Chapter 43: Early Spring Seedling Exchange

Early the next morning, the Inspection Team delivered twenty green-glow alfalfa seedlings.

Xia Qing stared at the little green seedlings, each no taller than her palm and with soil still clinging to their roots, lost in thought. The color looked much more normal compared to the evolved perilla, but was this really alfalfa and not just clover?

Or maybe clover’s scientific name was actually alfalfa?

Pulling out her phone, Xia Qing flipped through the Encyclopedia of Cultivation and found a picture of evolved alfalfa to compare. The tiny leaves of the fully grown, meter-tall alfalfa in the encyclopedia looked ninety percent identical to the ones in her basket.

She stopped fussing about whether alfalfa was clover or not. Following the guide in the encyclopedia, she planted the seedlings in the terraced fields above the evolved perilla, then fenced them with evolved wild jujube branches.

If these seedlings survived, she’d collect seeds from them after they matured and replant. Next year, once the fields were full, she could take down the jujube fence and let Boss Sheep feast on alfalfa just like it did on perilla.

Just picturing next year sent a jolt of excitement through Xia Qing.

After the disaster, most people at the bottom just took life one day at a time with no room—or reason—for planning. Xia Qing was an oddball among them. Back in the Safe Zone, her blueprints for rebuilding were nothing but vague dreams, never knowing if or when they’d come true.

But now, standing in her own territory and thinking about the future, she felt grounded for the first time.

She reached out, scruffled Boss Sheep’s curly wool as he munched perilla, then swept her arm across the whole territory with wild enthusiasm. “My queen, look! I built this whole kingdom just for you!”

Boss Sheep ignored Xia Qing’s dramatics and kept eating.

By late March, the vegetable seedlings had grown strong enough to transplant, so it was time for the lords to exchange seedlings among themselves.

To keep things fair, each lord tested the life drain element level in their seedlings first and swapped only after confirming the grade.

The other lords announced in the channel that most of their seedlings were yellow-glow, a few were red-glow, and green-glows were rare. Over in Xia Qing’s fields, it was ninety percent yellow-glow, ten percent green-glow, with no red-glow at all. She kept the existence of her green-glow seedlings quiet and just claimed to have a few red-glows.

When swapping seedlings with the others, Xia Qing only dug up her yellow-glow ones. The first batch she grabbed were tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, and pumpkins—ten seedlings of each—for Plot One.

Of course, what she got in return technically wasn’t a rotary tiller as advertised, but instead, together with fifty spinach seeds, these trade-ins scored her forty bags of wall putty and three buckets of wall paint.

After the catastrophe, wall paint and putty were more than just decorative; they had bug repelling effects, making them some of the hottest commodities out there—not something the average person could even dream of buying. Back when she was with the Construction Crew, they rationed it by the kilo, which meant she’d never had the chance to save any.

She’d intended to trade for putty with Qi Fu, but he’d told her he was out, too.

A few days ago, she heard Hu Zifeng say in the lord channel that they were building houses on Plot One, so she tried asking about a trade and, to her surprise, struck a deal. Once again, Xia Qing could only marvel at the brute strength of the Azure Dragon Unit.

Once all the seedlings were planted and she’d finished digging up bamboo shoots, Xia Qing planned to squeeze in repainting her building before the next life drain rain, hoping to make her house feel more like home.

After delivering the seedlings to Plot One, Xia Qing traded ten tomato seedlings for five bean seedlings from Plot Five and five pepper seedlings from Plot Seven. She didn’t want to hold back, but she only had fifteen tomato seedlings left in total.

Since pumpkin, cucumber, and eggplant were distributed to every territory, she still had extras: twenty pumpkin, twenty-five cucumber, and thirty eggplant seedlings.

All these seedlings, added to the ones she got from trades, were planted in the remaining empty patches along the hillside planting area, except for a few extra pumpkin seedlings.

