. So she saw straight away these weren’t just a different material but an entirely new design, big as double the ones used in the Safe Zone.

“These are the first batch of new-material military cameras. Not only are they unavailable elsewhere, even the Military can’t get enough. Our territory is considered top-priority, so HQ gave us a special batch of fifteen. If it weren’t for you, Third Brother wouldn’t dream of trading them.”

Da Ya made it clear how rare these were so Xia Qing would appreciate how much Third Brother valued her as a trading partner, then went all out explaining the new features: “Look, it’s got a dual-rail integrated design. Both upper and lower lenses rotate independently, supports spot patrol, e-zoom, true 360-degree coverage—HD night vision, full color, motion tracking, alert mode—”

“Can it scan faces? Identify unfamiliar intruders?” Xia Qing was sharp, getting more excited as she listened. She kept asking all the right questions.

Running into a fellow tech nerd got Da Ya even more talkative. “Of course. And not just humans, it recognizes large animals, too. You can register the wolves and goats on your territory so the system won’t trigger an alert for them. If any unregistered person or large animal comes in, it’ll instantly warn you.”

That was seriously thoughtful. Xia Qing quickly asked, “But Da Ya, we don’t have a local network here. How do the cameras connect to my phone? What distance can they cover?”

Da Ya beamed. “These work even without internet—they can connect directly to communication satellites. You can control them from your phone anywhere in Huaguo. Doesn’t matter where you are, you can check the territory anytime.”

The moment she heard ‘satellite,’ Xia Qing felt a pang. “So, that means I have to pay data fees for each camera too?”

Unlike the Safe Zone’s cheap intranet plans, using her phone for comms out here in the territory and Evolved Forest meant any data usage came with a hefty price tag.

Her satellite phone alone cost a base rate of 200 points per month—just a few extra calls or messages and the data charges shot up. Add four cameras running on mobile data? That’d easily break a thousand points in data fees every month.

Yet another sharp question! Da Ya cheerfully popped open the compartment under the camera, revealing the slot with the data card. “These are military-issue. The data cards are prepped and loaded—enough coverage for a whole year.”

“The military really thinks of everything. By next year, our territory ought to have its own network established,” Xia Qing sighed in relief.

Da Ya shared more good news. “Won’t even take a year. If our base keeps running steadily through the rest of this year, by the end of it, we’ll have a ground mobile comms tower installed here.”

That was massive! With a tower, their entire territory could get its own network. Xia Qing could contact anyone nearby for way less, making everything so much easier.