Chapter 460: Echoes of the Valley: Graves and Green Lanterns

Xia Qing wasn’t sure how the other builders of the valley died, but just looking at the woman lying on the grave, it was obvious—she’d been poisoned.

Her bones had turned a pale black, a telltale sign of poisoning.

A family of eight hid inside this crevice, escaping wave after wave of rampaging beasts, but in the end, they couldn’t avoid the deadly bite of venomous insects.

Or maybe, she didn’t die from the poison at all. Maybe when she was left all alone, she lost the will to go on and ended her life herself.

Xia Qing’s gaze shifted from the hollowed skull to the grassy mound of the grave. After a few seconds, a rabbit poked its head out of a hole, cautiously checking its surroundings. Spotting Xia Qing still standing there, it panicked and disappeared back inside.

The soil in the valley had only been laid down for crops, a shallow layer about thirty centimeters thick, not nearly enough for a rabbit’s proper burrow. So it made its home right inside the piled earth of the grave.

Xia Qing turned and walked over to three stone houses nearby, nearly swallowed up by wild plants.

The tombstone in the valley was beautifully carved, and the stones used to build the houses had been cut with precision. Clearly, this family not only owned the necessary cutting and carving tools, they also knew their way around stonework. Before disaster struck, they’d probably made their living from it.

But their skills with wood were another story—the furniture was rough, and their choice of timber left a lot to be desired.

“Creak—groan—”

Xia Qing swung her knife, slicing away the vines and tangled weeds. Then she shoved open the warped door.

On a fallen rock, Crippled Wolf immediately pricked up its ears and stood, eyes locking on the source of the noise.

Inside was a jumble of supplies: tables, chairs, benches, pots and pans, an electric stone-carving machine, big and small hammers, a generator, oil drum, radio, and even a wooden rocking horse for children. This was more than Xia Qing expected.

Her eyes lingered on a family photo hanging on the wall. Four elders in their fifties or sixties sat on chairs, while the grandmother and maternal grandmother in the middle each held a child. Behind them stood a young couple. Every face in the photo wore a look of quiet happiness.

At the lower right corner of the photo, the date read three months before the disaster hit.

Xia Qing stared at the beautiful, smiling woman in the photo for a few seconds before lifting the heavy stone lid, easily dozens of kilos, off a nearby storage jar. Inside she found more than half the jar filled with moldy wheat and corn.

In the left bedroom, there was a wooden bed and a wardrobe, but the ceiling leaked. The bedding on the bed and the clothes in the closet had gone moldy—they were now just nests for insects.

In the middle shelf of the wardrobe, there was a mostly intact waterproof bag stamped with the name of some quarry. Inside its thick plastic envelope were a sealed phone, a laptop, kindergarten textbooks, and workbooks—all perfectly preserved.

Xia Qing packed the sealed bag into her backpack, searched through the other bedroom, took anything useful, then left the stone house, closing the door behind her, and headed back to the grave.

There were food, salt and clothes inside, but none of the post-disaster essentials—no protective suits or pesticide. It meant this family stayed here after the calamity, cut off from the world outside.

Xia Qing dug a shallow pit beside the grave with her shovel, burying the darkened bones that lay on top. She would’ve buried her deeper if she could, but the soil was only thirty centimeters thick—any deeper, and she’d hit rock.

Having laid the last member of the valley’s builders to rest, Xia Qing hefted her shovel, kicked away a Devastation Snake, and pulled out her Lethal Element Detector to check the spring’s Devastation Element levels.

Red light—this wasn’t a clean spring. Xia Qing didn’t feel disappointed though. She headed straight to the two peanut plots.

The leaves were yellowed and shedding, but the peanut stems still seemed lively. Xia Qing picked up a palm-long centipede and tossed it into the plants.

The centipede landed on a peanut stem but wasn’t attacked by leaf needle traps, so the plant wasn’t a Green Lantern variant.

Xia Qing dug out the peanut with her shovel, squeezed out some juice, and tested it—yellow light.

The very first one was a yellow tag peanut. That was a happy surprise. As she plucked off the ripe peanuts and began filling her bag, a mutated sharp-nosed viper lifted its head from the peanut patch and bared its fangs at her.

The snake stood nearly as tall as Xia Qing. It was just right for testing the rest of the peanuts here.

With a quick grab, Xia Qing seized the viper by the neck and swept it through the peanut patch. Turns out, there were at least thirty or forty Green Lantern peanuts in this plot!

Pleased, she stuffed the evolved viper into her bag, dug out the Green Lantern peanuts that tried to strike, shook off the dirt, and soaked the stems in concentrated saltwater she’d made from salt found in the stone house to deactivate them—then packed them, stems and all, into a big sack.

Next, Xia Qing used the mutant viper to sweep through the second peanut patch, accurately identifying all the Green Lantern peanuts and collecting them into a bag.

Once the Green Lanterns were dealt with, Xia Qing began testing the rest, sorting the red tag and yellow tag peanuts into separate piles.

All told, Xia Qing gathered 138 Green Lantern peanuts, 246 yellow tag peanuts, and more than 400 red tag peanuts—an incredible haul.

After harvesting, Xia Qing didn’t rush to check on any other crops. Instead, she went to the giant rock where the three wolves rested, took out her stash of pure spring water, and let them drink. She sat down to rest herself.

It was already one in the afternoon and with winter’s early dusk, she’d need to head back in two hours. Alpha and Crippled Wolf needed to return to their own territory too.

This valley was over 20 meters wide and stretched more than 700 meters, but only about 300 meters of farmland west of the spring and 50 meters of living area east of it had been covered with soil. Everything past that—another 300 meters—was all rubble. So really, the planting area was less than one mu.

Xia Qing figured those two hours were just enough to test all the valley’s plants and pick out anything worth replanting.

An hour later, all she found were three types of yellow tag vegetables—green onion, garlic sprouts, ginger—and one type of Green Lantern vegetable—chives. She wasn’t disappointed.

There was a hot spring here but no pure water source, so it was only good for keeping the plants warm. Without Evolution Element-rich soil to stabilize things, most of the crops had turned into red tag plants. It was only natural.

This was just another day in the disaster years on Blue Star.

If humanity wants a safe haven, the first things they need are pure water, a way to drive off Devastation Elements, or a Yi Stone, plus protective suits and medicine to survive super-evolved fungus or venomous insects. Only then can they think about strong defenses against beasts and a livable climate.

Without the essentials, humans who aren’t highly evolved with strong resistance don’t stand a chance of surviving in the new Blue Star.

Clearly, this family wasn’t made up of resistance-type high evolvers.

Now it was nearly three in the afternoon. Time to head back. Xia Qing messaged Hu Zifeng to confirm the Territory Nine team’s position, then hoisted her man-sized backpack. Together with the wolf pack, she slipped from the secluded valley down toward the mountain, leaving the Bear Cave behind.

Three hundred meters out, Alpha—who was leading them—suddenly crouched low and bared its fangs. Crippled Wolf and Er Gou instantly took up positions at Alpha’s sides, forming an attack formation.