To make sure everything thrived, Xia Qing threw every planting trick she’d learned into action. She boosted the soil with sheep and bird manure, all fully composted from around her territory, and when she finished transplanting, watered everything with her stash of spring water.

Everything after that was up to the seedlings’ will to live.

For several days after planting, Xia Qing could barely drag herself away from the fields.

Lords Four, Five, and Six were even more obsessed—keeping their pagers on around the clock to swap tips and tricks for growing veggies.

Zhang San from Plot Seven only cared about eating, so he never showed up during the day. Hu Zifeng from Plot One popped in regularly, but that was just to keep tabs on Xia Qing and her needs. Tang Huai from Plot Two was also always online, but mostly to keep up with Hu Zifeng’s situation. Of course, those two rarely said a word.

High noon came, and the hot sun left the new seedlings drooping and limp. Half of them even bent right over. Worried sick, Xia Qing followed Qi Fu’s advice, gently propping up the ones that had their heads in the dirt with tiny sticks. If she hadn’t known how much seedlings needed sunlight, she’d have thrown up a shade cover then and there.

By sunset, when the heat finally eased, most of the little seedlings perked right back up, and Xia Qing couldn’t stop grinning.

The next morning, even the droopy, bent seedlings had straightened up, and Xia Qing spun happily in circles.

Come midday, the sun wilted the seedlings again, making Xia Qing clutch her head at the edge of the field and sigh.

Day three, it was more of the same. Xia Qing see-sawed between excitement and anxiety so much that Boss Sheep started to think she was sick. He even brought her a mouthful of grass from beside the planting area, nudged aside the jujube branches, and shoved it her way as if to tell her to eat.

Still steaming with frustration, Xia Qing didn’t catch his drift. Thinking he was after her vegetable seedlings, she stormed out and got into a full-blown scuffle with him.

For the first time ever, she managed to trounce Boss Sheep, but victory brought her no joy—she just went back to sitting vigil by the seedlings, sighing away.

After his defeat, Boss Sheep dragged the grass back home and dropped it into Xia Qing’s bowl. Only then did she realize he actually wanted her to eat it.

This stuff was edible?

Testing it, Xia Qing discovered the grass Boss Sheep brought back was also a green-glow plant. She tried boiling it, but one bite was all it took—she spat it right back out. It was just too awful.

Boss Sheep, not pleased, fetched another mouthful and deposited it in her rice bowl.

Seeing Boss Sheep so persistent, Xia Qing asked Tan Junjie to help her look into it. It turned out this plain vine was actually evolved Chinese fevervine—a herbal remedy for indigestion and itchy skin!

Only then did Xia Qing understand. Boss Sheep had thought she was ill and had gone out of his way to pick medicine for her. Touched, Xia Qing plucked a few alfalfa leaves—ones even she hadn’t dared taste yet—and made Boss Sheep a deluxe treat.

Thanks to Boss Sheep, Xia Qing’s territory now boasted another valuable green-glow medicinal herb—evolved Chinese fevervine.

Sure, the name was rough, but the value was real. Dried roots, stems, and leaves could fetch forty points a pound.

Once she had some spare time, Xia Qing was definitely going to harvest some, dry it, and trade for points to buy Boss Sheep some compressed rations.

Six days after transplanting, ten of the terraced field seedlings had died. Cucumbers had the highest casualties. Xia Qing figured cucumbers were the most fragile—their thin skin seemed to be all water; one blast of sun and they wilted, a single gust of wind and they toppled.

Absolutely no way was she going to admit two of those deaths came from her accidentally snapping them while propping them up.

Seedlings from Plot One and Plot Two lost nearly half their numbers. Plot Seven’s owner had gone AWOL, but odds were, things were about the same over there. Plot Four and Plot Six fared about as well as Xia Qing. Plot Five had the best luck, with just two casualties—probably because Qi Fu’s family had farmed for generations before the disaster and had the most experience of anyone.